Narrative as Rhetoric: Judgments, Progression, and Narrativity in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Keywords:
English poetry, Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, rhetorical narratology, narrative structure, narrativity, judgementsAbstract
This paper attempts to investigate the narrativity of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with reference to two layers of dynamics conceptualized by James Phelan: textual dynamics and readerly dynamics. In particular, the textual dynamics derives from the unstable relations between the Mariner and his situations, which in turn evoke multileveled responses from such narrative agents as the Mariner, and the Wedding-Guest, and audiences, namely, interpretive judgments, ethical judgments, and aesthetic judgments. Coupled with the interaction between narrative judgments, the textual dynamics not only consists of the progressive force of the poem but also increases its narrativity and makes it more narrative-like.References
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