Ancient Mariner

As the ghost ship nears, a spell is cast upon the ship and all of the mariner's young crew fall dead. The mariner is able to see the souls of his crew leave their bodies and it is at this point which he begins to feel remorse and guilt. "and every soul, it passed me by, like the wiz of my cross-bow!" (Coleridge 222). the mariner now knows that it was his actions that caused this and must take accountability for what he has done. Coleridge's use of the word "bow" in this quote is very important. It shows that now he does feel remorse for killing the bird because he feels it was as if his own bow killed those men. As the mariner begins to accept all f this information, he begins to realize that this is not his home. This is the home of nature and because he is a guest on these waters, he should appreciate it. "the many men, so beautiful! And they all dead and lie: and a thousand slimy things lived on; and so did I." (Coleridge 236). Now that the mariner has taken responsibility for his actions, he looks to God for forgiveness. Through prayer, he tries to ask for forgiveness but knows that in order to reach it, he must first repent. "I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; but or ever a prayer had gusht, a wicked whisper came, and made my heart dry as dust." (Coleridge 244).

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, it was written in the late 1700s. The poem’s setting starts during a wedding, an old mariner stops one of the wedding guests from going into the party to tell him a story. The mariner’s story takes place in a ship where he killed an albatross and everything started to go wrong for him and his crew. When the mariner’s story is ending he says that he has a pain to tell people about his story, this is why he stopped the wedding guest to tell him his story. The wedding guest decides not to go to the party because he became upset, he is now a “sadder” but “wiser” man. Coleridge uses many literary elements to make the story come together such as similes, personification, symbolism

The Mariner’s tale suggests a larger lesson about human life, expressing that humans are not superior to the rest of Creation and nature. Humans and all other life are equal inhabitants on planet Earth and must therefore treat each other with respect

In a religious context, the act of sin separates one’s self from god. Similarly, the Mariner’s separation from the metaphysical world provides a conceptual explanation for the trials set before him.

Coleridge 's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" tells the story of an ancient mariner who kills an albatross and brings upon himself and his ship 's crew a curse. The ancient mariner travels the world, unburdening his soul, telling his story to whomever needs to hear it. Shelley alludes to the poem several times.

In the end of the book, Walton does in a sense kill an albatross but instead of rougher seas and a curse, it’s the opposite affect. The albatross in that particular part is the Creature, and he decided that his death is needed in humanity.

From the beginning of this story, Coleridge introduces the idea of a connection between the physical and spiritual world. Before he even begins the main frame narrative, he opens his story with a section written in Latin. Here he refers to an unseen world that is constantly surrounding and interacting with the visible world, and makes the suggestion that there are far more things unseen then there are seen. This immediately opens up the readers mind to look beyond the physical realm and into that of a more spiritual one. (Intro of idea) At the beginning of this narrative, the Mariner physically grabs a wedding guest by the arm. Terrified, the guest demands to be released, “Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!” (299). The Mariner complies and releases the guest. But why is it that the Mariner has

Walton says, “But I have one want which I never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I feel as a most severe evil. I have no friend, Margaret (Shelley p.4).” He is going on a exploration but believes that if he has no friend to share the discovery with than the joy in it is lost. All R. Walton wants is a friend and someone to share the memories with. The Mariner also felt alone on the wide open ocean after his crew was killed, “Alone, alone, all, all alone/ Alone on a wide, wide sea!/ And never a saint took pity on/ my soul in agony (Coleridge 4).” The Mariner regrets the loss of his friends and he can’t handle the emptiness. It seems as if R. Walton would do almost anything for a friend which may lead to impulsive behavior. As a rule, most impulsive actions leads to trouble and regret later on. This is reflected in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” when he impulsively kills the albatross. Also seen in “The Ancient Mariner,” is that being alone for so long can lead to insanity, thus an unreliable narrator, which is a gothic characteristic. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” allows readers to compare parallels between the poem and “Frankenstein” to infer what is yet to

On the other hand, the mariner experiences solitude as part of his punishment for his sin. His experience came about as a result of his impulsive act of killing the albatross. Unlike the creature who has been unjustly subjected to isolation without a choice, the mariner has a choice. He could have chosen not to kill the bird. In a way, his solitude is self induced.

The poems’ histories will be kept brief as they are not the focus of the paper; so, put simply, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and was published in 1798 in a collaborative volume entitled Lyrical Ballads (“Samuel Taylor Coleridge”). For further historical context, it was during this year that the US Navy was originally formed (“Historical Events in 1798”). And while the origin of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is pretty straightforward, that of “The Seafarer” is more complicated. Originally it was anonymously included in a tenth-century text called The Exeter Book (Shmoop Editorial Team), but the more well known version is its reinterpretation by Ezra Pound, published in 1912 (“The Seafarer: RPO”). However, since Pound changed many of the original details and themes (“The Seafarer: RPO”), we’re going to be looking at an English translation of the original poem. Again, for further historical context, it was during the tenth century that the Chinese started making paper money, the Byzantine empire underwent a revival, and the feudal knight was popularized (“10th century - Oxford Reference”). Despite both poems being published nearly 800 years apart, they share a great many similarities. So without further ado, let’s delve into the surface similarities between the two poems.

It is this admission of guilt that allows the process of forgiveness for the Mariner to begin. It also allows the Albatross to become a reminder of the Mariner's sin, a representation of Christ's suffering, and a symbol of the Christian cross. In lines 40 and 41 it says, "Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung."

It is only when the Mariner began to bless all living things and saw beyond his own self that the Albatross fell off. He then felt a connection with nature and God, for Heaven sent down rain that refreshed the ancient Mariner and angelic spirits led him onward. He needed to change and become penitent before he could be rid of the guilt. In repenting, he was given a penance of life: whenever his heart burns within him, he must tell his tale to those who are meant to hear it.

In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge writes of a sailor bringing a tale to life as he speaks to a wedding guest. An ancient Mariner tells of his brutal journey through the Pacific Ocean to the South Pole. Coleridge suffers from loneliness, because of his lifelong need for love and livelihood; similarly, during the Mariner’s tale, his loneliness shows when he becomes alone at sea, because of the loss of his crew. Having a disastrous dependence to opium and laudanum, Coleridge, in partnership with Wordsworth, writes this complicated, difficult to understand, yet appealing poem, which becomes the first poem in the 1798 edition of Lyrical Ballads. The Mariner’s frame of mind flip-flops throughout the literary ballad, a

The lines that follow deal with death and punishment.  Part 3, describes how the sailors' "throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood!  I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! A sail! "  Then all the shipmates die "Four times fifty living men, (And I heard nor sigh nor groan) With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, They dropped down one by one."  And so the ancient mariner was "Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea!  A never a saint took pity on My soul in agony."  He sat

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, as a product of its culturally inscribed author, presents a confused Unitarian world view consistent with that of the Romantic Movement of its time. It attempts to exemplify this view within an unpredictable and often mysterious universe, and by rebuking the hegemonic ideologies held by the text’s cultural antagonists, seeks to grant the awareness of an often unreasonable world populated by its reader’s passionate persona.