The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

Basic information
full title: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (included into the Lyrical
Ballads)
author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
genre: ballad
language: English
creation date: 1797-98 (THE ROMANTICISM)
creation place: England, probably Somerset, where Coleridge lived
first published: 1798 (the Lyrical Ballads), then revised and republished in 1817 and 1834
setting time and place: contemporary to the author (late 18th century); the Wedding Reception

and the Sea – travel from England behind the Antarctic Circle and back)

style: storytelling manner, elaborate, with many old words, sometimes strange (Wordsworth later

admitted that if he were to republish the Lyrical Ballads, he would replace this ballad with something lighter
and preferably smaller – some poems; he thought that the form of the ballad deterred the reader)
alliteration: The fair breeze flew, the white foam flew,
The furrow follow’d free;

Author
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
✓ he was born in Devon, his father was a vicar
✓ he attended Jesus College in Cambridge (1791-1794)
✓ he met Robert Southey, collaborated on The Fall of Robespierre
and planned to found a commune in Pennsylvania
✓ he married Sara Fricker in 1795, separated (four children)
✓ his poor heath led him to use laudanum (type of opium); he might
have suffered from bipolar disorder
✓ 1795 – he met William and Dorothy Wordsworth (Somerset)
✓ 1796 – Poems on Various Subjects; 1798 – Lyrical Ballads (with Wordsworth)
✓ 1798-99 – a trip to Germany (with Wordsworths); 1800 – he moved to the Lake District
✓ 1817 – Biographia Literaria; he also tried to write Opus Maximum (reconciliation of reason and faith)
– he never finished and obscure fragments were published in 2002
Key terms
ballad
a folk song or orally transmitted poem telling in a direct and dramatic manner some popular story usually
derived from a tragic incident in local history or legend; the story is told simply, impersonally, and often
with vivid dialogue; ballads are normally composed in quatrains with alternating four-stress and three-
stress lines, the second and fourth line rhyming (ballad meter); but some ballads are in couplet form,
and some other have six-line stanzas; ballads flourished particularly strongly in Scotland
from the 15th century onward; since the 18th century, educated poets outside the folk-strong tradition
have written imitations of the popular ballad’s form and style (Coleridge)

Plot overview
The poem begins by introducing the Ancient Mariner, who, with his glittering eye, stops a Wedding Guest
from attending a nearby wedding celebration. The Mariner stops the young man to tell him the story
of a ship, providing no introduction but simply beginning his tale. Despite the Wedding Guest’s efforts
to leave, the Mariner continues to speak.
The Mariner’s story begins with the ship leaving harbor and sailing southward. A tremendous storm
then blows the ship even further to the South Pole, where the crew are awed as they encounter mist, snow,
cold, and giant glaciers. An Albatross breaks the pristine lifelessness of the Antarctic. The sailors greet
it as a good omen, and a new wind rises up, propelling the ship. Day after day the albatross appears,
appearing in the morning when the sailors call for it, and soaring behind the ship. But then as the other
sailor’s cry out in dismay, the Mariner, for reasons unexplained, shoots and kills the albatross
with his crossbow.
At first, the other Sailors are furious with the Mariner for killing the bird which they believed a god omen
and responsible for making the breezes blow. But after the bird has been killed the fog clears and the fair
breeze continues, blowing the ship north into the Pacific, and the crew comes to believe the bird
was the source of the fog and mist and that the killing is justified. It is then that the wind ceases, and the ship
becomes trapped on a vast, calm sea. The Sailors and the Mariner become increasingly thirsty,
and some sailors dream that an angered Spirit has followed them from the pole. The crew then hangs
the albatross around the Mariner’s neck.
In this terrible calm, trapped completely by the watery ocean that they cannot drink, the men on the ship
grow so thirsty that they cannot even speak. When the Mariner sees what he believes is a ship approaching,
he must bite his arm and drink his own blood so that he is able to alert the crew, who all grin out of joy.
But the joy fades as the ghostly ship, which sails without wind, approaches. On its deck, Death
and Life-in-Death gamble with dice for the lives of the Sailors and the Mariner. After Life-in-Death
wins the soul of the Mariner, the Sailors begin to die of thirst, falling to the deck one by one, each staring
at the Mariner in reproach.
Surrounded by the dead Sailors and cursed continuously by their gaze, the Mariner tries to turn his eyes
to heaven to pray, but fails. It is only in the Moonlight, after enduring the horror of being the only one alive
among the dead crew that the Mariner notices beautiful Water Snakes swimming beside the ship.
At this moment he becomes inspired, and has a spiritual realization that all of God’s creatures are beautiful
and must be treated with respect and reverence. With this realization, he is finally able to pray,
and the albatross fell from his neck and sunk into the sea.
The Mariner falls into a kind of stupor, and then wakes to find the dead Sailors’ bodies reanimated by angels
and at work on the ship. Powered by the Spirit from the South Pole, the ship races homeward,
where the Mariner sees a choir of angels leave the bodies of the deceased Sailors. After this angels’ chorus,
the Mariner perceives a small boat on which a Pilot, the Pilot’s Boy, and a Hermit approach.
As they get closer, the Mariner’s ship suddenly sinks, but he wakes to find himself in the Pilot’s boat.
When the Mariner speaks, the Pilot and Hermit are stunned, by fear. The Hermit prays. The Mariner, in turn,
saves his own saviors, and rows them to land, where he begs the Hermit to grant him absolution for his sins.
The Hermit crosses himself, and asks the Mariner what manner of man art thou? The Mariner then feels
compelled to tell his story.
The Mariner concludes his tale by explaining that as he travels from land to land, he is always plagued
by that same compulsion to tell his tale, that he experiences a peculiar agony if he doesn’t give in to his urge
to share the story, and that he can tell just from looking at their faces which men must hear his tale.
He ends with the explicit lesson that prayer is the greatest joy in life, and the best prayers come from love
and reverence of all of God’s creation. Thus he moves onward to find the next person who must hear
his story, leaving the Wedding Guest a sadder and a wiser man.

