The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge - Literature review Example

A Tale of the Supernatural Written during the romantic period and first published in 1798, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a seven-part narrative poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is an unforgettable literary piece. The story of a sailor who encounters terrible misfortunes on his journey with his crew mates aboard their ship primarily for killing an albatross, still resonates of age-old sin-and-punishment thematic content that is captivating to modern readers. However, what really draws the reader in is not much as the plot as the way the poet presents a subject that goes beyond the moralistic implications of the poem. Coleridge used supernatural elements such as ghosts, spirits and angels to highlight the innermost experiences of the mariner, whose point of view is mainly used throughout the narrative. Like the Wedding Guest who is the first to speak a line in the first part of the poem by asking why the mariner detains him, the reader is immediately drawn by the eerie contrasts of the strange and solitary mariner with a “a glittering eye” (Coleridge Part 1, Stanza.1) and his sudden appearance within a very social occasion as a wedding. Coleridge all throughout the poem sets a tone of extreme passions – dreadful fear, ecstatic revelations and preponderant guilt and sorrow. Together with the mariner’s very personal and intense storytelling about his ordeal coupled with the gothic and passionate tone of the poem, the supernatural element is brought to fore. With the exception of an omniscient narrator that intersperse minimally with the flow of the mariner’s tale, and a few lines uttered by minor characters such as the wedding guest or the spirits – the poem is entirely a personal “I” account of the mariner’s and that of his crew mates’ journey and what happened after he killed the Albatross, a sea bird which represents good fortune among seafarers. Herein, the very personal nature of the narrative attests to the romantic period’s focus with the individual and “subjectivity of experience” (Gradesaver website, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Study Guide”, no author, n.p.). The interest of romanticism as the poem shows is to highlight intense personal experiences as what the Ancient Mariner went through. With their intensity, the natural, objective world slips into a sphere that borders on the supernatural. Even the Albatross represents a spiritual realm which looks over and blesses mankind: “At length did cross an Albatross, / Thorough the fog it came; / As if it had been a Christian soul, / We hailed it in Gods name.” (Coleridge Part 1, Stanza 16). After the benign seabird is shot by the Ancient Mariner for no explicable reason except probably on a whim, the main character recounts the ship crew’s nightmarish encounter with the sun, the sea and its “slimy creatures” in their otherworldly, ghastly aspects. The sea, the natural companion of seafarers, in particular took a fiendish turn according to the Ancient Mariner: “Water, water, every where, / And all the boards did shrink ; / Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink. (Part II Stanza 9) / The very deep did rot : O Christ ! / That ever this should be ! / Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / Upon the slimy sea.” (Part II Stanza 10). Told from the personal point of view of the actual person who suffers, Coleridge’s poem typifies the “liminal” state of mind favored by Romantic poets. Accordingly, a liminal space is defined “as a place on the edge of a realm or between two realms, whether a forest and a field, or reason and imagination” (Gradesaver website, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Study Guide, no author). The Ancient Mariner who relates that while all the rest of the sailors died of thirst as a punishment for the killing of the Albatross, he was cast into a purgatory-like state, neither dead nor living. In a game of dice as if to cast a paradox, Death chose the ship’s crew while Life-in-Death, in the form of a woman got the Ancient Mariner who was the one responsible for shooting the Albatross. The Ancient Mariner describes Life-in-Death: “Her lips were red, her looks were free, / Her locks were yellow as gold : / Her skin was as white as leprosy,/ The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she, / Who thicks mans blood with cold.” (Part III Stanza 10). While the apparition looks like a normal warm woman alive, apparently, from the point of view of the Ancient Mariner, she brings cold to a man’s blood. This liminal state of mind under the spell or trance of the spirit of Death-in-Life pervades the apparent compulsive nature of the Ancient Mariner’s storytelling. The nightmare of being in a state of limbo never really leaves the Mariner except when he tells his tale to others, for example to the Hermit who advises him on what penance he should do and to the ambushed Wedding Guest to whom he shares his terrible story. The passionate tone of the poem which highlights horror, dread and fear on one hand, effectively renders an account of the supernatural. A critic, James Stephens described Coleridge’s poem as “extreme, its fantasy is extreme, its knowledge of music and colour and pace is extreme” (quoted in Enotes website, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Criticism and Essays”, no author). From the start of the poem, an eerie tone pervades with the sudden encounter of a man on his way to the wedding of a kin with an old sailor who looks like a ghost: “He holds him with his skinny hand, / `There was a ship, quoth he. / `Hold off ! unhand me, grey-beard loon !/ Eftsoons his hand dropt he./ (Part I Stanza 3). The objectivity of describing whatever precisely happened is not given attention as much as how the events affected the storyteller and his ship companions. The reader is led into inner turbulence of the Ancient Mariner’s psychological state. Somehow, the tone succeeds in communicating that when extreme fear or dread is felt, human beings are likely to think of spirits, angels and demons appearing in the natural world.: “And some in dreams assuréd were / Of the Spirit that plagued us so ; / Nine fathom deep he had followed us / From the land of mist and snow.” (Part II Stanza 12). The fear that was felt by the crew when the skeleton ship bearing Death and Life-in-Death came, is described as: “ We listened and looked sideways up ! / Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip ! / The stars were dim, and thick the night, / The steermans face by his lamp gleamed white ; / From the sails the dew did drip-- / Till clomb above the eastern bar / The hornéd Moon, with one bright star / Within the nether tip.” (Part III Stanza 14). When the Ancient Mariner realizes that he has been spared by Life-in-Death in order to do penance for what he did, he lets out a cry that is one the poem’s most deeply felt emotions, bordering on a spiritual agony: “Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide wide sea ! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony”./ (Part IV Stanza 3) He despiseth the creatures of the calm, / The many men, so beautiful ! / And they all dead did lie : / And a thousand thousand slimy things / Lived on ; and so did I.” (Part IV Stanza 4). The passionate tone of the poem also took the form of ecstatic and joyful revelation, highlighting the spiritual calm that nature can bring to a weary soul. This is especially the predominant tone in the second half, when the Ancient Mariner begins to see that there is hope after “seven days and seven nights” of looking at the curse of the dead men’s eyes (Part IV Stanza 9). In his loneliness, he looked at the moon and the stars that journey in the night sky: “The moving Moon went up the sky, / And no where did abide : / Softly she was going up, / And a star or two beside”— (Part IV Stanza 10). But what really broke the spell was when the Ancient Mariner beholds the sea snakes: “Beyond the shadow of the ship, / I watched the water-snakes : / They moved in tracks of shining white, / And when they reared, the elfish light / Fell off in hoary flakes. (Part IV Stanza 12 ) Within the shadow of the ship / I watched their rich attire : / Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, / They coiled and swam ; and every track / Was a flash of golden fire.” (Part IV Stanza 13). The romantic tone of praising nature is evident in the poem, giving way to a spiritual revelation – and when nature’s beauty is seen, the Albatross which hung in the poor mariner’s neck came off and fell into the sea (Part IV Stanza 15). The Ancient Mariner then lives, as the sky brings rain to save him. The recognition of nature’s beauty and its ties to the supernatural and spiritual realms was only the first part of the penance, but as the two conversing spirits in the ship conclude that “and penance more he will do” (Part V Stanza 26). Coleridge fashioned the poem in such a way that the “I” point of view of one person (the Ancient Mariner) is tied to the central theme, which is storytelling itself in its most subjective, personal form. That the Ancient Mariner’s is condemned or cursed to repeat his “rime” or rhyme to every person who is willing to hear or listen, despite their reservations like the ambushed Wedding Guest, can be comparable to the task of the poet or artist who is compelled to tell his story to his readers or audience ((Gradesaver website, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Study Guide”, no author, n.p.). At the end of the narrative, when the Ancient Mariner is said to be constrained to travel from land to land, and at a “certain hour the agony returns” and he must tell his tale again (Part VII Stanza 16). Works Cited Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. No date. 12 Apr 2007 . “ClassicNote About The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. No date. Gradesaver.com. 12 April 2007 . “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge Criticism and Essays” No. date. Enotes.com. 12 Apr 2007 . Read More

