12.The supernatural in Coleridge's (“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”) and Wordsworth's ballads.
Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote poems together and some similar beliefs, but they also had some difference in their writing. Coleridge dealt more with persons and characters supernaturally and romantically, were as Wordsworth excites feelings analogous to the supernatural. The poems that Coleridge wrote also were more real and dealt with things that can happen, even though he does use some supernatural. Wordsworth on the other hand dealt more with just the beauty of nature, death, seasons, Mother Nature, and religion. Coleridge focuses on lively events that include lively people, where Wordsworth deals with the lively nature of nature and with things that are going on around him. Wordsworth wanted people to turn from their inward material selves and get back into nature. Coleridge though did not have this problem with people being material, so he wrote to dive into the shadows of people's minds.
Coleridge wrote his greatest poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' in his fashion of truth with a little supernatural. The supernatural that he uses though are common superstitions that all people of his time held to. One of these would be the fact that hunting the albatross brought the mariner horrible luck and ruined his voyage. In the beginning the sailors believed that this albatross brought them the south wind and were angry when the mariner shot the albatross down with his cross bow. Even though things began to get better the crew begins to thirst and blames the mariner yet again. So the crew makes the mariner wear the albatross around his neck as a reminder of the burden he needs to suffer for killing this bird.
Things begin to get really supernatural now because the crew encounters a ghostly vessel (okręt) with Death and Night-mare Life-in-Death aboard. These two guests were playing dice (grać w kości) for the souls of the crew and death wins the crew. As for the mariner he is won by Life-in-death wins the life of the mariner and she considers this more valuable. This is a fate far worse than death and it is a punishment for killing the albatross. The mariner watches for seven days and nights the curse of his dead crew's corpses.
The supernatural problems do not end there for the mariner because sea creatures begin swimming in the water. For the ancient mariner he believes that his curse is lifted when he spots these creatures and he prays. As he begins to pray the albatross falls from his neck and the guilt is partially gone. Next the bodies of the crew are possessed by good spirits that rise them up and they steer home the ship. The problems are not over though because the ship sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the mariner behind. He is pulled from the water by a hermit and a pilot, but they mistake him for being dead until he begins to row. The pilots' son begins to laugh saying that the devil knows how to row. As for the mariner the trouble is not over because he must retell his story over and over again, because his agony returns and his heart burns until he tells it again.
Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge
The Romantics elevated the imagination to the position of the supreme faculty of the mind, an idea that sharply contrasted with the traditional arguments for the supremacy of reason. They tended to define the imagination as the ultimate `shaping power' or creative force present in the human mind, the equivalent human power to the creative powers of nature. On a broader scale, it is also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality, for (as Wordsworth suggested), we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it. Uniting both reason and feeling (Coleridge described it with the paradoxical phrase, "intellectual intuition"), imagination is extolled as the ultimate synthesizing faculty, enabling humans to reconcile differences and opposites in the world of appearance. The reconciliation of opposites is a central ideal for the Romantics. In the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth and Coleridge agreed to divide their labours according to two subject areas, the natural and the supernatural: Wordsworth would try to exhibit the novelty in what was all too familiar, while Coleridge would try to show in the supernatural what was psychologically real, both aiming to dislodge vision from the "lethargy of custom."
The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere is perhaps the most notable example of Coleridge's use of the supernatural. In the poem we encounter ghosts, the reanimated dead, angels as well as the embodiments of Death and of Life in Death. From the start of the poem we have an impression of supernaturalism with a hidden power present in the Mariner's “glittering eye”, forcing the wedding guest to listen to him - “he cannot chuse but hear”. Coleridge mentions the Mariner's eyes three times in the first six stanzas, and obviously the reader is supposed to pay attention to them and recognise that they hold some unnatural power, setting the tone for the rest of the poem. The setting of the poem is appropriate, since sailors are traditionally very superstitious and believe in a supernatural power of the sea, and this is reflected with the lines “the Spirit that plagued us so:/Nine fathom deep he had follow'd us”, suggesting something powerful and invisible, clearly the embodiment of Nature. The poem is filled with inexplicable things and this perhaps ties in with the argument that it is a Christian allegory, with Coleridge suggesting that the salvation of man is an awesome and terrible thing, and that the use of supernaturalism is the only way one can imagine it. On a number of occasions, Coleridge makes use of Militon-esque epic similes - notably lines 451-6 (“Like one that on a lonely road/Doth walk in fear and dread…Because he knows a frightful fiend/Doth close behind him tread”) and this technique evokes images of a fall from grace as seen in Milton's Paradise Lost. Also, this use of simile allows the reader to imagine the situation firsthand, and this too is important as the supernaturalism inherent in the poem distances the reader from the action, so the similes serve to bring him or her back into it, which is essential if the Christian subtext is to be taken in.
In Coleridge's The Nightingale we see further reference to Milton, specifically his poem Il Penseroso with the quoted line “most musical, most melancholy”. Coleridge tries to reject this claim that the nightingale is `melancholy', claiming in fact that the bird's song can make day night: “such a harmony,/That should you close your eyes, you might almost/Forget it was not day!” Here, Coleridge is trying to claim that the imagination is both subordinate and prior to nature. On the one hand, we are presented with a clamour of real nightingales, which almost induce reverie; on the other, the imagination, `closing ones eyes', can (`almost') transform day into night. The poem appears to be saying that the nightingale is merry, and that humanity is simply governed by the pathetic fallacy. We see Coleridge discuss his own child's love of nature, and his intention to “make him Nature's playmate”. Coleridge's reference to children ties into his feelings about the imagination, as childhood represents the most pure and unadulterated form of imaginative power.
As the Mariner is punished supernaturally for his crime against Nature, in Goody Blake and Harry Gill we see an individual punished for his cruelty towards another human being. The message of Goody Blake is clear: it is man's responsibility to support his fellow man, and that the perceived ownership of nature is absurd. In the poem we see a poor elderly woman, Goody Blake, attacked for collecting sticks for her fire, and in turn cursing her attacker, Harry Gill - “O may he never more be warm”. Upon hearing these words, Harry Gill becomes, and stays for the rest of his days, cold. The reason for the effectiveness of the curse could be due to God answering Goody Blake's call, but as Wordsworth was a pantheist and for God to act in such a way would suggest a malevolent God, this reasoning seems unsatisfactory. Another explanation would be the guilt felt by Harry Gill, combined with his own superstitions in regards to fear to punishment from God and the power of the human imagination manifests itself in physical symptoms, and that Harry Gill's coldness is a psychosomatic reaction. In the Advertisement, Wordsworth makes a point of assuring the reader that Goody Blake is a true story - “founded on a well authenticated fact”, implying that we do not need to imagine this instance of the supernatural since we can take his word for it being true.
Overall, the imagination and the supernatural play important roles in the Lyrical Ballads as they often represent a possibility for religious or Natural punishment. The supernatural is a theme common to the ballad form, as it draws the reader in and creates an air of excitement and unknown, and Wordsworth and Coleridge have simply taken on this tradition and adapted it to provide a far more serious message. We see the supernatural as an embodiment of punishment, of natural justice and of God. The imagination too, allows us to fully understand and envisage the extent of the powers of nature.