Essay about Reflection on Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Christian belief is that no matter what you do wrong or to what extent, you are always able to be forgiven. As long as you are able to realize and admit to what you've done wrong and are willing to pay for your sins and repent, you will always be forgiven in the eyes of God. In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the mariner is willing to repent. After committing his sins against nature, he comes to realize that it is not to be taken for granted. By realizing and expressing the beauty that nature is, the mariner is granted his forgiveness in return for penance; his telling of this story.

The symbolism in the “Rhyme of the ancient mariner” is said to be an impossible representation of the Christian story of reconciliation from sin, redemption and forgiveness for that sin, but the symbolism in this poem clearly contradicts those views. The poem is one of a great sin committed against nature and the supernatural - being God - and how the wrong doer was redeemed from that sin and his journey into realigning what he had done. The Mariner was punished for his sin by the supernatural and forces of nature while he was glorified by his crew mates for his skill that was shown in killing the albatross with a crossbow. This is often true in Biblical stories and modern day where one is glorified for earthly talents and is given fame, but what they are famous for contradicts God and his law. Other aspects of Christianity are embedded in this poem as well that are easily overlooked like when the Mariner prays to some force he does not know. He is guilty for his transgression and knows what he has done is wrong although the sin was committed with ill will not intended. Lastly this poem displays a value important to Christianity, but also to all other ideologies and the is the topic of justice for crimes committed and the Christian aspect of thats once justice is served salvation is needed and redemption takes place. All of these values presented by symbolism throughout this poem all point toward the idea that the story of the Mariner was meant to serve as an example of the

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 third stanza which marks the middle of the poem begins, "The Ocean said, Come flow freely with me" with ten syllables written in pentameter accompanied by iambic, spondee and trochee syllables. A steady rhythm in meter is noted in the next four lines which declines to trimeter for all four lines. Line fourteen, "and the creatures in my seas." contains pyrrhic, trochee and anapestic syllables. The fifteenth line in trimeter, "Here your tears will disappear," contains for the first time in the poem, a dactyllic syllable accompanied by the iambic syllable. Line sixteen, "and your worries will cease." contains again the iambic syllable now accompanied by the pyrrhic syllable. The last line in the series of trimeter lines is line seventeen which states, "Be the element that I need.". concludes the metered pattern. In lines fourteen through seventeen the meter is measured the same, however there is a new element added to the syllables previously used in the beginning stanzas. The repeated trimeter is suggestive of familiar situation but the new syllable is

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.

In the 1798 and the 1817 text of the, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, There are certain changes. Changes that effect the poem and the way that the reader sees the poem. Some of these changes include reading devices called glosses. There are many reasons for the glosses to be put into the poem. One of the reasons is to help the reader interpret lines in the poem that can be confusing. These glosses are a brief interpretation of the stanza, so that the reader will understand it the way that Coleridge intended them to. An example of this is:

only three short stanzas. By keeping it short he also allows the reader to interpret the poem

“From the sphere of my own experience I can bring to my recollection three persons of no every-day powers and acquirements, who had read the poems of others with more and more unallayed pleasure, and had thought more highly of their authors, as poets; who yet have confessed to me, that from no modern work had so many passages started up anew in their minds at different times, and as different occasions had awakened a meditative mood.” (2) (paragraph 31).

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.

Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than

He illustrates his belief that he does not need the good luck of the Albatross. He decides to severe his bonds with the universal cycle of life and love. Following the execution of the Albatross, the Mariner’s luck suddenly changes. He experiences the punishment that comes with the moral error of killing the Albatross. The punishment is isolation and alienation from everything but himself. Thereafter, the "Nightmare," the life in death, kills his crew. He is lost at sea, left alone in the night to suffer, and he has detached from his natural cycle. The Mariner proclaims his misery when he says, "Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! / And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony". To the Mariner, nature has become foreign. The execution of the Albatross causes physical and spiritual decay.

The poem begins with two lines which are repeated throughout the poem which convey what the narrator is thinking, they represent the voice in

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a parable of a seaman's crime against nature (pointlessly killing an albatross) and his repentance by blessing the lowly water-snakes.  Setting the poem in the Middle Ages in the then-unknown seas near Antarctica, the poet is able to make his narrative credible and give the reader what is called 'the willing suspension of disbelief.'  "

Four varying viewpoints exist concerning what or who the mariner represents, the first being the superficial idea that he is simply the wise old man who imparts wisdom to the younger generations (Williams 1116). Going beyond the literal connotation, the most common and supported argument it that the mariner represents the Christian sinner. The diction chosen by Coleridge often alludes to Christianity, examples include “Christian soul”, ”God’s name”, “[i]nstead of the cross…about my neck was hung”, and “Dear Lord in Heaven” (Coleridge 1616-1632). Howard Creed believes that the mariner is symbolically a poet, due to the fact that he learns “the great truth about the world they live in” and then attempts to communicate it to others through the art of a story (221). The final possibility is that the mariner represents a mother. Repeated connection to conventionally female things like the sea, motherhood, spontaneity/irrationality, and nature begins to support this conclusion. The role of instructing the young, in this case the wedding guest whom “listens like a three years’ child” is also traditionally female, further developing the argument (Coleridge 1616). Overall, the poem is an exemplar at employing Coleridge’s idea of symbol to use the ordinary to show the transcendent, especially Christianity, yielding that the second option is the preeminent choice.