The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

An Ancient Mariner stops one (of three) on his way to a wedding.



The wedding guest is mesmerized by the Mariner’s passion and begins listening to the story.

The Mariner’s Tale:Their ship is driven

south, by a storm, to a place of “mist and snow.”


“The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!”


Surrounded by ice.


An albatross appears.


The albatross leads them out of the fog.


The Mariner shoots the albatross. At first the crew condemns him, but when a favorable breeze appears, they justify his action. This implicates them in his crime.


“Water, water, every where, and all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink.”


A ghost ship approaches with a Specter-Woman and her Death-Mate as crew.


“Death” and “Life in Death” roll dice for the lives of the ship’s crew.

“Life in Death” wins.


“Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, and cursed me with his eye”

“With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, they dropped down one by one.”

“The souls did from their bodies fly, - They fled to bliss or woe! And every soul, it passed me by, Like the whizz of my cross-bow!”


“Alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on my soul in agony.”

“Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, and yet I could not die.”


“Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes”

“O happy living things! No tongue their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, and I blessed them unaware”


The curse is lifted and the albatross falls from his neck and sinks “like lead into the sea.”


The dead men awaken and the Mariner directs his ghostly crew North.


As the Mariner returns to his home port, the spirits of his crew leave their bodies.

He receives forgiveness (shrieve) from a hermit.


The Mariner’s ship sinks.


The story concluded, the wedding guest leaves “a sadder and a wiser man.”

The Mariner must tell his tale to warn others (redemption).


Many critics see the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” as an allegory of some kind of fall,

like…

Of Coleridge -

Of Lucifer - Of Adam & Eve - …forbidden fruit…cast into hell

…opium?

“…the very deep did rot…”

“…slimy things …

Slimy sea”

“I shot the albatross”

“…and I had done a hellish thing…”

“witch’s oils, / …burnt green, and blue and

white”

Phantasmagoria! A shifting series or succession of things seen or imagined, as in a dream.

STRUCTURE:

Sin, Punishment, Redemption…

Milton Parallels?

(Paradise Lost)

Shelley’s Interpretation?

(Frankenstein)

Cain

?

“Instead of the cross, the Albatross/ About my neck was hung”

“I had killed the bird / That made the breeze to blow”

“Hailed it in God’s name”

“Christian soul”

“Crimson red like Gods own head”

- “Hid in mist”

- “dungeon-grate” “blessed them unawares”

Crew distanced from God

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

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