Rime of the Ancient Mariner

[Trollheart]

Question: could this epic classic poem be considered fantasy/horror? There are certainly surreal elements in the poem, though many can be explained - Sargasso Sea, Doldrums, hallucinations etc - but we do have a very literal figure of Death (and his missus!) in it too, to say nothing of how the ship apparently for no reason suddenly makes its own way home, crewed by, um, corpses.

At its heart, of course, it's a parable about treating all creatures equally and, most importantly, not pissing God off by killing his birds. But is it acceptable, then, to consider it a piece of fantasy and/or horror literature?

Comments welcome.

 

[Hobbit]

But is it acceptable, then, to consider it a piece of fantasy and/or horror literature?

Yup. Living corpses... Death.... if Pratchett can do it, I don't see why Coleridge can't.

Whilst on your prog travels, TH, I quite like David Bedford's musical version of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, with a certain (and rather young) Mike Oldfield on guitar... it is very proggy, and of the 70's (1975?)...

 

[Trollheart]

Yes, I was rather peeved to see that the Wiki entry completely ignores Hostsonaten's entire album dedicated to the poem, which takes the text word-for-word as its lyrics!

 

[Raf]

Iron Maiden had a musical version too......

 

[Randy M.]

Question: could this epic classic poem be considered fantasy/horror? There are certainly surreal elements in the poem, though many can be explained - Sargasso Sea, Doldrums, hallucinations etc - but we do have a very literal figure of Death (and his missus!) in it too, to say nothing of how the ship apparently for no reason suddenly makes its own way home, crewed by, um, corpses.

At its heart, of course, it's a parable about treating all creatures equally and, most importantly, not pissing God off by killing his birds. But is it acceptable, then, to consider it a piece of fantasy and/or horror literature?

Comments welcome.

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (published 1798) is certainly Gothic, Coleridge writing counter-point to Wordsworth's romanticism. And since pretty much all our favorite genres stem from Gothic, I think considering it fantasy/horror -- or proto-fantasy/horror since those genres didn't really exist at the time -- is reasonable. Further, while I haven't studied this, I think it likely his poetry influenced Poe's writing.

See also "Kubla Khan," which reads like it could have sparked Lord Dunsany's imagination; and the unfinished "Cristobel" which is often considered an early entry in the legions of vampire stories.

 

[Trollheart]

Yes indeed. I listed Cristobel as early vampiric literature in my Vampires thread. It doesn't seem to specifically call her one, but the idea is there. Also allusions to lesbianism. Who said the Victorians were strait-laced?

 

[Trollheart]

Iron Maiden had a musical version too......

Maiden's version is probably the most famous. I can't remember which came first, the chicken or the egg: I know Powerslave is 1984, and I can't recall whether or not I got into Coleridge before that, but I know I left school in 1980 at 17 and pretty much do not remember studying or even knowing about him then, so I feel Bruce and the lads may have turned me onto STC. For which I'll always be grateful.

 

[Randy M.]

Yes indeed. I listed Cristobel as early vampiric literature in my Vampires thread. It doesn't seem to specifically call her one, but the idea is there. Also allusions to lesbianism. Who said the Victorians were strait-laced?

See also, "Carmilla" by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Yes indeed. I listed Cristobel as early vampiric literature in my Vampires thread. It doesn't seem to specifically call her one, but the idea is there. Also allusions to lesbianism. Who said the Victorians were strait-laced?

My notes on Vampires at the end of "Goths and Rooks" which is set probably in 2018.

Dracula and the Droch-fhuil
Bram Stoker was from Dublin, but he didn’t know Irish nor do his notes mention the old Irish Vampire like stories of the droch-fhuil and leannán sí. His notes show that the name Dracula was based on an East European word meaning devil. The similarity of the Irish name for Vampire like creatures and aspects of the Irish legends to Bram Stoker’s story are coincidental. Transylvania is real, though had no significant vampire legends before Stoker wrote the book. I’ve even met someone from there. It’s in Romania and not far from Hungary; the historic Transylvania extended to the current Romanian-Hungarian border. In medieval times the Hungarians called the area Erdő-elve and the Germans called it überwald, hence the name used for the Vampire and Werewolf nation in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.