Character list
the Ancient Mariner
✓ the protagonist (and in many ways the antagonist) of the poem
✓ the poem is structured around how, while sailing in Antarctic waters, he killed the albatross
and then how both nature and the supernatural rose up against him and his shipmates,
until the Mariner comes to recognize that all of God’s creatures are beautiful and must be treated
with reverence
✓ he committed a sin and he must repent for it – although he regains the ability to pray, he feels
compelled to tell his story to others, such as the Wedding Guest (partial absolution) – he is doomed
for eternity
✓ there is no clear reason why he killed the albatross – was it because of the hatred of nature
or out of the desire to master and control it? – we are not told it
✓ he feels urge to instruct the potential sinners in the best way to live, which is in harmony
with and reverent awe of nature and God’s creations
✓ he becomes a kind of herald of the natural and spiritual worlds that his killing of the albatross
outraged
 ✓ he takes on aspects of the supernatural world he experiences: glittering eye, strange and intense
behavior, ability to recognize from their faces which men must hear this story

the Wedding Guest

✓ a man on his way to a wedding celebration – a relative of the groom, a young man, in his twenties
✓ he is chosen by the Mariner to hear his tale, he attempts to evade the Mariner and continue
to the wedding (at some point he screams in agony because he hears the instruments playing
at the party)
✓ he cannot help but to listen to the story, and becomes engaged in it (he reacts to the terror
of the events by shouting)
✓ by the end of the poem, the Guest has become a sadder and wiser man – the Mariner’s story
has changed him, made him less interested in revelry and more concerned with the spiritual
and natural concerns that the Mariner’s story describes

Sailors
✓ the nameless crewmembers that accompany the Mariner on his journey
✓ they do not commit any sin as that of the Mariner’s shooting of the albatross, and yet they seem
to be punished more horribly
✓ they see the albatross as a good omen and curse the Mariner at first after he kills it; they change
their minds soon afterward, as the wind does not abate and the fog lifts – they say the Mariner
was right to kill the albatross
✓ the sailors seem to be just the part of collateral damage in the Mariner’s own punishment – the story
focuses on him, and the point is that he lost the crew that could help him come back home
✓ they first become dehydrated and then fall dead when Death wins their souls in his gamboling game
with Life-In-Death; they are later reanimated and their corpses aid in Mariner’s penance
✓ they are not given life or absolution at the end of the tale – their souls leave their bodies
at the end and it is not clear where they are going

