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ALTERATION OF REAL AND UNREAL ELEMENTS IN “THE RIME

OF THE ANCIENT MARINER”

Abstract

In 1765, Horace Walpole published his pseudonymous work, “The Castle of Otranto”,
the first self-acclaimed Gothic novel to appear at the beginning of an age later to be termed
the age of the Gothic revival. The book had an immediate impact upon its eighteenth century
audience who eagerly devoured its imaginative and extraordinary contents. The greatest
achievement of the work, however, does not lie so much in the story itself, but in the fact that
within this short tale, Walpole assimilated many of the changing literary ideas and currents of
the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century. The revived interest in the past, especially in
medieval times, a renewed concern with human emotion, and especially a fascination with
the supernatural began to take precedence over the once prominent Augustan concepts of
order, balance, control and harmony, not only in England but on the Continent as well. The
concrete and finite concerns of the neo-classicists were gradually being supplanted by the
intensity of feeling and awe aroused by the contemplation of the extraordinary and infinite.
Walpole's novel was a herald for a new wave of authors who focused more on the individual
and his reaction to the awesome world around him. Writers were no longer content to view
the world as a concrete and rational place; nature was an uncontrolled and uncontrollable
force. It is hardly surprising; therefore, that amidst this changing world view there was a
resurgence of interest in that totally irrational area, the supernatural. Those concerned with
the study of nature in its more awesome aspect could hardly neglect that which rises above or
beyond the natural. The sublime sensations aroused by the supernatural lured many of the
nineteenth century authors to explore its mysteries. One of the many writers who were
captivated by the appeal of the supernatural, and its relationship to the irrational elements of
both man and his world was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In my paper entitled “Alteration of
Real and Unreal Elements in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”” I shall discuss
Coleridge’s concept of supernaturalism in his famous poem “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner” and see how Coleridge artistically altered the real and the unreal elements in this
poem.

Keywords: Gothic, supernatural, sublime sensations, uncontrolled, irrational, man, world,

real, unreal, supernaturalism
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It is obvious to all scholars that Coleridge was a brilliant scholar. No one will deny
that he was liberally endowed with the divine spark of genius. He was probably the best read
man of his day, and possessed one of the most phenomenal memories on record. But do these
qualities explain the unique ability of the peerless poet? Were not other men similarly gifted?
But who equalled Coleridge in pure Romanticism, and in the art of making the supernatural
natural?

The poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is characterized by the supernatural. The word
comes from the Latin super meaning ‘above’ and naturo meaning ‘nature’. The etymology of
the word, however, helps us in no way to understand the connotation of the word in literature.
Contrasted with the natural, the supernatural is apprehended as opposed to comprehended. In
fact a thing is apprehended when we can know its existence without understanding it. The
natural, we can know and understand because it is material, physical- but the supernatural is
beyond the grasp of the physical senses- it is immaterial, spiritual. The natural acts in
accordance with physical laws and departures from these laws are physically impossible, but
they are not absolutely impossible for the natural, being created, depends upon the power and
the will of its creator. The Creator of the physical universe is above nature and is spiritual and
immaterial. We know he exists; but, being beyond the grasp of our senses we can only
apprehend him and not comprehend him. Our notion of his being, then since we are so deeply
rooted in the physical can only be measured with material images, which we provided with
our imaginations and our dreams.

In Chapter XIV of his “Biographia Literaria” Coleridge writes of the plan behind his
share of the “Lyrical Ballads”:

In this idea originated the plan of the "Lyrical Ballads"; in which it was
agreed that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In one,
the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the
excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by
the dramatic truth of such emotions, supposing them real. And real in
this sense they have been to every human being who from whatever
delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency...it
was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed toward persons and
characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from
our inward nature a human interest and semblance of truth sufficient to
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procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of

disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith.

The supernatural, then, is a superior force, both spiritual and divine, that has power
over the physical universe to change the nature of created things, either in themselves or in
their modes of action, and either directly through himself or indirectly through angels or
demons or departed spirits. Coleridge is thoroughly romantic in this conception of the
supernatural. He creates a new and exotic beauty from the images stored in his imagination. It
"lives and breathes before the eyes" and yet it is fantastic, improbable, and even impossible.

