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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Poetry & Opera

   One of a set of engraved metal plate illustrations by Gustave Doré.
   One of a set of engraved metal plate illustrations by Gustave Doré.

   The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem written by the English poet
   Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797– 1799 and published in the first
   edition of Lyrical Ballads ( 1798). It is Coleridge's longest major
   poem. Along with other poems in Lyrical Ballads, it was a signal shift
   to modern poetry, and the beginnings of British Romantic literature.

Plot summary

   Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

   The Rime of the Ancient Mariner relates the supernatural events
   experienced by a mariner on a long sea voyage. The Mariner stops a man
   who is on the way to a wedding ceremony, and begins to recite his
   story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement and
   impatience to fascination as the Mariner's story progresses.

   The Mariner's tale begins with his big purple ship leaving harbour;
   despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven off course by a storm
   and, driven south, eventually reaches Antarctica. An albatross,
   traditionally a good omen, appears and leads them out of the
   threatening land of ice; even as the albatross is praised by the ship's
   crew, however, the Mariner shoots it with a crossbow, for reasons
   unknown (with my cross-bow / I shot the albatross). The other sailors
   are angry with the Mariner, as they thought the albatross brought the
   South Wind that led them out of the Antarctic: (Ah, wretch, said they /
   the bird to slay / that made the breeze to blow). However, the sailors
   change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist
   disappears: ('Twas right, said they, such birds to slay / that bring
   the fog and mist). The crime arouses the wrath of supernatural spirits
   who then pursue the ship "from the land of mist and snow"; the south
   wind which had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the
   ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed.

     Day after day, day after day,
     We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
     As idle as a painted ship
     Upon a painted ocean.
     Water, water, everywhere,
     And all the boards did shrink;
     Water, water, everywhere,
     Nor any drop to drink.

   Here, however, the sailors change their minds again and blame the
   Mariner for the torment of their thirst, and hang the albatross around
   the mariner's neck as a sign of his guilt: (Ah! Well a-day! What evil
   looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross, the albatross
   / About my neck was hung). Eventually, in an eerie passage, the ship
   encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the
   "Night-mare Life-in-Death" (a deathly-pale woman), who are playing dice
   for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death wins the
   lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the mariner, a
   prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the
   mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment
   for his killing of the albatross.

   One by one all two hundred crew members die, but the Mariner lives on,
   seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's
   corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces. Their faces
   all stare back at him just before they fall down. They persih in water
   amd fire. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is lifted when he sees sea
   creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as "slimy
   things" earlier in the poem, he suddenly sees their true beauty and
   blesses them (a spring of love gush'd from my heart and I bless'd them
   unaware); suddenly, as he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his
   neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew,
   possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home,
   where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. As
   penance for his deed, the Mariner is forced to wander the earth and
   tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets:

     He prayeth best, who loveth best
     All things both great and small;
     For the dear God who loveth us,
     He made and loveth all.

   Spoilers end here.

Background

   The poem may have been inspired by James Cook's second voyage of
   exploration ( 1772- 1775) of the South Seas and the Pacific Ocean;
   Coleridge's tutor, William Wales, was the astronomer on Cook's flagship
   and had a strong relationship with Cook. On his second voyage Cook
   plunged repeatedly below the Antarctic Circle to determine whether the
   fabled great southern continent existed. Critics have also opined that
   the poem may have been inspired by the voyage of Thomas James into the
   Arctic. "Some critics think that Coleridge drew upon James’s account of
   hardship and lamentation in writing The rime of the ancient mariner."

   According to William Wordsworth, the poem was inspired whilst
   Coleridge, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were on a walking tour
   through the Quantock Hills in Somerset. The journey started at about 4
   pm, on 13 November 1797. The discussion had turned to a book that
   Wordsworth was reading, A Voyage Round The World by way of the Great
   South Sea ( 1726), by Captain George Shelvocke. In the book, a
   melancholy sailor shoots a black albatross:

     We all observed, that we had not the sight of one fish of any kind,
     since we were come to the Southward of the streights of le Mair, nor
     one sea-bird, except a disconsolate black Albatross, who accompanied
     us for several days (...), till Hattley, (my second Captain)
     observing, in one of his melancholy fits, that this bird was always
     hovering near us, imagin'd, from his colour, that it might be some
     ill omen. (...) He, after some fruitless attempts, at length, shot
     the Albitross, not doubting we shout have a fair wind after it.

