The+Rime+of+the+Ancient+Mariner+&+Romanticism

**//The Rime of the Ancient Mariner & Romanticism//** **IMAGINATION**  Imagination is defined as the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses. Albert Einstein claimed, “Imagination is more important than knowledge” for the power of the imagination is endless. This is why the imagination was considered of upmost importance in the Romantic era.

//The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// clearly encompasses this aspect of Romanticism. //The Ancient Marine//r deals heavily with the supernatural throughout the poem and several of the acts that take place could be put down to the imagination. For instance the Ancient Mariner detects spirits in their pure form several times throughout the poem, yet they talk only about him, not to him and then when the ghost ship carrying Death and Life-in-Death sails by, the Ancient Mariner overhears them gambling. Then there is when the Mariner lies unconscious on the deck and hears the First Voice and Second Voice discussing his fate and when angels appear over the sailors' dead bodies, they guide the ship but do not talk to the Mariner. In all these situations, it is unclear whether the spirits and supernatural acts are real or only figments of the Mariner’s imagination. The Ancient Mariner and us the audience, require physical affirmation of the spiritual and as this does not occur the spiritual world present in the poem balances between the religious and that which is purely imagined. //The Ancient Mariner // also embodies the Romantic fascination with liminal spaces. A liminal space is defined as a place on the edge of a realm or between two realms, such as reason and imagination. A liminal space often signifies a liminal state of mind, such as the edge of the imagination’s wonders. It is possible that the Mariner wonders through the realms of both reason and imagingation and if this is so, he is being both equally and ethralled and pained by his imagination. // The Ancient Mariner // raises the idea that there is often a fine line between that which is real and, that which is imagined and that often the two realms of reason and imagination can become blurred. It shows that a vivid imagination can cause both good and bad, in that while the supernatural beings instilled fear in the Mariner, they were also there to guide him and teach him a lesson. More importantly it raises the question of what is real, imagination is the act of seeing something that is not actually there. Does that mean that we cannot believe something exists, unless we see it. Do we have to have physical evidence of something, to put it past being an act of the imagination? **INDIVIDUALISM** The concept of the individual emerged during the 18th century when scientific and social changes e.g. the Industrial Revolution, reshaped the concept of the self. The individual slowly separated from the collective and began to develop as an antithesis of (i.e. in resonse to) the collective agrarian society of prior centuries; thus, giving rise to a wave of new philosophical thought that evolved into the popular movement of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment developed around the belief that scientific thought and expression should be free from religious interference and that the foundations of society should be human reason and logic. Over time, these ideals gave rise to Romanticism which introduced the contrast of nature and the self, the internal desires, feelings and beliefs, and juxtaposed Nature with science. The romantic emphasis on the individual was reflected in ideas of self-realisation and nature. Wordsworth thought that the individual could directly understand nature without the need for society and social artifice; salvation is achieved by the solitary individual rather than through political movements. This individualistic view of the self replaced the mean collectivism of European society and formed the foundation of modern perceptions of the individual
 * What ideas about "imagination" are presented through the poem?**

For more see: http://anthologyoi.com/history/american/the-power-of-the-individual.html http://www.philosopher.org.uk/index.htm http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html (or just look it up on google)


 * What ideas about "individualism" are presented through the poem?**

**IDEALISM** What ideas about "idealism" are presented through the poem?

Rime of the Ancient Mariner The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Analysis The Romantic Period