New Historicism refers to a mode of criticism in which the literary text is read as a product of the historical conditions under which it was produced. In the case of the “Ancient Mariner,” this means, how does the text reflect the dominant political or aesthetic thinking of Coleridge’s time?
Of course, there are many ways to answer this question. One thing that might be worth pursuing is the degree to which Coleridge’s poem reflects...
New Historicism refers to a mode of criticism in which the literary text is read as a product of the historical conditions under which it was produced. In the case of the “Ancient Mariner,” this means, how does the text reflect the dominant political or aesthetic thinking of Coleridge’s time?
Of course, there are many ways to answer this question. One thing that might be worth pursuing is the degree to which Coleridge’s poem reflects or was shaped by political attitudes towards the French Revolution. For example, it has been argued that the themes of guilt and redemption that characterize the poem emerged from Coleridge’s own complex relationship to the Revolution—at first a staunch supporter, Coleridge became disillusioned and began to question the ability of political action of any kind to effect real social change. One way of understanding the shooting of the albatross, for example, is to see it as a kind of falling away from revolutionary change; the Mariner’s loneliness and guilt expresses Coleridge’s conflicted feelings about the revolution and England’s role in opposing it.
This is not to argue that Coleridge’s poem is in any way an allegory of the Revolution; instead, it makes sense to attribute, in some measure, Coleridge’s extraordinary ability to evoke sin and guilt to his own doubts about the possibility of social change.
Source: Kitson, Peter. “Coleridge, the French Revolution, and 'the Ancient Mariner': Collective Guilt and Individual Salvation”. The Yearbook of English Studies 19 (1989): 197–207.
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