the rime of the ancient mariner by samuel taylor coleridge

The ancient Mariner is warmed deep within by the love he felt and this love is the immediate means of his spiritual rebirth (Bloom 11). “A spring of love gushed from my heart / And I blessed them unaware.” He breaks the curse when he is able to bless the water snakes on a moonlit night. The sailors die and the mariner is allowed to live a life in death. Soon, Death and Life-in-Death, who arrive in a ghost ship, dice for the crew and the latter wins the mariner. The albatross is hailed by the mariners in God’s name and hence they blame the mariner for killing it. Without any premeditation or conscious motive, the narrator murders the albatross. Into a sea of ice, where no living thing was to be seen, through the snow fog, there comes suddenly a great sea bird, the albatross. The world of the Mariner’s voyage is purely visionary the ship is driven by a storm towards the South Pole and into a realm simpler and more drastic than the natural world of experience. The punishment ultimately proves to be beneficial as it leads to the mariner realizing deeper lessons in life. By killing the albatross impulsively, he is forced to endure the horrible punishment of carrying the dead albatross around his neck, and travel amidst the dead bodies of his crew. He is a traveler who is exploring the seas in his ship along with his crew.

In this poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the ‘wanderer’ is the mariner. What they could be a treasure, a goal, a holy grail that will lend meaning or fulfillment to life and remove its sense of disjointedness. It could be a traveler, a knight, a cowboy, a prince, or a princess seeking something.

The Wanderer is the name given to a character of someone on a journey in art and mythology. Thesis: The poem is about the wanderings of the ancient mariner who is permanently traumatized and alienated by his killing of the albatross and his experiences lead him to the spiritual realization that all creatures must be loved. I agree that “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” deals with the modern myth of the compulsive wanderer traumatized and alienated by a shattering experience, but not permanently. The ancient Mariner tells a story that relates itself clearly to a major Romantic archetype, the Wanderer. Thus, the poem has a moral that all things must be loved. Amidst a series of supernatural events, the mariner’s life alone is spared and he repents, but he must wander the earth and tell his tale with the lesson that “all things great and small” are important. They are punished with drought and death.

The central theme of this poem is the suffering incurred by the mariner and his crew for killing an albatross. The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a wild and imaginative tale, which in the words of Sir Walter Scott, ‘displays so much beauty with many eccentricities’” (Moore, 685).

The rime of the ancient mariner by samuel taylor coleridge