An Episodic Plot and an Unhappy Ending
What Emotional Sound Patterns Reveal About the Structure of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancyent Marinere
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13655276 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Cynthia Whissell (0000-0002-5844-4929, Laurentian University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 118 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 266-276 |
| Publication date | 2016-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Psychological Reports (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0033-2941 • E-ISSN: 1558-691X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0033294115626824 |
| PMID | 29693517 |
| OpenAlex | W2344182281 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
Pleasant sounds (phonemes) within Coleridge's 1798 Rime of the Ancyent Marinere were employed to study the poem's structure in terms of the Aristotelean concepts of fortune (many pleasant emotions/phonemes) and misfortune (few) and to address questions as to how the poem doubled in length shortly before publication. The distribution of emotionally pleasant phonemes such as long e (i), l, v, and th (θ) indicated the presence of a (likely original) poem with a pleasant ending where the albatross drops from the mariner's neck. Three episodes of threat and escape were probably added to the albatross episode later, along with an unhappy ending. Significant differences in the proportion of pleasant phonemes employed in various sections support these conclusions
Cognitive psychology · Plot (graphics · Statistics · Mathematics · Poetry Analysis and Criticism · Psychology · Social Psychology · Themes in Literature Analysis
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |