The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and the Powers of the Imagination

The poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” by Samuel T. Coleridge, is a good example of the imagination’s ability to transport the poet, and his readers, to an entirely new and unreal place that only exists where reality doesn’t exist.  In this poem, the reader is transported to the mariner’s experience on the sea. Coleridge does this through his symbolism so that on the literal and allegorical level, the reader may experience a profound understanding of the human condition.

                The symbolism, which was very important to Coleridge in his works, is very Christian in content. For example, the entirety of the poem contains many references to God and spirits, and saints. In one instance, there is a direct reference to a Christian spirit: “As if it had been a Christian soul.” This line refers to the Albatross, the great sea bird which is a major focal point in the story line of the poem. The fact that there is so much symbolism in the poem implies that there is another level of meaning to be understood from the poem rather than just the literal interpretation one can make from the text. Furthermore, the relationship between the symbolism and its Christian basis most likely comes from the moral of the story which is, as a margin-note indicates, “And to teach by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.” This idea is derived from Christian’s call to be stewards of creation.

                The Albatross, a harmless but great sea bird in this poem can represent the beauty of innocence or plain innocence itself which is s often killed by human folly. The bird on the literal understanding of the poem is a good omen for the ship and her mates. This is understood form the lines “And a good south wind sprung up behind; and the Albatross did follow.”  This is easily taken to mean that the bird was good luck or good karma because although the fog and mist were heavy upon the ship and her surroundings, the ship was lead through the ice maze unharmed: “The ice did split with a thunder-fit; the helmsman steer’d us through!” This can be related to how an innocent person leads their life, blindly so, by believing in luck and goodness. Just like in the poem, when innocence is destroyed and a “knowing” is formed, life becomes harder. This idea parallels Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. A real life example is when we grow up and we find out that the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa are all a ruse, a scam, a lie, and life loses the mystery and magic that it had before.

                The different spirits mentioned in the poem might represent karma. The “blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint” represents the good karma that comes to the ancient mariner after he prays when he loses all 200 of his sailors and when he recognizes the beauty to be appreciated in the water snakes, who give more reason to kill than a peaceful Albatross. The Spirit of the South Pole is karma in its essence. This can be determined from the note, “The lonesome Spirit from the South pole carries on the ship as far as the Line, in obedience to the angelic troop but still requireth vengeance.” Although the Spirit was helping the ancient mariner and his ship, the spirit also required more revenge on the ancient mariner for his misdeed. The “Spirit nine fathoms deed” represents bad karma, the karma that followed the mariner after he killed the Albatross with his cross-bow.

                On a literal level, the mariner’s difficult experiences are self inflicted. E has no one to blame but himself. No one shot down the Albatross but him, therefore, it is only right he be punished and must live with the guilt for the rest of his life. Nothing warranted the mariner’s actions. The Albatross did not have to die. The mariner should have left well enough alone. Nowhere in the poem does even Coleridge give an explanation as to why the Albatross was shot. Moreover, when the mariner’s men die and his ship sinks “like lead,” and the curse forces him to travel from land to land, he loses his job, his identity, his life. This is part of a bigger them of life, reciprocity.  He took the life of the Albatross so the universe takes away his “life” and he is forced to live on land.

                I find the mariner’s action, killing the Albatross, to be very human of him. As humans, we destroy innocence, or ignorance, everyday with our curiosity. We destroy the beauty and magic of the world in our quest to seek the answers and understand   all that happens and why it happens. As a consequence of our, yes, selfish desire to know, we must live with the knowledge that the world is a bleak and unexciting place when we know everything In the case of the mariner, because he did not take care of the wonder of creation that God has bestowed upon us, he was taught a harsh lesson and his persisting guilt forces him to tell those whom he meets of his trials and tribulations forever so that no one else may make that mistake.

                The message Coleridge tries to impart to us, strictly based on the text is that when we do a great wrong, try as we might to avoid and forget it, we can’t. It becomes part of who we are and follows us for eternity. If you take a step further, the message also means that we will wake up the “morrow morn” much like the detained wedding guest, “a sadder and wiser man” when we destroy our own innocence.

                This certainly is quite a wild story and is obviously a journey through the imagination. The imagination, however, is not so totally novel that it is free of the same themes present in our daily lives. This poem comes from the sometimes opium influenced creativity of Samuel Coleridge but the message it carries is not an imaginary idea but a conventional moral found in every Bible. Although it was the Romantics’ belief that the imagination as a means of escape from one’s surroundings, trading the details of the current surroundings for new and different one’s of a different place, and it encourages the total rejection of convention, dealing with time and space, it is not free. We imagine things what we know, just in a more chaotic manner. This poem, as wild and transformative as it and the story are, they are still confined with expectations ingrained in us by society.