Student Question
How do meter and point of view contribute to the meaning in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"?
Quick answer:
The meter in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" employs ballad meter with alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter, rhymed ABAB, situating it within the tradition of narrative folk ballads, often involving the supernatural. The point of view shifts between third person and the mariner's first-person narration, allowing readers to experience the mariner's transformation and the impact of his tale, enhancing the poem's depth and emotional resonance.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is written in
ballad meter. It uses a metrical scheme of alternating lines of iambic
tetrameter and iambic trimeter, rhymed ABAB. Because this was the metrical
scheme used for traditional ballads, this places the work in a generic
tradition of a narrative with folk elements, including use of the
supernatural.
The point of view of the poem as a whole is third person, giving the reader an
external view of the mariner, but much of the poem is actually reported speech,
i.e. what the mariner says to the wedding guest, allowing the voice and
character of the mariner to be expressed from the mariner's own point of view.
This brings out the impact of the experience and how it transformed the nature
of the mariner.
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