Life-In-Death
✓ found, along with Death, on the ghost ship that approaches the Mariner and the Sailors
when their own ship is becalmed after the Mariner’s killing of the albatross
✓ she throws dice with Death and wins the Mariner’s soul
✓ given the Mariner’s subsequent inability to pray until he has completed his penance, there
is the suggestion that he truly experiences a kind of life-in-death, in the sense of being cut off
from both the natural and spiritual worlds even as he continues to exist, until he completes
his penance

First Voice and Second Voice

✓ they are introduced at the end of Part Six in the poem and continue into the beginning of Part Seven
✓ they are supernatural spirits that discuss the penance the Mariner has done and the continued
penance that will be required of him (typical of the Romanticism)
Hermit
✓ the third person aboard the small boat that rescues the Mariner
✓ depicted as a man of God and of nature – a man who exemplifies the right way to live
✓ once on land the Mariner calls him a holy man and begs the Hermit to grant him absolution
for his sins
✓ the Hermit in return asks the Mariner to explain who he is (what manner of man art thou?),
which begins the Mariner’s compulsion to tell his own story

Themes
the Natural and the Spiritual
✓ important: the Romanticism started to value nature and emotions over reason and science (the Age
of Reason); nature and supernaturality became one of the major topics during that period,
and almost every piece of writing contains some thoughts on the role of nature in the human world
✓ the beginning of the poem is set in the civilized environment, at the wedding, where the nature
is subdued; it’s the Mariner’s story that moves the action to a completely wild place, where humans
depend on the forces of nature (frame story – the poem is set actually in 18th century England, and
the Mariner tells a story to a Wedding Guest; the story about his voyage is framed inside the main
action)
✓ killing the albatross may be seen as an attempt to master nature, to assert the power of man
over the power of nature: the crew has been fighting the storms and the sea for a long time,
and it was completely dependent on wind, so the Mariner might have wanted to show his power
over the natural forces
✓ nature is presented as awe-inspiring, powerful and terrifying to humans – any attempts to control
the nature are pointless and result in punishment to humans; nature is simply too powerful,
as it is evident when the sudden lack of wind strands the ship in desolate waters and the crew begin
to die of thirst
✓ the nature is the expression of supernatural world (not passive): it explains the terrible
and supernatural reaction to the albatross killing; nature is God’s creation and therefore
when a person interacts with nature, they also interact with the spiritual world
✓ the attempt to control nature is an affront to the spiritual world and to God as well; harming nature
is a moral failing – it is a sin (sin leads to punishment, and the punishment comes as a combination
of the natural and the spiritual: supernatural)
✓ the supernatural punishment is expressed when elemental spirits arise and drag or halt
the Mariner’s ship, and by the haunting Death and Life-In-Death who harvest human souls
✓ only when the Mariner learns to live with and value the natural world (as he does when he sees
the beauty in the Water Snakes), does the punishment against him ease; the poem shows
the appreciation of nature (embracing the Romanticism) as a spiritual, religious necessity
the Mundane and the Sublime
✓ the Romantic idea of the sublime isn’t confined to just beauty, but rather suggests an overwhelming
awe, and is often connected to nature (the natural world is filled with beautiful yet horrible sights
and events; the storm is incredibly powerful and majestic at once; the glaciers are at once incredibly
beautiful, eerie, and dangerous)
✓ the sublime may be seen as the intersection of beauty and terror, awe and horror – it must
be approached with the right attitude (if we approach It only to appreciate it beauty, we risk falling
prey to its danger, if we approach it only with fear of its horror, we mistakenly forget the awe
that God’s creations should rightly inspire)
✓ experiencing the sublime can transform, just as it transforms both the Mariner and the Wedding
Guest through the Mariner’s story
✓ the poem describes also a bounded, mundane civilization – the wedding environment and killing
the albatross
✓ the act of prayer is spiritual and powerful within the mundane human civilization; it involves
both beauty and overwhelming awe of connecting to God
✓ sublime → mundane: killing the albatross (spiritual, supernatural, complex → just dead)