   As they discussed Shelvocke's book, Wordsworth suggested to Coleridge,
   "Suppose you represent him as having killed one of these birds on
   entering the south sea, and the tutelary spirits of these regions take
   upon them to avenge the crime." By the time the trio finished their
   walk, the poem had taken shape.

   The poem may also have been inspired by the legend of the Wandering
   Jew, who was forced to wander the Earth until Judgement Day, for
   taunting Jesus on the day of the Crucifixion. Having shot the albatross
   the Mariner is forced to wear the bird about his neck as a symbol of
   guilt. Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung.
   This supports the idea of the Wandering Jew, who is branded with a
   cross as a symbol of guilt.

   It is also thought that Coleridge, a known user of opium, could have
   been under the drug's effects when he wrote some of the more strange
   parts of the poem, especially the Voices of The Spirits communicating
   with each other.

   The poem received mixed reviews from critics, and Coleridge was once
   told by the publisher that most of the book's sales were to sailors who
   thought it was a naval songbook. Coleridge made several modifications
   to the poem over the years. In the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (
   1800), he replaced many of the archaic words.

Coleridge's comments on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

   In Biographia Literaria XIV, Coleridge writes:

     The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect)
     that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one,
     incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural, and
     the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the
     affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would
     naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real
     in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever
     source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under
     supernatural agency. For the second class, subjects were to be
     chosen from ordinary life...In this idea originated the plan of the
     ‘Lyrical Ballads’; in which it was agreed, that my endeavours should
     be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least
     romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human
     interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these
     shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the
     moment, which constitutes poetic faith....With this view I wrote the
     ‘Ancient Mariner’.

   In Table Talk, 1830-32, Coleridge wrote:

     Mrs Barbauld tole me that the only faults she found with the Ancient
     Mariner were – that it was improbable and had no moral. As for the
     probability – to be sure that might admit some question – but I told
     her that in my judgment the poem had too much moral, and that too
     openly obtruded on the reader, It ought to have no more moral than
     the story of the merchant sitting down to eat dates by the side of a
     well and throwing the shells aside, and the Genii starting up and
     saying he must kill the merchant, because a date shell had put out
     the eye of the Genii’s son.

Wordsworth's comments on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

   Wordsworth wrote to Joseph Cottle in 1799:

     From what I can gather it seems that the Ancyent Mariner has upon
     the whole been an injury to the volume, I mean that the old words
     and the strangeness of it have deterred readers from going on. I f
     the volume should come to a second Edition I would put in its place
     some little things which would be more likely to suit the common
     taste.

   However, when Lyrical Ballads was reprinted, Wordsworth included it
   despite Coleridge’s objections, writing:

     The Poem of my Friend has indeed great defects; first, that the
     principal person has no distinct character, either in his profession
     of Mariner, or as a human being who having been long under the
     control of supernatural impressions might be supposed himself to
     partake of something supernatural; secondly, that he does not act,
     but is continually acted upon; thirdly, that the events having no
     necessary connection do not produce each other; and lastly, that the
     imagery is somewhat too laboriously accumulated. Yet the Poem
     contains many delicate touches of passion, and indeed the passion is
     every where true to nature, a great number of the stanzas present
     beautiful images, and are expressed with unusual felicity of
     language; and the versification, though the metre is itself unfit
     for long poems, is harmonious and artfully varied, exhibiting the
     utmost powers of that metre, and every variety of which it is
     capable. It therefore appeared to me that these several merits (the
     first of which, namely that of the passion, is of the highest kind)
     gave to the Poem a value which is not often possessed by better
     Poems.

Interpretations

   There are many different interpretations of the poem. Some critics
   believe that the poem is a metaphor of original sin in Eden with the
   subsequent regret of the mariner and the rain seen as a baptism.

   Although the poem is often read as a Christian Allegory, Jerome McGann
   argues that it is really a story of our salvation of Christ, rather
   than the other way round. The structure of the poem, according to
   McGann, is influenced by Coleridge's interest in Higher Criticism and
   its function "was to illustrate a significant continuity of meaning
   between cultural phenomena that seemed as diverse as pagan
   superstitions, Catholic theology, Aristotelian science, and
   contemporary philological theory, to name only a few of the work's
   ostentatiously present materials."

In popular culture

   A statue of the Ancient Mariner at Watchet Harbour, Somerset, England,
   unveiled in September 2003 as a tribute to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Ah !
   well a-day! what evil looksHad I from old and young!Instead of the
   cross, the AlbatrossAbout my neck was hung.
   A statue of the Ancient Mariner at Watchet Harbour, Somerset, England,
   unveiled in September 2003 as a tribute to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
   Ah ! well a-day! what evil looks
   Had I from old and young!
   Instead of the cross, the Albatross
   About my neck was hung.