After the benign seabird is shot by the Ancient Mariner for no explicable reason except probably on a whim, the main character recounts the ship crew’s nightmarish encounter with the sun, the sea and its “slimy creatures” in their otherworldly, ghastly aspects. The sea, the natural companion of seafarers, in particular took a fiendish turn according to the Ancient Mariner: “Water, water, every where, / And all the boards did shrink ; / Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink.

(Part II Stanza 9) / The very deep did rot : O Christ ! / That ever this should be ! / Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / Upon the slimy sea.” (Part II Stanza 10). Told from the personal point of view of the actual person who suffers, Coleridge’s poem typifies the “liminal” state of mind favored by Romantic poets. Accordingly, a liminal space is defined “as a place on the edge of a realm or between two realms, whether a forest and a field, or reason and imagination” (Gradesaver website, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Study Guide, no author).

The Ancient Mariner who relates that while all the rest of the sailors died of thirst as a punishment for the killing of the Albatross, he was cast into a purgatory-like state, neither dead nor living. In a game of dice as if to cast a paradox, Death chose the ship’s crew while Life-in-Death, in the form of a woman got the Ancient Mariner who was the one responsible for shooting the Albatross. The Ancient Mariner describes Life-in-Death: “Her lips were red, her looks were free, / Her locks were yellow as gold : / Her skin was as white as leprosy,/ The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she, / Who thicks mans blood with cold.

” (Part III Stanza 10). While the apparition looks like a normal warm woman alive, apparently, from the point of view of the Ancient Mariner, she brings cold to a man’s blood. This liminal state of mind under the spell or trance of the spirit of Death-in-Life pervades the apparent compulsive nature of the Ancient Mariner’s storytelling. The nightmare of being in a state of limbo never really leaves the Mariner except when he tells his tale to others, for example to the Hermit who advises him on what penance he should do and to the ambushed Wedding Guest to whom he shares his terrible story.

The passionate tone of the poem which highlights horror, dread and fear on one hand, effectively renders an account of the supernatural. A critic, James Stephens described Coleridge’s poem as “extreme, its fantasy is extreme, its knowledge of music and colour and pace is extreme” (quoted in Enotes website, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Criticism and Essays”, no author). From the start of the poem, an eerie tone pervades with the sudden encounter of a man on his way to the wedding of a kin with an old sailor who looks like a ghost: “He holds him with his skinny hand, / `There was a ship, quoth he.

/ `Hold off ! unhand me, grey-beard loon !/ Eftsoons his hand dropt he./ (Part I Stanza 3). The objectivity of describing whatever precisely happened is not given attention as much as how the events affected the storyteller and his ship companions. The reader is led into inner turbulence of the Ancient Mariner’s psychological state. Somehow, the tone succeeds in communicating that when extreme fear or dread is felt, human beings are likely to think of spirits, angels and demons appearing in the natural world.

: “And some in dreams assuréd were / Of the Spirit that plagued us so ; / Nine fathom deep he had followed us / From the land of mist and snow.” (Part II Stanza 12). The fear that was felt by the crew when the skeleton ship bearing Death and Life-in-Death came, is described as: “ We listened and looked sideways up ! / Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip ! / The stars were dim, and thick the night, / The steermans face by his lamp gleamed white ; / From the sails the dew did drip-- / Till clomb above the eastern bar / The hornéd Moon, with one bright star / Within the nether tip.

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