“Supernatural, or at Least Romantic”: The Ancient Mariner and Parody

Abstract

An ancient literary practice often aligned with satire, parody “comes of age as a major comic expression during the Romantic period,” as Marilyn Gaull has observed, the same era that celebrated and became known for the literary virtues of sincerity, authenticity, and originality. The era of Romantic poetry was also the era of biting parodies in the Anti-Jacobin and the radical weeklies, and in reviews such as Blackwood’s; of the politically influential parodies of the Bible or nursery rhymes by William Hone, as well as collections of poems such as Horace and James Smith’s Rejected Addresses (1812) and James Hogg’s Poetic Mirror (1816); and of novelistic parodies such as Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey or the “Menippean” satires of Thomas Love Peacock.