Literature

     * In Chapter Twelve of C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,
       Aslan the Great Lion takes the form of an albatross to guide the
       Dawn Treader to safety.
     * In James M. Cain's crime novel Double Indemnity, Phyllis is
       described as the creature who came on board ship to shoot dice in
       "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." She dresses up in a red shroud
       and pale makeup.
     * In My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, Durrell's
       brother, Larry, confuses an albatross with a gull and interprets it
       to be a sign of misfortune. The poem is mentioned by name.
     * In Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, Claudia is described
       with the following verse:

                Her lips were red, her looks were free
                Her locks were yellow as gold
                Her skin was as white as leprosy
                The Night-mare Life-in-death was she
                Who thicks man's blood with cold

     * The poem features prominently in the plot of Douglas Adams's novel
       Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It also had a large
       influence on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
     * A portion of the poem was recited by Wonder Woman as the body of
       the Viking Prince and his longship were sent into the Sun, during
       the Justice League Unlimited episode "To Another Shore".
     * In issue #36 ("Boy Loses Girl") of Y: The Last Man, Hero Brown,
       referring to her brother Yorick Brown, tells Beth Deville "...don't
       let him become an albatross, you know?"
     * In Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins, the poem
       "Workshop" describes how the title of the work in question gets the
       author's attention--"like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the
       sleeve"
     * In Lights Out by Peter Abrahams, the protagonist Eddie Nye has
       memorized the poem during his 15 years in prison. He ponders many
       aspects of the poem as his own story unfolds. The plot of the novel
       reflects several aspects of the poem.
     * In Chapter 7 of Bram Stoker's Dracula, it is mentioned in reference
       to the arrival of the doomed Russian schooner The Demeter.
     * The cartoonist Hunt Emerson produced a graphic novel illustrating
       the poem, and featuring his usual quota of visual puns, gags and
       grotesque caricatures. The text, however, is essentially used
       verbatim.
     * The poem is referenced in the chapter titled "Campus of interzone
       university" in William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch.
     * In James Tiptree, Jr.'s short science fiction story, Painwise, the
       protagonist says, "Her lips were red, her locks were free, her
       locks were yellow as gold. . .The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was she,
       who thicks man's blood with cold."
     * Comic book author Bill Everett based his most famous character, the
       Sub-Mariner, on this poem.
     * In Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife, the poem "Thetis" contains a
       verse with relation to Coleridge's original poem:

                Then I did this:
                Shouldered the cross of an albatross
                up the hill of the sky,
                Why? To follow a ship.
                But I felt my wings
                clipped by the squint of a crossbow's eye.

     * The poem is heavily referred to in Connie Willis' novel Passage.
     * In the book Club Dead by Charlaine Harris the main character,
       Sookie Stackhouse, quotes the lines, "Water, water, everywhere /
       Nor any drop to drink" when she is surrounded by very attractive
       but homosexual men.
     * In the book Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, Jubal
       refers to human morals as an "Albatross around the neck".
     * In Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series, the Mariner is an
       ancient and powerful being. He claims his real name is Captain Tom
       Shelvocke, and he mentions accidently shooting an albatross.

