Name: Noor Hassan

Registration Number: FA22-BEN-007

Subject: Intro To Poetry And Drama
Submitted To: MR.Yousaf
Date: 27/10/2022
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Question No 1: Coleridge’s Treatment of

Supernatural.
In his writings, Coleridge brilliantly blends "nature and
supernatural," which is seen to be quite astounding. Coleridge
views it as a luxury to interpret nature since he sees it as
something that surrounds man. Although it was written in the
romantic genre, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is
considered a masterpiece of supernatural poetry because it
contains elements of the supernatural and displays the poet's
excellent imagination.
Coleridge was a poet of the supernatural who scrupulously
avoided using vulgar language in his works. In order to ensure
that the authenticity of the human experience is never
compromised, he offers the supernatural the firm foundation of
the dramatic truth of human emotions.

Treatment of Supernatural Elements in The Rime

of The Ancient Mariner by ST Coleridge:
 The story of the ancient Mariner is an unbelievable one. Up to
the killing of the albatross, everything around the Mariner’s ship
is natural, but after the killing unbelievable and supernatural
things began to happen. First of all, Coleridge aroused the sense
of supernatural mystery by transporting us to distant times and
remote places. After the killing of the albatross, the mariner’s
ship entered into a silent sea where the ship remained unmoving
as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. Subsequently he
finds himself:
 
“Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!”

Coleridge poetry marks an epoch in the poetry of supernatural.

The appearance of the spectre ship is a super natural element.
The  spectre ship comes with two supernatural figures on its
deck. One is “Death” and the other is “Life-in-Death”. Here the
poet describes a mood of uncanny fear in the minds of the
readers by describing the physical appearance of the “Life-in-
Death” in the following manner:
 
“Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her looks were yellow as gold;
Her skin was as white as leprosy
The night-mare Life-in-Death was she
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.”
 
The manner of the death of two hundred sailors is also
supernatural. However, the most supernatural event in the whole
poem is the coming back to life of the dead sailors. We are
terrified here when we read the following lines:
 
“The dead men gave a groan
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake nor moved their eyes
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools
We were as ghasty crew.”
 
The manner of falling of the dead albatross from the Mariner’s
neck and the talking of the two voices in the air are equally
supernatural events. Coleridge’s treatment of supernatural is a
symbol of the mystery of life. It is a symbol of love which binds
man, bird and beast and which is the life of all creation.
 
Thus Coleridge presented supernatural elements in The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner in such a way that they appeared to be real.
The air of reality is imparted by the poet by skillfully blending
natural and supernatural phenomena. In one stroke Coleridge
presents a skeleton ship, the spectre sea, the woman and her
death mate, the coming back to life of the ship’s crew and the
polar spirits talking to one another. But these supernatural
incidents have not been left without their association with
reality.