The Use of Sensory Imagery in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge

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In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge writes of a sailor bringing a tale to life as he speaks to a wedding guest. An ancient Mariner tells of his brutal journey through the Pacific Ocean to the South Pole. Coleridge suffers from loneliness, because of his lifelong need for love and livelihood; similarly, during the Mariner’s tale, his loneliness shows when he becomes alone at sea, because of the loss of his crew. Having a disastrous dependence to opium and laudanum, Coleridge, in partnership with Wordsworth, writes this complicated, difficult to understand, yet appealing poem, which becomes the first poem in the 1798 edition of Lyrical Ballads. The Mariner’s frame of mind flip-flops throughout the literary ballad, a songlike poem that tells a story, which could be a result of Coleridge’s horrible addiction. Using the senses of seeing, feeling, and hearing as the Mariner tells his tale to a wedding guest in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge demonstrates the use of many sensory details as the ancient Mariner speaks to a wedding guest.
Coleridge shows the sense ...

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