Sin and Penance

✓ Mariner’s sin – killing the innocent albatross, stepping against nature and God’s creation (nature
is the expression of God)
✓ Mariner’s punishment – suffering deprivations and horrors until he learns to appreciate and love
the natural and supernatural world that the albatross symbolizes
✓ story of sin and penance, of punishment and absolution (common in many cultures) – the poem’s
treatment of the story is not that simple
✓ the Mariner is only partially saved – he is saved from torments when he learns to appreciate nature,
but he is at the same time compelled to continue telling his story indefinitely, or else suffer a kind
of agony
✓ there is no indication that he will ever be truly forgiven or absolved of his duty to share
his experience, and in a way, this itself is another punishment
✓ it may also be a blessing – through telling his story he is given the gift of being able to save others
– he saves the Wedding Guest and enlightens him

Christian Allegory
✓ many see the poem as an explicit Christian allegory – even though Coleridge claimed this poem
has no explicit moral
✓ the lesson the Mariner teaches at the end: taking immense joy in prayer, instructing an appreciation
and respect for God, God’s creatures, and all of nature
✓ killing the albatross – may be seen as an allegorical representation of another Christian stories
(Adam and Eve’s original sin, Judas’ betrayal of Jesus)
 ✓ supernatural elements break the typical Christian allegory mold, the poem contains various pagan
elements, the Mariner has his own path through sin and penance
✓ the poem may be seen as encompassing Christian symbols as part of an effort to portray a universal
whole that at once includes the truths of Christianity, but is not solely limited to those truths
or the particularly Christian way of seeing those truths

Symbols
the Albatross
✓ historically: omen of good luck – and it is seen as a good omen at the beginning of the journey
✓ birds in general: seen as able to move between the earthly and spiritual realms – albatross
appearing out of the fog seems to be both supernatural and natural
✓ albatross may symbolize the connection between the natural and spiritual world, and a symbol
of the sublime (the unearthly bird) as it sports with the mundane (the ship)
✓ it may also symbolize Christ killed by Judas (the Mariner) – killing of the innocent albatross
was unjustifiable, and the albatross was hung about the Mariner’s neck (hanging linked
to the crucifix)
✓ more generally – a mark of sin
✓ a symbol of the complexity of nature – many possible symbols are built up around the albatross,
and Coleridge might have wanted to show that nature is just the same: there is no easy, simple way
to explain its ways and it is inevitably complicated; in the meantime, it should be revered
(both albatross and nature), as it is beautiful in its complexity
✓ killing the albatross changed it from being complex, natural and supernatural, to being just dead;
what was once so many things, has been reduced to being just dead; by killing the bird, the Mariner
stood against powerful nature and supernaturality; the crew is punished as they try to justify
this violation against the natural world

Eyes
✓ glittering eye – the Wedding Guest is persuaded to stop and listen to the Mariner’s story by this eye,
and it symbolizes a means of control (the spellbinding power of storytelling in the poem)
✓ a means of communication – when the Sailors are too thirsty to speak, they communicate by eyes;
the Sailors curse the Mariners in silence, just by looking at him; it is powerful, direct and primal
(also supernatural, as the gaze continues after the sailors’ death)
✓ a means of communication between humans and nature (and God) – in the poem, the most important
moments are perceived by sight (the appearance of the ghost ship, the image of water snakes
that allows the Mariner to pray again and adore God’s creation)
✓ symbol of the limitations of the poem and of storytelling itself – Coleridge can only use words,
and words will always be less powerful than the perception; by seeing, people can take one step
closer to God, to an appreciation of the sublime in nature, and to understanding for ourselves
the lessons which the poem seeks to impart
the Sun and the Moon
✓ symbol of the competing influences on the Mariner’s journey and on the world; the two compete
with each other, at times embodying the forces of both the natural and supernatural world
✓ the Sun is associated with blood, heat, dryness, and the thirst that ultimately kills the Sailors;
it symbolizes both the majesty and the terror of the vast natural world (described with sublime
beauty), also used to tell which direction the ship is traveling
✓ the Moon (responsible for the tides) symbolizes the supernatural and divine influences on nature;
by moonlight the next stage of penance and the Mariner’s spiritual awakening take place
✓ cyclic process – symbolizes the unity of God’s creation, divine influence, and the cyclic process
of sin, penance, and absolution that Christians experience