What new idea is gained by this title but one subversive of
all credit--which the tale should force upon us--of its truth!
For me, I was never so affected with any human tale. After first reading
it, I was totally possessed with it for many days. I dislike all the
miraculous part of it; but the feelings of the man under the operation
of such scenery, dragged me along like Tom Pipe's magic whistle. I
totally differ from your idea that the "Marinere" should have had a
character and a profession. This is a beauty in "Gulliver's Travels,"
where the mind is kept in a placid state of little wonderments; but the
"Ancient Marinere" undergoes such trials as overwhelm and bury all
individuality or memory of what he was,--like the state of a man in a
bad dream, one terrible peculiarity of which is, that all consciousness
of personality is gone. Your other observation is, I think as well, a
little unfounded: the "Marinere," from being conversant in supernatural
events, _has_ acquired a supernatural and strange cast of _phrase_, eye,
appearance, etc., which frighten the "wedding guest." You will excuse my
remarks, because I am hurt and vexed that you should think it necessary,
with a prose apology, to open the eyes of dead men that cannot see.
To sum up a general opinion of the second volume, I do not feel any one
poem in it so forcibly as the "Ancient Marinere" and "The Mad Mother,"
and the "Lines at Tintern Abbey" in the first.
Pages:
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156