The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor

Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Analysis
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was first published in William Wordsworth and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads in 1798. This book of poems—especially in its second
edition, which includes Wordsworth’s long explanatory preface—is often regarded as a
manifesto for the English Romantic movement. Wordsworth expressed some reservations
about whether “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was really true to the spirit of
Romanticism. In 1799, he wrote,

From what I can gather it seems that the Ancient Mariner has upon the whole been an injury
to the volume, I mean that the old words and the strangeness of it have deterred readers from
going on. If the volume should come to a second Edition I would put in its place some little
things which would be more likely to suit the common taste.

However, the poem was included in later editions, despite these uncertainties. Wordsworth’s
reservations are understandable. Although the poem is written in ballad form, it is very
different from the other ballads in the book, which are much shorter, more direct, and focused
on “the heroism of everyday life” rather than the esoteric and the numinous, or tales of
adventure on the high seas. It was also to become apparent in later years, particularly with the
publication of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria in 1817, that the two poets did not see eye to
eye on the objectives of Romanticism.

There have been numerous suggestions about Coleridge’s sources of information for the
poem, including the voyages of Captain James Cook in the 1770s and the expeditions of
Captain George Shelvocke earlier in the eighteenth century. In Shelvocke’s book, A Voyage
Round the World by Way of the Great South Sea, there is actually a description of a
melancholy sailor shooting an albatross in the hope of gaining a fair wind. Wordsworth is
known to have read this account and discussed it with Coleridge.

The poem was originally titled “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere,” and even with the
spelling slightly modernized, the archaism of the piece can seem rather self-conscious.
Coleridge deliberately avoids including anything that would date the poem’s events too
precisely, and many of his descriptive touches suggest a time several centuries before the
poem was written. “The merry minstrelsy” nodding their heads, along with the other details
of the wedding feast, are positively medieval, and so is such diction as “Eftsoons his hand
dropt he.” The poem’s frequent repetition seems even more antiquated, since it evokes a
time when ballads were recited and passed down orally, when repetition made matters easier
for the bard. A line like “The Wedding Guest here beat his breast” reinforces this sense of
antiquity in several different ways. First, it is repeated. Second, it contains an internal rhyme
(which, like repetition, was used as an aid to memory by poets who recited or sang their
ballads). Third, the very gesture of beating one’s breast is biblical and dramatic.

What meaning does the titlu have,and why did the autor use that particular
spelling of „rime"?
The Ancient Mariner is an allegorical figure: someone who represents humankind's innate
sinfulness. He is ancient, not merely in the sense of being very old, but in the sense of going
back to the very dawn of humankind. Thanks to Adam and Eve's original act of disobedience,
man has been steeped in sin. That being the case, Coleridge feels it appropriate to use an
archaic spelling for the word "rhyme." In doing so, he's drawing the reader's attention to the
universality of his theme.
"Rime" has a further meaning in that it refers to the kind of frost that often forms on ships
when it gets foggy or windy. Virtually the whole of the poem takes place on board a ship—
much of it during a voyage to the Antarctic, where of course we'd expect to see quite a lot of
frost. On a metaphorical level, one could also say that the mariner's soul is covered with thick
layers of "rime" that need to melt if he's to develop empathy for his fellow creatures.

What is the theme of „The Rime of Ancient Mariner"?

Sin and repentance are the central themes of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." The Mariner
commits a terrible sin when he kills the albatross, one of God's beloved creatures. He spends
the rest of his life trying to atone for his sin through his suffering and humility. He devotes his
life to warning people about the dangers of sin, using his own life as a cautionary tale.

What narrative techniques are used în „The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”?
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge uses several narrative
techniques. The first technique readers are likely to notice is the frame story Coleridge
employs as the mariner stops a wedding guest and begins to tell his story. The mariner is
compelled to tell his story as penance for his sin of killing the albatross, and he is relieved
temporarily of his all-consuming guilt by relating his story to others.
In addition, the mariner’s story is told in chronological order, which is typical of narrative.
The mariner’s story also contains vivid description, a technique often found in narrative
writing, particularly in the stanzas that follow the killing of the albatross. The story itself
contains dramatic tension, and later resolution, as depicted in the archetypal dramatic arc. The
mariner’s story, for example, reaches its climax when the mariner shoots the albatross with
his crossbow.

What are some exemples of symbolism în „The Rime of the Ancient

Mariner"?
In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," the albatross is a good omen for sailors and sometimes
even represented the soul of a lost sailor. So, to kill the albatross is to bring bad luck. Hung on
the mariner's neck, the albatross becomes a symbol of his thoughtless crime. The mariner
doesn't seem to have any malice when he killed the albatross. However, he must deal with the
consequences of his action. His penance is to continue to travel, presumably forever, to
different lands to retell his tale. He is doomed to an eternity of warning others to avoid his
mistakes.
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach. (584-590)
This is why Life-in-Death won the dice game. Had Death won, the mariner would have died.
Instead, the mariner is subject to a kind of life in death, traveling forever in order to tell his
tale.
Keep in mind the epigraph, from Thomas Burnet, which begins, "I readily believe that there
are more invisible than visible Natures in the universe." He goes on to say, "Meanwhile I do
not deny that it is helpful sometimes to contemplate in the mind, as on a tablet, the image of a
greater and better world, lest the intellect, habituated to the petty things of daily life, narrow
itself and sink wholly into trivial thoughts." That invisible, better world is the idealistic or
spiritual world beyond human perception. Thus, the symbols in the mariner's story could
reflect spiritual as well as physical meanings.

Presence of style figures and artistic images in „The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner"
Coleridge's poem is rich with imagery and contains interesting uses of personification as it
develops the theme of respect and love of nature, especially living creatures. Imagery is
description that appeals to the senses; personification gives human characteristics to non-
human things or animals, or animal traits to inanimate objects.
Sound imagery occurs in lines 61 - 62, speaking of the ice: "It cracked and growled, and
roared and howled, like noises in a swound!" In this dire state the crew first meets the
albatross, and they treat it "as if it had been a Christian soul," displaying the proper attitude,
according to the poem's theme. Because of that, the ship breaks free of the ice.
The intensity of the sailors' thirst when they are caught in the doldrums is another powerful
use of imagery: "With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, we could nor laugh nor wail;
through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I sucked the blood." This is part of
their punishment for killing (and approving the killing of) the albatross.
Visual imagery describes the water snakes in lines 279 - 281: "Blue, glossy green, and velvet
black, they coiled and swam; and every track was a flash of golden fire." The love that springs
up in the mariner because of the beauty of the water snakes is what redeems him for his sin of
killing the sea bird.
The wind and the sun are personified in the poem. Although they are not "creatures,"
personifying them advances the poem's theme of reverence for nature. In lines 179 - 180, the
sun behind the ghost ship is described as a prisoner's face: "As if through a dungeon-grate he
peered with broad and burning face." The wind is described as a powerful ruler that has
"o'ertaking wings" in lines 41 - 42: "And now the storm-blast came, and he was tyrannous and
strong."
Line 282 contains a pathetic fallacy, a type of personification that attributes emotion to a
creature that cannot feel emotion in order to establish a mood: "O happy living things!" This
ascribes happiness to the water snakes, a way of elevating them to the level the poem's theme
espouses. This is the point where the mariner redeems his past sin by loving and blessing the
creatures God made.
Coleridge uses both imagery and personification to advance his theme of respect and love for
all of God's creatures.