To the same extent that the Ancient Mariner attracts the wedding guest with his "twinkling eye", Samuel Taylor Coleridge sought to attract his audience in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Antica Marinere (1798). The poem, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is constructed using various elements associated with the traditional ballad form of poetry. These elements, including the literary form taken by the words, the narrative style, and the topic, encourage the reader to associate the content with premodernity. However it is through the allegorical aspect of the ballad form that the ambiguity of the emphasis on both modernity and pre-modernity in relation to nature is most pronounced. A later version of the poem delves further into this, but at the same time changes the nature of this relationship. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834), the final revision of the poem, many differences from the original are evident. As an effect of modernizing the archaic diction, adding marginal glosses and omitting some passages, Coleridge largely removed the pre-modern critique of society. In turn, a moral interpretation is imposed on the reader. Evaluating the differences between the two ballads, the idea that nature is above human perception is evident. It is in this sense that Coleridge not only addresses, but dramatizes, humanity's relationship with the natural world in the nineteenth century. The Ancient Marinere (1798) is clearly written in the traditional ballad form. Adhering to some constraints typical of the ballad form, the poem places emphasis on the past. This draws on Western folklore culture and explicitly attributes its themes to pre-modernity. The literary form used by the Ancient Marinere (1798) is based loosely on short ballad stanzas and a regular rhyme scheme: The wedding guest sat on a stone, He cannot choose but listen: And so spake he to that ancient man , The brilliant- looked at Marinere. The effect of the heavily stressed syllables and pronounced rhyme scheme produces a song-like effect that 'draws the reader in' just as the wedding guest was. The diction, exemplified above in the words 'sate', 'chuse' and 'Marinere', was archaic even in the 19th century. Through this structure, the poem shares an affinity with the traditional ballad form, which was transmitted orally from "listener to listener, from culture to culture". Other characteristics of the ballad are shown in the narrative style used. In the Ancient Marinere (1798) minimal descriptive detail is given in the setting and characters. A "long gray beard and... a twinkling eye" are the only features of the sailor that are commented on, even the names of the characters, "the ancient mariner" and "the wedding guest", are vague. By describing only the immediate action within the Sailor's story, Coleridge opens the poem up to the reader's interpretation. This quality further compared the Ancient Marinere (1798) to the traditional ballad form. Using this traditional form, each speaker imprinted his or her own personal vision of the story on the ballad. The subject of nautical, supernatural and superstition associated with the ballad form was used by Coleridge as he criticized both pre-modernity and modernity in the Ballad of the Ancient Marinere (1798). Coleridge achieved this by exploiting the ambiguous nature of these themes, which he conveyed through imagery and allegory. The nautical theme is not only typical of traditional ballads and therefore encouraging a vision of an erapre-modern, but also alludes to the maritime expansion that occurred during the 19th century. This nautical theme is shown through diction which is actually a fusion of words from travel books, traditional ballads and works by Chaucer, Spenser and Chatterton. As people mobilized, they became more detached from their backgrounds. Coinciding with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, respect for nature was changing as nineteenth-century people placed value on the evolution of technology and transportation. When the ship runs aground in the ocean and the sailor recalls "Alone, alone, all alone / Alone on the wide sea" Coleridge hints at how vulnerable humanity is in relation to the natural world. This is to comment on the growing vision of man's superiority over nature. This example is one way in which the ballad defines an ambiguous morality by criticizing both premodernity and modernity. This ambiguity in the interpretation of morality is further developed through the themes of superstition and the supernatural, which are also themes consistent with the traditional ballad form. . The Ancient Mariner (1798) creates this effect through the allegory of the albatross. Through the Mariner's superstitious conceptualization of the albatross, the allegory is directed at the unreliable superstitions of pre-modernity. The relationship between the albatross and the people on the ship is also a metaphor for the relationship between all humanity and the natural world in Coleridge's time. This conflictual relationship was evident in modernity as the Industrial Revolution came into conflict with the ideology of the Romantic movement in the nineteenth century. The albatross is initially "saluted in the name of God" as it breaks through the ice surrounding the ship. He is then mistaken for "the demons that torment you like this" and killed by the sailor. He then admits that he did "a hell of a thing" as he "killed the bird / that made the breeze blow", the breeze being the savior that freed the boat from the ice. This view of nature is further complicated when the people aboard the ship proclaim “It was right…to kill such birds / That bring fog and mist” when the sun comes out. This changing attitude towards the albatross, which is quite distant from the events attributed to it, is representative of the capricious relationship humanity had with the natural world in and into the nineteenth century. It is also notable that it was the breeze that caused 'The Ice [to] split with a fit of thunder.' Coleridge implies that only nature can compete with the natural world. Although the men on the ship conceptualize the bird as granting power over events, the reader can see that there is no solitary part of nature that reigns supreme conditions are controlled by the forces of nature in a way that is beyond human conception. It is through this idea that nature's ability to be seen as something to be feared and majestic at the same time is explained Marinere (1798) uses the traditional ballad form as a vehicle to highlight the capricious relationship between humanity and the natural world in Coleridge's time and in that of pre-modernity. However, Coleridge did not stop there 1834 published five more versions. By the sixth publication, the archaic diction had been modernized, marginal glosses were added, and various other parts of the poem were changed. This final version of the poem is titled The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834). The result of these revisions is that the ambiguity in the meaning of the poem is altered. After the publication of the first Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (1798) critics commented on the deviation of the Ancyent Marinere (1798) from.