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Dubliners by J.Joyce (riferimento a 'Eveline' e 'The dead')

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“Dubliners” is a collection of fifteen short stories written by James Joyce in which the author analyses the failure of self-realisation of inhabitants of Dublin in biographical and in psychological ways. The novel was originally turned down by publishers because they considered it immoral for its portrait of the Irish city. Joyce treats in “Dubliners” the paralysis of will in four stages: childhood, youth, maturity and public life. The paralysis of will is the courage and self-knowledge that leads ordinary men and women to accept the limitations imposed by the social context they live in. In “Dubliners” the style is both realistic - to the degree of perfectly recreating characters and idioms of contemporary Dublin - and symbolic – giving the common object unforeseen depth and a new meaning in order to show a new view of reality. Joyce defines this effect “epiphany” which indicates that moment when a simple fact suddenly explodes with meaning and makes a person realise his / her condi
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Literature and music: "The Rime of the Ancient mariner" written by S.T. Coleridge and sounded by Iron Maiden

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Introduction

Poetry and music have always been connected to each other, especially between Romantic poetry and Rock 'n' roll music.
Inspired by values of French Revolution, Romantic poets wanted to change the world and poetic canons with their works.
They are defined cursed poets because of their ideas and subversive lifestyle, from drugs taking to the cult of Satan as the perfect rebel.
During 19th-century, poetry became the primary vehicle to express a personal response, within oneself, to the great contemporary events.
The concept of poetry is exemplified in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads written by William Wordsworth and Samuel T. Coleridge, which contains the most important works of these two poets (respectively Preface, considered Manifesto of Romantic poetry, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner).
The relationship between Rock 'n' roll and Romantic imagination does not only concern lyrical and poetical features, but even aesthetic and cultural aspects.
Main Romantic poets like Coleridge and P.B. Shelley had a derelied and maverick lifestyle called bohemian life, expressed in poetry the French Revolution spirit of freedom, embodied the figure of the outcast.

Such features characterizes Rock' n' roll singers from the last 1950s to 1980s.
During a politically, economically and socially unstable period - Cold war, the birth of communism , Economic boom- young people wanted to become protagonists of historical events, in order to express their opinion.
They were considered the new rebels due to their acts of provocations and anticonformistic lifestyle.
These events caused the birth of Rock 'n' roll.
Drug addiction, the accusation of Satanism and rebellion expressed in gestures and songs are only some of the common elements between Romantic poets and rockers.
For these reasons, we can consider S.T. Coleridge as one of the first "rockers" of his time.

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Rime of Ancient Mariner": similarities and differences

The British heavy metal band Iron Maiden pays homage to this poet writing Rime of Ancient Mariner, a song contained in the album Powerslave.
This song perfectly testifies to the close connection between poetry and music.


Iron Maiden musically recreates the dark and supernatural atmosphere of Coleridge's ballad The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and summarizes its 625 lines in thirteen minutes song, becoming a successful hit.
The heavy metal band runs through the whole story of the Mariner, his sinful killing of albatross, the ghost ship, his penance and redemption using the alternation of unrhymed quatrains and couplets.
Most lines of the song are an adaptation of the 1817-edition of ballad and restate in modern diction what Coleridge had written almost two hundred years ago.
In some of them, Iron Maiden may seem to give an interpretation of Coleridge's ballad; for example, they call the Mariner Life-in-Death's with the term "closen one" as to show the central role of this character, although he has been chosen only to suffer a terrible curse.
At the end of the song, the British band includes what, as stated before, may be considered as the explication of the supposed moral message of Coleridge's ballad: "That we must love all things that God made. And the thirst goes on and on for them and me."
The Mariner has killed the albatross and the curse comes true.
The higher note at the end of the couplet - me - implies the first-person desperation that will haunt the old sailor in his life and the listener is being involved in a terrifying state.

Iron Maiden write this song in third-person prospective except some couplets such as : "And the curse goes on and on at sea, and the thirst goes on and on for them and me".
The son maybe divided into two sections, identified even by changes in rhytm and tempo: the first one deals with the content of Part one, two and three of Coleridge's poem, while the second moves on from the agony suffered by the Mariner to the end of the ballad.
In the slow middle section of the song, between the two parts of it, lines are slowly uttered by a dark voice, while a long and haunting interlude is being played, as a symbol of the beginning of the Mariner's tragedy and its loneliness.
The hammering rhytm conveys the turbulent voyage of the Mariner's ship, while the drums sound mimies the original rhyme scheme of the ballad.
The storm, the ice, the fire, the images of death, the fear and the mysterious air surrounding the plot are musically transmitted to the listener, who feels the same experience as the Mariner as if he were on the deck of ship.

The current message of Coleridge's ballad

Iron Maiden's song is an adventure in the world of rock, poetry and mystery, which leaves the listener amazed.
The fact that, in Iron Maiden's track, most lines are in the present tense, while in Coleridge's poems the events are narrated in the past tense, may be considered as an actualisation of the story.
So, the song is still alive in the present and will live forever.
In fact, the last line of the song says: "The tale goes on and on and on".
The band stresses how themes treated by Coleridge in his ballad are current in our times: respect and love for nature.
Nowadays, Coleridge would have been proud a sort of musical rendition of his poem, which, thanks to Iron Maiden's song, has became well-known all over the world.
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