One important factor in understanding the exotic and fantastic nature of the
supernatural in his poems is to realize that “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and
“Christabel” were indirectly influenced by his opium dreams and “Kubla Khan” was the
direct result of an opium dream- proof of this is found in both his “Biographia Literaria” and
“Letters” written to his wife and friends throughout his opium days. The fact that “The Rime
of the Ancient Mariner” and “Christabel” were influenced by his opium dreams does not
eliminate the possibility that they were the result of a plan, however- Coleridge himself in his
“Biographia Literaria” assures us that they were-

It was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and

characters supernatural.

In addition the account of his walk with Wordsworth and Dorothy as well as the
argument that precedes the poem provides the external evidence that “The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner” deals with the supernatural. Spectral persecutions, tutelary spirits and dead
men navigating a ship are to be the main elements. In fact the spectral persecution by the
tutelary spirits which we find to be at first daemonic and later angelic is most evident
throughout “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. The “Christabel”, Coleridge called "nothing
more than a common Fairy Tale." In fact the poem itself is exotic, deals with enchantment
and evil spirits "masking in human forms." Geraldine is weird, unreal, unworldly- she
provides the evil influence in the poem. “Kubla Khan” is a dream picture or a rather a part of
a dream picture for it was never finished- the background with its supernatural atmosphere of
"caverns, measureless to men" "sunless sea" "woman wailing for her demon lover," and
"dancing rocks," foreshadows great possibilities. Unfortunately because of the fact that it was
never finished, we can only guess, if even that, what might have resulted had not that man
from Porlock broken in upon Coleridge's translation into words of this dream picture.
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Of his three supernatural poems, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is his sole poetic
literary masterpiece. Coleridge was not a great poet, but he was nevertheless an interesting
one- his great merit lies in the utter facility with which he combined the concrete with the
abstract, the neutral with the supernatural, in his complete grip of the concrete and facile
manipulation of impossibilities. There, he provided both the elements of belief and interest
that makes the success of such poems. It is the simplicity and effect woven in the mingling of
the concrete with the abstract. That helps us in receiving these abnormal impressions as facts,
and in our accepting these lines as facts. Coleridge has verily accomplished his poetic creed.

So as not to show any abruptness in introducing his supernatural elements Coleridge

first takes his readers around familiar places and wins their faith in the narrative through
vividly portrayed minute details; then he gradually drops minor hints at the supernatural.
Finally, the entire scene is put on a supernatural look. As a result, the readers’ sensibility is so
harmonious to the mood of the narrative that they readily accept whatever they are told. In
The Ancient Mariner, there is a vivid description of the ship’s journey southward to the
equator with a good wind and fine weather. Then a storm blast drives it towards the South 59
Pole. With the introduction of mist and snow, the scene takes on a weird look. Ice, mast-high,
and as green as emerald, sends a dismal sheen and occasionally cracks and growls. In part II,
the mariner announces: We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea. Then the
atmosphere is given some more supernatural touches. The breeze drops and the sea becomes
perfectly still. The sun stands high in a hot and a cooper sky. Their ship looks as “idle as a
painted ocean”. On account of intense heat, the mariner has a weary time. Their throats are
parched and their eyes are glazed. It is such a background that the spectre ship is introduced
with its ghastly crew of death and life- in- death.

The supernatural elements used by Coleridge are completely refined and subjective.
One can find no palpability of objectivity when encountering these elements because the
pleasure resulted by this encountering is not seen by the eye; but rather felt by the mind
through agitation or terror it excites in the mind. In the Ancient Mariner, the horror of the
merchant’s face is conveyed by the terror it excites in the mind of the beholder:

I moved my lips, the pilot shrieked And fell down in a fit.

The supernatural of Coleridge is normally overwhelmed by mystery and vagueness. It

is completely not apparent, or clear. For him, vagueness is an essential element of
supernatural. His readers left guessing to solve the suspense and ambiguity of what they read
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in order to be able to get the pleasure behind the supernatural Coleridge presents or aims at.
The poet keeps his secrets and consequently increases the ambiguity and the curiosity of the
readers which never clarified. Similarly, we do not know whether the angry moan of the bitch
or the tongue of the flames were omens or mere accidents.

