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Rime of the ancient mariner by s.coleridge
The life of the ancient mariner as an essay
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a poem about a lone sailor who survives a disastrous voyage at sea. Believing himself to be responsible for this tragedy he dooms himself to recount his tale to strangers. The most common interpretation of this poem is the religious view of crime and punishment. Early in the poem the Mariner shoots an albatross a symbol of good luck. Since it is a moral wrong to shoot the albatross, for you are supposed to love “all things both great and small”, the crew eventually was punished. The Mariner’s punishment was to live a “life-in-death” by repenting and telling his story. His shipmates were punished by death for their crime of praising the death of the Albatross. The Albatross is also supposed to represent Jesus and Jesus’s crucifixion when hung around the Mariner’s neck. While there is no denying the religious symbolism I argue that the moral: to love all things great and small is not Coleridge’s the true message. Coleridge was known to have suffered from various mental disorders such as depression. His own depression is reflected in his writing, specifically, in his character the ancient mariner. Coleridge is also a storyteller like the Mariner. They both tell their own stories and we must separate Coleridge’s story from the Mariner’s.
Though, first, we must make try to make sense of the explicitly stated moral:
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all. (lines 614-617)
What the Mariner learns from his whole ordeal is that we should love all of God’s creatures. He seeks to spread this message around, but the “crime” does not fit the punishment. The death of an albatross does not...
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...est sad. It is due to the Wedding-Guest seeing what guilt can do to a man. We, as readers, are Coleridge’s Wedding-Guest. Coleridge writes a story within a story and makes us believe the Mariner’s story as Coleridge’s own. Though, by separating both stories from each storyteller we see that Coleridge’s story is about forgiving oneself from guilt. The Mariner was unable to do this ever since his youth and, thus suffered for the rest of his life.
Works Cited
Coleridge, Samuel. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature The Age of Romanticism. Ed. Joseph Black ... [et al.]. 2nd ed. Buffalo: Broadview Press, 2012. 415-424. Print.
White, Harry. "Coleridge's Uncertain Agony." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900.Vol. 49, No. 4, The Nineteenth Century (2009): 807-39. JSTOR. Web. 06 Apr. 2014.
The main theme of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem is to learn from your mistakes. After telling his tale to the Wedding Guest, the Ancient Mariner realized that the murder of the Albatross was a mistake and lived a life of penance. The act of murder was an impulsive act because the Mariner felt threatened by the Albatross their actions. The deaths of both birds brought about memories from both the Ancient Mariner and Hagar which they shared with other people, the Wedding Guest and Murray F. Lees. These memories help them to realize the mistakes they made. Through their own personal recollections, the Ancient Mariner and Hagar both achieved a better understanding of their lives and in turn were able to die with a sense of contentment and relief.
“The Seafarer” begins with a man’s story of the hardships he faced at sea. He is on a voyage to discover new lands and riches, yet he is not happy. Despite the great journey the man is undertaking, he feels in exile from his people. He has been lonely for a long period of time now and has had no success. As he is pondering this topic, he thinks of how he only hears the sounds of birds instead of the laughter of people in the mead hall. He thinks of how he is cold instead of warm and sharing drink with his friends; he is lonely and his kinsmen can offer him no comfort, so his soul is left drowning in desolation.
The characters also are involved in the belief of the anti-transcendental philosophy. The story shows how each character acts with nature and each other. Many of the whalers must protect the boat and each other as they trek through the wild tides and horrible weather conditions. They try their hardest to fight these conditions, but sadly the narrator is the only survivor. These men exemplify the philosophy by fighting the animals; especially the whales ...
As delineated in paragraph one, Coleridge’s poetic field is one rampant with erratic thought and ultimate change. The proposed subject of the poem, an eolian harp, is virtually abandoned and replaced with veneration of a God as well as a lover. One would think that such a fickle publication would be kept isolated by its author. Although, Coleridge may have staked importance in showing his adoration for God publicly. Hence,
He describes how he was “Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide sea!” (232-233). He persistently uses the word “alone” to explain his emotion during the situation, highlighting the fact that there was absolutely no one to guide him, and it was most likely that he would die alone in the sea. By enforcing the fact that the Mariner was so “alone”, Coleridge builds suspense by leading the reader to ponder how the Mariner survived to tell his story to the wedding guest. Being “alone” is an extremely terrifying thought, especially if one were stranded in the “wide, wide sea”, so connecting this common association of the word alone to the Mariner’s fear, Coleridge alerts the reader to how hopeless his situation
Hence, when examining the one of the oldest English poems, The Seafarer, it is necessary to address the critical roles that society, as well as personal belief, play in the psychological development of one self. Ones manifestation of his surroundings, as well as his thoughts, can determine his emotional psyche. The Seafarer, initially feeling barren, and lost, slowly comes to accept his Fate that he asserts God blessed him with, and becomes very happy with the acceptance that he does, in fact, have a meaning in life. With this new meaning that the Seafarer accepts, his character is transformed into that of a different psychological mindset.
