Pag. 184

Exercise 1

a) Setting/s: the hall of a wedding-feast; the harbour; the sea around the North Pole; the Atlantic Ocean near the Line, the Pacific Ocean 

    Events/ what happens: during a wedding-feast an ancient mariner stops a man and constrained him to hear some stories about his adventures; the mariner's ship left from the harbour and after some days a terrible storm came; the mariners were in the mercy of the power of natural elements; they couldn't see any living-being but an Albatross which followed them for nine days. At the end the ancient mariner shot the Albatross with his crossbow.

    Characters: an ancient mariner, a gallant, some mariners, an Albatross;

b) I can identify two storylines. The first one is about the wedding-feast and the conversation between the mariner and the gallant, the second one is the narration of the ancient mariner's adventures.

Exercise 2

• 1) The Mariner's traits are a long grey beard, a glittering or bright eye and skinny hands.
• 2) The old man strikes me as a real, true-to-life figure, his stories are rich in details and in descriptions presented as real.

Exercise 3

1) In the early days of journey the sun was shining brightly coming up upon the left and going down on the right into the sea.

Suddenly a strong storm raised and drove the ship towards the South. The weather was really bad: fog, snow, ice and mist were everywhere. It was incredibly cold. They couldn't see any human being or animal. The scape was deserted. During the night the white moonlight shone through the fog and the snow.

2) The Storm is personified because it is described as tyrannous and strong, and also because of the use of pronoun "he" and of its acts which are described with verbs referring to human actions (chased).

In addiction the ice is personified too, because of the verbs "cracked, growled, roared and howled".

3) I would say that nature is presented in both a realistic and symbolic way. Coleridge uses a detailed description of the landscape and of the situations going on so the reader is led to believe the story is real; but the writer uses also the natural element to convey a higher meaning or a symbol. For example, the Sun could be the symbol of the divine light.

Exercise 4

• 1) The elements which are outside the natural order of things are: the gallant's inability to stop hearing to the mariner's stories; the dismal sheen sent by the snowy cliffs; the noises made by the ice; the fog and the white moonlight.
• 2) In my view the contrast between reality and supernatural is most striking where Coleridge switches from the situation which is going on in the hall of the wedding-feast to the events told by the mariner.