Chiastic Structure In The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

The term "chiasmus" usually refers to a rhetorical figure according to which words and ideas are placed crosswise in a sentence, making a pattern of ABB'A', with a variation of ABCB'A'. The term is commonly applied to such figures that contain four words in the sequence of ABB'A', but there can be also agreement to extend the term to such units that are found to contain more than four members, in which case this rhetorical figure may be ABCC'B'A' or ABCDC'B'A', or more members will be found. Chiasmus, in a larger sense, can also be employed in such cases as an essay, a poem and a novel, when chiasmus is usually termed chiastic structure.This paper is devoted to the exploration of chiastic structure in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, with an analysis of the wide application of this structure in many other famous poems. Based on the analysis of both the verse and Coleridge's marginal gloss, this paper proposes that, The Rime is a poem of chiastic structure. The application of chiastic structure is an unconscious product of Coleridge's high consciousness of poetic beauty, balance and harmony, as well as his liking for circular movement in poems.The application of chiastic structure contributes substantially to the arts of the poem. Chiastic structure in this poem matches the reconciliation between opposite forces, a balanced state that Coleridge takes as the achievable goal of a successful poem. It also strengthens the fusion power of imagination, making the poem a harmonious one. Furthermore, the reader, if willingly suspending his disbelief and immersing himself in the supernatural surroundings, would find that the ancient Mariner, i. e., the story-teller in the poem, employs chiastic structure to conveniently memorize the details that he has told in the story and quickly arrange the content he is going to tell. In addition, the application of chiastic structure gets the important details repeated and tells the reader where to emphasize, yet meanwhile, it evokes an effect of strangeness and novelty in familiar surroundings, namely, defamiliarization, as termed by Shklovsky.The fundamental reason for the wide application of chiastic structure, however, in such famous poems as Iliad, Beowulf, Paradise Lost, The Ring and the Book and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner can be traced to human preference for cycles. It is such a sort of preference that drives the author involuntarily to take chiastic structure and seduces the reader into acceptance and appreciation of this form.