According to the Scottish folklorist Donald Alexander Mackenzie, the baobhan sìde – or sith, which is sidhe in Irish – usually appears as a beautiful young woman wearing a long green dress that conceals the deer hooves she has instead of feet. Like other vampires she drinks the blood of human victims and will vanish with the rising sun. She may also take the form of a hooded crow or raven, otherwise the baobhan sìde seem similar to the Irish leannán sí – sí is a variant spelling of sidhe also pronounced shee today. The Lamia is a vampire like creature with bird’s feet. The Sidhe are called Elves in the North of England and Scottish Borders, see the tale of Thomas the Rhymer.

The droch-fhuil (and maybe the leannán sí and baobhan sith) and lamia legends predate Vampyre by John Polidori (1819), Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872 the first female vampire), Lilith by George MacDonald (1895, arguably the second Gothic female vampire), Dracula’s Guest by Bram Stoker (1897, a lost chapter cut from Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel), and Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897). Urban Gothic Vampire stories from the 1990s onwards are quite different.

And of course Victorians were a mix, like people today. There was more Religious hypocrisy in the 17th to early 20th Century. Really WWI, rather than Queen Victoria's death, ended the Era.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

See also, "Carmilla" by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu.

Though I'd not automatically claim Carmilla and her victim are an example of a Victorian allusion to Lesbianism.
People do have close same-sex relationships without it being sexual, or more than emotional and intellectual.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Actually I've been reading some Tennyson. Him and Poe can be quite gloomy. Someone called Tennyson a master of melancholy.
Sadly the surviving recording of Tennyson (1890 and he died in 1892) is of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" rather than "The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls" from "The Princess". I also quite like Poe's "The Raven", but I'm not sure what to make of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land".

I was told the story of Colridge being interupted by a visitor when composing Kublai Khan when I was at school. I no longer believe it in entirety. Also the evidence is that drugs or alcohol are self indulgent and not the path to writing good poems, stories, lyrics or music.

Yes, I'd regard The Rime as fantasy touched with Gothic Horror. Perhaps I enjoy more fantastical verse better than "literary poetry". It's older. Beowulf and most really old Celtic myth was in verse. Easier for the Bards to learn.

 

[Randy M.]

Though I'd not automatically claim Carmilla and her victim are an example of a Victorian allusion to Lesbianism.
People do have close same-sex relationships without it being sexual, or more than emotional and intellectual.

I'm rereading it now, coincidentally, and there is in Carmilla's response to her intended victim, a young woman, a kind of predatory carnality -- not quite willing to say, sexuality, but her lust for her victim is shown in her kisses (which I suppose could be read as samplings or tastings) and embraces. There is implied, I think, that to a lesser degree the victim reciprocates, though mostly because she comes deeper and deeper under Carmilla's influence.

 

[Trollheart]

I tried to learn it off by heart last year. I had it - with a few slips - up to Part V, but never got beyond that, and now I know a lot of it but there is some I've forgotten. Once you know the story it's not too hard to learn it, it's remembering what goes where that's the hard bit.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

There is implied, I think, that to a lesser degree the victim reciprocates, though mostly because she comes deeper and deeper under Carmilla's influence.

The technical term is Glamour. Originally fairy magic to control a victim. Charm and Enchant also were words that once had purely magical connotations.
The Shamrock is nothing to to do with St. Patrick. He didn't need to explain the Trinity to 5th C. Celts. People that still used the neolithic pre-Celtic triple spiral and thought of three as special. Triple Aspect Goddesses.

So why the Shamrock? A paste made from it on the eyelids or on a stone with a hole would expose the Glamour of the droch-fhuil, leannán sí, púca, Sidhe or other fairy creature and ensure freedom.
St Patrick was popular by the 17th C because his feast is in Lent. A feast beats a fast. By the end of the 17th C the historical Patrick was obscured by mixed in half remembered folk traditions. Leprechauns are a mix of imported Germanic Goblin stories and degraded stories of the Sidhe (fairies). They are entirely absent from older Irish and other Celtic stories.

