Analysis and summary of Samuel Taylor

Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient

Mariner”

As an introduction to the poem’s first segment,

through the first four of its parts, three young men are
walking together to a wedding, when one of them is
unexpectedly detained by a rough looking old sailor.
The detainee angrily demands that the Mariner let go of
him, order which the latter obeys to, however, the young
man becomes transfixed with the ancient Mariner’s
“glittering eye” and can do nothing but listen to his
strange tale. The Mariner proceeds to say that he sailed
on a ship out of his native harbour, into a sunny and
cheerful sea. Having heard music drifting from the
direction of the wedding, the young guest imagines the
bride has entered the hall, yet he is too enthralled to the
story. The Mariner recalls that the voyage quickly
darkened due to a giant storm that formed up in the sea
and chased the ship southward. The ship soon came to a
frigid land, becoming hemmed inside a terrible maze of
ice; but then, the sailors encountered a great sea bird, an
albatross, which, as it flew around the ship, made the ice
crack and split, forming a gust of wind that blewe from
the south and propelled the ship out the said frigid
region, into a foggy stretch of water. The Albatross
followed behind, feat interpreted as a symbol of good
luck amongst sailors. A pained sneaked across the
Mariner’s face look suddenly interrupting his story
telling, driving the young listener to curiosity, and upon
a brief inquiry, the Mariner confesses to having shot and
killed the mystical Albatross with his crossbow.

At first, the other sailors were furious with the

Mariner for having committed such a murderous deed
upon the bird that made the breezes blow, but when the
fogs lifted, they realised that the bird had not brought the
tailwind, but the fog itself, and they congratulated the
Mariner. The wind pushed the ship into a silent sea
where the sailors ended up stranded, with the winds
dying down. The ocean thickened, there was no water to
drink; then, as if the sea were rotting, slimy creatures
crawled out of it and walked across its surface. At night,
the water burned green, blue, and white with the flame
of death. Some sailors dreamed that a spirit, nine
fathoms deep, followed them from beneath the ship
originating from the land of mist and snow. The sailors
then, pushed by despair, blamed the Mariner for their
plight and hung the corpse of the Albatross around his
neck in a manner similar to a crucifix.

A weary time passed; the sailors became so

parched, their mouths so dry, that they were unable to
speak. But one day, gazing westward the Mariner saw a
tiny speck on the horizon. It resolved into a ship, moving
towards them. Too dry-mouthed to speak out and inform
the others, the Mariner bit down on his arm; sucking on
his very own blood, he was able to moisten his tongue
enough to regain the ability to cry out “A sail! A sail!”
The sailors smiled, believing they were saved. But as te
ship neared, they saw that it was a ghostly, skeletal hull
of a ship and that its crew included two figures: Death
and the Night-mare Life-in-Death, who takes the form of
a pale woman with golden locks and red lips, and “thick
man’s blood with cold.” Death and Life-in-Death began
to throw dice, and the woman won, whereupon she
whistled three times, causing the sun to sink to the
horizon, the stars to instantly emerge. As the moon rose,
chased by a single star, the sailors dropped dead one by
one- all except the Mariner himself, whom each sailor
cursed “with his eye” before dying. The soul of the dead
men leapt from their bodies and rushed by the Mariner.

The Wedding-Guest declares that he fears the

Mariner, with his glittering eye and skinny hand. The
Mariner reassures the Wedding-Guest that there is no
need for dread; he was not among the men who died,
and he is a living man, not a ghost. Alone on the ship,
surrounded by two hundred corpses and subject to the
aforementioned slimy sea and its creatures’ whispers he
tried to pray, but he couldn’t. For seven nights and days
the Mariner endured the sight of the dead men, each
glaring at him with the malice of their final curse, and
yet he was unable to die. At last, the moon rose, casting
the great shadow of the ship across the waters; where the
ship’s shadow touched the waters, they burned red. The
great water snakes moved through the silvery moonlight,
glittering; blue, green and black, the snakes coiled and
swam and became beautiful in the Mariner’s eyes. He
blessed the beautiful creatures in his heart; at that
moment, he found himself able to pray, and the corpse
of the Albatross fell from his neck, sinking “like lead
into the sea”.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is written in

loose, short ballad stanzas usually either four or six lines
long but, occasionally, as many as nine lines long. The
meter is also somewhat loose, but odd lines are generally
tetrameter, while even lines are generally trimester. The
rhymes generally alternate in an ABAB or ABABAB
scheme, though again there are many exceptions.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is unique

among Coleridge’s important works, unique in its
intentionally archaic language and its length as well as
its bizarre moral narrative. Its composition produces the
impression, as intended by Coleridge, that the “Rime” is
a ballad of old, ancient times, reprinted with explanatory
notes to serve as mediator for a fresher audience.

