Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: a Moral Tale with Supernatural Elements

English Blog entry 6
Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: a Moral
Tale with Supernatural Elements
Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner” is interesting in that it combines a message of morality, similar to
the hubris and folly that afflicted heroes of the classical Greek plays and Homeric-era
epics, while also carrying elements of the sublime and spirituality within
nature that are typical of the romantic era in which it was written. The Mariner
foolishly kills an Albatross early on in the poem. His penance is extensive and
grim; including the death of his crew, and the destruction of his ship. He is
left with a future in which he must travel the vast lands of the earth,
spreading a message of “love and reverence” to all things “God made and loveth.”
Amidst
this story of the Mariner’s poor decision and subsequent curse, is a variety of
spiritual elements that exist in the seemingly magical world of the ocean. In
the fifth stanza on page 574, the Mariner describes the beauty of water-snakes swimming
under the moonlight. The snake is often a symbol of Lucifer, yet in this
context it is enchanting to the eyes of the Mariner. This spiritual beauty transcends
to the level of the sublime when the corpses of the Mariner rise up from the
dead, guided by angelic spirits to sail the ship. While this scene is
beautiful, the notion of a corpse rising from the dead has an element of impossibility
that evokes the horror of the sublime. The atmosphere in which the corpses rise
up is one in which the natural is emphasized; “Beneath the lightning and the
Moon/ The dead men gave a groan (329-330)”. The supernatural of this scene
draws power from the natural world of the ocean, a place in which the
impossible can be possible.
Ultimately Coleridge fuses a narrative
of moral folly with elements of the sublime and supernatural, creating a work
wholly unique in its fusion of traditional and contemporary (romantic) methods
of writing.