The mariner begins to find his salvation when he begins to look on the 'slimy things' as creatures of strange beauty. When "the mariner begins to find his salvation when he begins to look on the 'slimy things' as creatures of strange beauty" he understands the Albatross is a symbol of nature and he realizes what he had done wrong. The mariner is forgiven after sufficient penance. The mariner's experience represents a renewal of the impulse of love towards other living things. Once he reconciles his punishment is lifted.
Coleridge uses religious and natural symbolism, which correspond with one another and play the most important roles in this poem. Although there are many different interpretations of this poem, one idea that has remained common throughout the poem is that of the religious symbolism present. Especially that of Christ and his ability to save, which was present throughout this poem. The symbolism is that of the albatross. The albatross saves the Mariner for bad weather and keeps the sailors in
He has to feel a pain in his chest that becomes unbearable until he sees a certain soul that is the right one to tell. No matter what. In the long poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge has three lessons about human life: supernatural, pride, and suffering. In “Rime” by Sam Coleridge, the mariner goes through many supernatural events that scare him into submission. Coleridge does a great job of describing the scenery around the boat that the mariner resides in.
As the ancient Mariner described his adventures at sea to the Wedding-Guest, the Guest became saddened because he identified his own selfish ways with those of the Mariner. The mariner told the Guest that he and his ship-mates were lucky because at the beginning of their voyage they had good weather. The mariner only saw what was on the surface -- he did not see the good weather as evidence that Someone was guiding them. Also, when he shot the Albatross, the Mariner did not have any reason for doing so. The Albatross did nothing wrong, yet the Mariner thought nothing of it and without thinking of the significance of the act, he killed the bird. At this, the Guest was reminded of how self-absorbed he, too, was, and the sinful nature of man. At the beginning of the poem he was very much intent on arriving at the wedding on time. He did not care at all about what it was that the Mariner had to tell him; he did not want to be detained even if the Mariner was in trouble. Instead, he spoke rudely to the mariner, calling him a "gray-beard loon", and tried to go on his own way.
Robinson, David M. "Romanticism." American History Through Literature 1820-1870. Ed. Janet Gabler-Hover and Robert Sattelmeyer. Vol. 3. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 1000-1007. Student Resources in Context. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
He starts the story immediately with a lot of detail creating the setting of where the mariner is going and to whom the mariner is going to tell his tale. He chooses three men on their way to a wedding and one in particular we know as the “wedding guest.” When we think of a wedding we think of a happy event where two people are united under the grace of god. The mariner stops him from going in this event though and tells him the story, at the end of which he tells him that he doesn't need anything but god to be happy. The detail and emphasis of the wedding symbolizes temporary happiness on earth. The mariner explains that loving god and having him in your life is “Oh sweeter than the marriage feast, 'Tis sweeter far to me” (Coleridge, lines 86-87). Here the mariner is saying that the temporary happiness on earth that one may get from a marriage celebration is nice but it is nowhere near as good as the love of god you get from making a religious transformation. Coleridge explains all of the sing and drinking and happiness going on in the wedding as the mariner is telling the story but in the end the mariner tells the guest that none of that is as good as the love of god. And we can see that wedding guest actually learns something from the story because he decides to not go into the wedding but rather “and now the wedding-guest. Turned from the bridegroom's door. He went ...
The catalyst for the emergence of Christian symbolism occurs when the mariner commits a sin by murdering one of God’s creatures. By killing the albatross, he inevitably brings about a series of trials amongst himself and those aboard the ship. Though the significance of this sin is first unseen by the mariner, supernatural forces quickly condemn his actions as a severe crime against nature. With no real reason, the mariner kills the albatross and soon realizes the magnitude of his actions. Viewed beyond simply a good luck charm, “At length did cross an Albatross, Through the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God’s name” (ll. 63-6). The idea of the Albatross representing Jesus Christ is a direct parallel in the Christian religion. The death of the Albatross is reminiscent of the death of Jesus in that both died as a result of another’s sin and betrayal of God’s word. Similar accounts of betrayal are portrayed ...
Mileur, J. 1982. Coleridge and the Art of Immanence. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
In discussing the symbolism of guilt in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", it is important to understand that in the eyes of the Romantics God was one with Nature. Because of this belief a sin against Nature was seen as a sin against God. In line 82 of the poem, the Mariner simply says, "I shot the Albatross." In saying this, the reader often questions why the bird was shot. There is no explanation. The Albatross was shot without reason or motive very much like the sin of humans. Here the poem begins to take on its allegorical purpose in which the Albatross symbolizes not only sin, but possibly Jesus as well. In Christianity, Jesus died upon the cross for the sins of humanity. He was punished in order for ...