The notes, however, more often complicate rather

than clarify the poem as a whole. While there are times
that they explain some unarticulated action, there are
also times that they interpret the material of the poem in
a way that seems at odds with the poem itself. The
symbolism of it, albeit hard to decipher, is mainly
interpreted as Christian parable, the Mariner being
subject to the worst of his trials during the first segment
of the poem, only to be redeemed through his curse,
gaining access to the favour of God and ability to pray,
only by realizing that the monsters around him are all
beautiful in His eyes and that he should love them as he
should have loved the Albatross he slew. This message
will be spelled out explicitly by the Mariner’s encounter
with a Hermit in the next and final three books of the
poem, and the reader will learn why the Mariner has
stopped the Wedding-guest to share his story.

The Mariner continues telling his story to the

Wedding-Guest. Free of the curse of the Albatross, the
Mariner was able to sleep once more, and as he did so,
the rains came, drenching him. The moon broke through
the clouds, and a host of spirits entered the dead men’s
bodies, which began to move about and perform their
old mortal tasks. The ship was then propelled forward as
the Mariner tagged along the work of the crewmen. The
Wedding-Guest is yet again shaken, declaring that he is
afraid of the Mariner, but he tells him that the men’s
bodies were inhabited by blessed spirits, not cursed
souls. At dawn, the bodies clustered about, and sweet
sounds rose up from their mouths- the sounds of the
spirits leaving their bodies. The spirits flew around the
ship, singing. The ship continued to surge forward until
noon, driven by the spirit from the land of mist and
snow, nine fathoms deep in the sea (in a similar fashion
as the spirits pursuing it at the start of the journey). At
noon, however, the ship stopped, then began to move
backwards and forward as if it were trapped in a tug of
war. It finally broke free causing the Mariner to fall to
the deck with the jolt of the sudden acceleration. He
heard two disembodied voices in the air; one asked if he
was the man who had killed the Albatross, and the other
declared softly that he had done penance for his crime
and would do more before all was rectified.

In dialogue, the two voices discussed the situation,

The moon overpowered the sea, they said, and enabled
the ship to move; an angelic power moved the ship
northward at an astonishingly rapid pace. When the
Mariner awoke from his trance, he saw the dead men
standing together, looking at him. But a breeze rose up
and propelled the ship back to its native country, the
Mariner’s homeland. As they neared the bay, seraphs-
figures made of pure light- stepped out of the corpses of
the sailors, which fell to the deck. Each seraph waved at
the Mariner, who was powerfully moved. Soon, he heard
the sound of oars; the Pilot, the Pilot’s so, and the holy
Hermit were rowing towards him. The Mariner hoped
that the Hermit could absolve him of his sin, washing
the blood of the Albatross off his soul.

The Hermit, a holy man who lived in the woods

and loved to talk to mariners from strange lands, had
encouraged the Pilot and his son not to be afraid and to
row out to the ship. But as they reached the Mariner’s
ship, it sank in a sudden whirlpool, leaving the Mariner
afloat and the Pilot’s rowboat spinning in the wake. The
Mariner was loaded aboard the Pilot’s ship, and the
Pilot’s boy, mad with terror, laughed hysterically and
declared that the devil knows how to row. On land, the
Mariner begged the Hermit to shrive him, and the
Hermit bade the Mariner tell his tale. Once it was told,
the Mariner was free from the agony of his guilt.
However, the guilt returned over time and persisted until
the Mariner travelled to a new place and told his tale
again. The moment he comes upon the man to whom he
is destined to tell his tale, he knows it, and he has no
choice but to relate the story then and there to his
appointed audience; the Wedding-Guest is one such
person.

The church doors burst open, and the wedding

party streams outside. The Mariner declares to the
Wedding-Guest that he who loves all God’s creatures
leads a happier, better life; he then takes his leave. The
Wedding-Guest walks away from the party, stunned, and
awakes the next morning “a sadder and a wiser man.”

The second segment of the “Rime” concludes the

Mariner’s narrative. Here he meets the host of seraph-
like spirits who rescue his ship by entering the corpses
of the fallen, and it is also here that he earns his moral
salvation through confession in subsequent deed which
he must carry on with throughout his life- including this
one, carried out to the Wedding-Guest. Less magical in
its demeanor than the first segment, almost as if making
the reader come back on its two feet from the
compelling universe put together by the poem,
concluding the general confusion and carrying out a
strong, deep undertone; although accepting the realities
of this world might make us sad, it does make us wiser,
thus contributing to us leading a better, more purposeful
existence.