Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - Peter Kitson (essay date 1989)
Peter Kitson (essay date 1989)
SOURCE: "Coleridge, the French Revolution, and 'The Ancient Mariner': Collective Guilt and Individual Salvation," in The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 19, 1989, pp. 197-207.
[In the following analysis of Coleridge's political poetry, Kitson opines that the "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is essentially a political poem revealing the "internalization" of a "moral revolution" that is a direct consequence of the events of the French Revolution.]
S. T. Coleridge's 'The Rime of Ancient Mariner' was written against the background of the collapse of the poet's hopes for the improvement of mankind by political action, the ultimate failure of the French Revolution to distinguish itself from its oppressive Bourbon predecessors. The contribution of Coleridge's political beliefs to this poem has never been fully appreciated. Certainly 'The Ancient Mariner' has none of the political allusions which stud the...
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