In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, the vagueness is employed differently. It is

used to hold the readers’ attention. They are kept seeking a clarification for this vagueness. In
order to be satisfied with the sequence of events and solve the vagueness that surround these
events, they are kept reading non-stop from the beginning to the end. In this Coleridgean
masterpiece, one’s attention is skilfully hold from the very beginning by the mysterious
personality of the ancient mariner, his faintly illuminated features, his long grey beard, and
his glittering eyes, stopping three wedding-guests detaining one of them, who together with
us are strongly hold:

He holds him with his glittering eye—

The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child :
The Mariner hath his will.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone :
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
Though the wedding-guest cursed himself for he was impatient to leave, he had no
choice but to listen. The way the ship is driven in the southern direction looking like a person
running with his head bent before an enemy chasing him closely and shouting at him, the
empty, icy ocean it arrives at, the howling sounds that were like confused noises in swoon,
and the seawater that was burnt like the oil by a witch emitting multicoloured lights. All these
supernatural elements are presented in a vague environment.

In his poems, supernaturalism and supernatural phenomena are the roots out of which
lines, stanzas, images, senses and themes are sent out. In some poems the characters, setting
and even the narrators are supernatural. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, the curse of
nature, which is supernatural, generates more supernatural phenomena. In other words, that
curse leads the ship crew to heat and thirst getting their throats to dry and their lips to parch.
They could neither laugh nor cry. They had been rendered speechless by utter drought. This
leads the mariner to slake his throat by biting his arm and sucking his blood to be able to cry
out that he could see a ship approaching them. Because of this curse, also, the sun appeared to
be streaked with lines and the board together with the crimson red sun appeared to be peeping
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through the iron bars of a prison. Then, a skeleton ship approached them with a ghostly
woman, looked like the spirit of death, and another figure seemed to be her mate. That
horrible woman was Life- in- Death. She was a nightmare personified and was capable of
curdling any man’s blood. Those two figures played at a dice which was won by that woman.
Consequently, in the light of the moon, closely followed by a star, the two hundred living
sailors dropped dead one by one so quickly that they could never utter a groan or heave a
sigh. Their souls fled from their bodies making a hissing sound like the one made when the
mariner shot the albatross with his cross-brow.

Coleridge’s supernatural, as the sensitive reader knows it well, has all the potentials of
real. He makes the supernatural seem natural by the means of occult forces which his readers
believe in. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the wedding-guest who was in a hurry
having no time to listen to a stranger, was hold by the glittering eyes of the old mariner as if
he were under a magic spell:

The wedding-guest stood still, And listens like a three years’ child.

In order to create a convincing realistic nature for his supernatural, Coleridge

humanizes it. His supernatural appears, not in a traditional blood- curding, and hair-raising
form, but assumes the ordinary human personality. The mariner, though has a magic
glittering eyes, a normal person, suffers from committing a sin i.e. killing the albatross.

Some critics such as Newton P Stallknecht and Alois Brandl have brought the poem
down to earth by interpreting it as an allegory and declaring that the poem portrays
Coleridge’s own inner discord. Such interpretations are possibilities but, yet we cannot feel
that was Coleridge’s intention. Rather he was attempting a good supernatural thriller, which
he admirably accomplished.

Yet, with all these interpretations, the story remains a queer and weird melange of
things that are both natural and supernatural. In this blending lies the secret and the power of
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and as weird and incredible as the story is it seems like
something real, even close to us. We may conclude in the words of Walter Pater:

Fancies of the strange things which may very well happen, even in broad
daylight to men shut up alone in ships far off on the sea, seem to have
arisen in human mind in all ages with a particular readiness, and often
have about them the fascination of a certain gloomy grace, which
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distinguishes them from other kinds of marvellous mentions. This sort of

fascination the Ancient Mariner brings to its highest degree; it is the
delicacy, the dreamy grace in his presentation of the marvellous, that
makes Coleridge’s work so remarkable.
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WORKS CITED

Bowra, Maurice. The Romantic Imagination. London: Oxford UP, 1950.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.

[Online]. Downloaded: 12 October 2017.

‘Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. [Online]. Downloaded: 12 October

2017.

Natarajan, Uttara. (Ed.). 2007. The Romantic Poets: A Guide to Criticism. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing.

Singh, Samuel. The supernatural and Methodological Elements in Romantic Poetry:

“Kubla Khan” and “Rimes of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Coleridge. (March 21
2007)