I guess the modern concept of Gothic stories dates from the 18th C. You can read all the ones Jane Austin mentions in "Northanger Abbey". I suspect that despite mocking them in that novel, Austin was a bit of a fan. Many are still quite fun to read.
Mary Shelly was adding newly discovered Electrical power and already discredited Galvanism to the Gothic tropes for her Modern Prometheus. Volta published his battery designs and experiments in 1800 to discredit Galvanism. The twitching frog wasn't due to activation of a life force. Still, no doubt gave Mary the idea for a plot point.

 

[Trollheart]

Very interesting stuff about Our Paddy. I always assumed that story was true. I suppose he didn't do this either?

 

[Randy M.]

The technical term is Glamour. Originally fairy magic to control a victim. Charm and Enchant also were words that once had purely magical connotations.

Yeah. That.

Or mesmerism, which is likely something LeFanu was aware of, and is something later associated with the films of Dracula (hypnotism) since I don't think "Glamour" was a common concept by then (not to mention, probably hard to encode in film).

[...]
I guess the modern concept of Gothic stories dates from the 18th C. You can read all the ones Jane Austin mentions in "Northanger Abbey". I suspect that despite mocking them in that novel, Austin was a bit of a fan. Many are still quite fun to read.
Mary Shelly was adding newly discovered Electrical power and already discredited Galvanism to the Gothic tropes for her Modern Prometheus. Volta published his battery designs and experiments in 1800 to discredit Galvanism. The twitching frog wasn't due to activation of a life force. Still, no doubt gave Mary the idea for a plot point.

The Castle of Otranto was published in 1764 so, yes. 18th century. Coleridge's poem was published in 1798 by which time the idea of "Gothic" in literature was probably well-established. Shelley's first novel came along about 20 years later. And I expect you're right about Austin. Just because you see the silliness, doesn't mean you don't enjoy it. And maybe more so because you see it.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Very interesting stuff about Our Paddy. I always assumed that story was true. I suppose he didn't do this either?

I'm afraid that's more mythical than the Bronze Age Tuath Dé warriors*. There were no snakes.

The Castle of Otranto was published in 1764

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Free eBook digitized and proofread by volunteers.

www.gutenberg.org

Indeed Mesmerism or Hypnotism in the 19th are assumed to be a scientific and thus can be taught or learned. But the Vampiric kind is obviously akin to the older idea of Glamour.
The hypnotic ability, long life or near immortality, shape changing and difficult to kill are all in earlier times characteristics of the Fay. Not the twee Victorian little fairies with wings and flowers, but the Fair Folk, the Lords and Ladies, the Sidhe, the big wood Elves, People of the Woods. The Celtic conception of the fairy that Tolkien uses for his Elves.
Terry Prachett says it well in his discworld description of them.
The innovative idea of the Gothic authors was to have the Vampires be undead and corrupt humans, rather than creatures that were nearly immortal and could simply seem human.

(* For some reason you can guess the monks added in Danu to the name of the Tuath Dé (Tribe of God). Just as Sionna is the goddess of the Shannon and Boand of the Boyne, Danu was the goddess of Danube for European Celts. Never any Irish connection)

 

[Trollheart]

Yeah, as regards snakes I assume it's a metaphor for driving the pagan gods out of Ireland by way of Christianising them. Good cartoon though! Thought one of them looked a lot like Charlie Haughey!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Yeah, as regards snakes I assume it's a metaphor for driving the pagan gods out of Ireland by way of Christianising them.

I think so, but maybe that idea was 1000 years later!

Good cartoon though!

Yes.Curiously one snake has Eddie Murphy's voice.

Thought one of them looked a lot like Charlie Haughey!

We never did discover where his money came from? Like how did he afford an island?