Coleridge vs. Robinson

Coleridge vs. Robinson

Both poems make a point to stress loneliness. Robinson’s poem seems to be addressing the reader more in a universal way, which is in keeping with the typical female writer of the time. The characters in Robinson’s poem do not have any names, thus enhancing this universality of the piece. The first line of the poem inserts the reader into the scene without any address or notice, “Upon a lonely beach,” and a theme that exists for both writers becomes apparent—that of loneliness.(see poem) Robinson does not harp on it as Coleridge does. For him, it seems to be a personal fear that haunts him, as do many other things throughout the poem. (see poem) For Robinson, though, the “lonely desert beach” is the setting and not explicitly given to the reader as a personal fear, however an interpretation as such is not out of the question. She just does not get as personal with the reader in her language. One could imagine implanting themselves into the role of the wedding guest, and engaging in discourse with the mariner. Isolation exists in both these poems through loneliness. For Coleridge it is the earlier mentioned “fear at my heart,” and for Robinson it could be due to her failing health at the time she wrote this poem. Nonetheless, both seem to grapple with the consequences of isolation on one’s identity.

Robinson’s poem is more to the point. There are no messengers involved in the portrayal of her story. It only takes her four stanzas to set up the scene for what she is viewing, and five to tell it. Coleridge is much more long winded, but not in a bad way. He sets up the scene of the story telling, to set up the scene of the murder, to set up the scene of the outcome.

Coleridge includes more gendered te...

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...f the Albatross. The shaky sense of unreality and reality that jperez mentions seems similar to the place the equator holds in Coleridge’s piece. The ship and crew must cross the “line” to have this experience, which leaves them disoriented and dead at the end, and the wedding guest must cross a line of reality in order to believe the mariner’s tale. The end of Robinson’s poem seems more morbid. The fisherman is “destined mis’ry to sustain, he wastes, in solitude and pain, a loathsome life away” without passing his story on to others (see poem). The difference in punishment could be due to the difference in crime. Although there was an act of murder committed in both crimes, one was of a bird, though held up to saint status is still a bird’ while the other is a human life taken out of greed. Could Robinson be attempting to put in a bit of the didactic in her piece?