Television and film

     * The poem is extensively featured in the film Pandaemonium, which is
       based on the early lives of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dorothy
       Wordsworth and William Wordsworth.
     * In the film adaptation of the novel Charlie and the Chocolate
       Factory, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the character Willy
       Wonka says "Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere, but not a drop to
       drink...yet."
     * The theme song from Gilligan's Island shares the same rhyme scheme
       as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
     * In Richard O'Brien's Shock Treatment, the character Betty Hapschatt
       recites the entire poem to Judge Oliver Wright who, along with an
       entire theatre of people, has fallen asleep by its closing lines.
       When the lights are turned back on, the security guard Vance
       threateningly presents her with a dead white bird.
     * In the ITV1/ A&E nautical adventure series Hornblower, Captain Sir
       Edward Pellew quotes "As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted
       ocean" when his own frigate is becalmed in the episode "The Frogs
       and the Lobsters".
     * In The Wizard of Oz, the Wizard says to the Scarecrow, "Every
       pusillanimous creature that crawls on the earth or slinks through
       slimy seas has a brain!"
     * In the season one episode of seaQuest DSV entitled "Hide and Seek",
       Captain Bridger quotes from the poem in order to convince Commander
       Ford that it is the correct course of action to allow an
       ex-dictator named Tezlof (as well as Tezlof's autistic son) safe
       passage on the seaQuest.
     * Joss Whedon wove the major themes of this epic poem through the TV
       series Firefly and the film Serenity. The significance of the
       albatross in this setting becomes clear when a main character (
       Malcolm Reynolds) gives the line, "Way I remember it...albatross
       was a ship's good luck till some idiot killed it." Then, in typical
       Whedonesque fashion, he turns to Inara Serra and states, "Yes, I've
       read a poem. Try not to faint."
     * In The Ice Dream, an irreverent Australian talk show covering the
       2002 Winter Olympics, the hosts said that a curse had been put on
       Australia's Winter Olympic team after Cedric Sloane skewered a
       seagull in a cross-country skiing event at the Oslo Winter
       Olympics, which could only be lifted by the team winning a gold
       medal.
     * In an episode of The Simpsons, " Boy-Scoutz N the Hood", Homer
       Simpson says "Don't you know the poem? 'Water, water, everywhere,
       so let's all have a drink.'"
     * There is a 1952 Looney Tunes short entitled " Water, Water Every
       Hare".
     * In the " Super Trivia" episode of the television show Aqua Teen
       Hunger Force, Master Shake says to both Meatwad and Frylock that
       they're "Albacores around my neck," which Frylock corrects by
       replying "that's Albatross!"
     * In Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl the crew
       share a similar curse to that of the Ancient Mariner.
     * In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, something happens
       that is quite comparable to "playing dice for the souls of the
       crew."
     * Monty Python's Flying Circus has a sketch called Albatross.
     * " The Rescuers" series has an albatross as the means of airtravel
     * In the film Out of Africa Denys Finch-Hatton quotes from the Rime
       of the Ancient Mariner as he washes Karen's hair. She says "you're
       skipping verses" and he replies "Well, I leave out the dull parts".
     * In the third last episode of the Australian television series
       'Seachange', Max compares the failure of his relationship with
       Laura to the Mariner shooting down the Albatross.

Music

     * "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is a song on the British heavy
       metal band Iron Maiden's album Powerslave. It is a 14-minute epic
       based on Coleridge's poem and containing many direct quotes.
     * The album cover of Australian singer Sarah Blasko's album What The
       Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have was inspired by an illustration of The
       Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A song from the album, "Queen of
       Apology", features the line "Truth, truth, everywhere, but not a
       drop to drink." The album also features a song titled "The
       Albatross".
     * A song from the album Spiderland, "Good Morning Captain", by
       American underground rock band Slint, is an adaptation of this
       poem.
     * Cecil F. Alexander hymn " All Things Bright and Beautiful",
       published in 1848, contains the following refrain which echoes the
       sentiment of the Ancient Mariner:

                All things bright and beautiful,
                All creatures great and small,
                All things wise and wonderful:
                The Lord God made them all.

     * Shane MacGowan of the Irish punk rock band The Pogues makes
       reference to "a minstrel. . .stoppeth one in three" in the song "
       Fiesta".
     * The Flogging Molly song "Rebels of the Sacred Heart" has the line
       "the albatross hangin' round your neck is the cross you bear for
       your sins."
     * The band Corrosion of Conformity has a song called Albatross, in
       which the lyricist warns the albatross away. The lyricist also
       states, "I believe the albatross is me".

Other

     * Baseball pitcher Diego Segui, who was pitching for the Seattle
       Mariners at the age of 40, was tagged by sportswriters as "The
       Ancient Mariner".
     * Since 1978, the U.S. Coast Guard has recognized the active duty
       member with the most accumulated time aboard its ships and an
       exemplary character as the "Ancient Mariner", as noted in the list
       of USCG Medals and Awards ( pdf).
     * In the collectible/playable card game Magic: The Gathering, there
       is a card named and fashioned after the Will o' the Wisp described
       in the poem; the card even features flavor text with a pertinent
       excerpt from the poem:

                About, about in reel and rout,
                The death-fires danced at night;
                The water, like a witch's oils,
                Burnt green, and blue and white

     * Another card from Magic: The Gathering called "Scathe Zombies"
       features another quote:

                They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
                Nor spake nor moved their eyes;
                It had been strange even in a dream,
                To have seen those dead men rise.

     * And yet another card from Magic: The Gathering called "Wall of Ice"
       features another quote:

                And through the drifts the snowy clifts
                Did send a dismal sheen:
                Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken--
                the ice was all between

     * A card from the Magic: The Gathering "Homelands Set", called "Giant
       Albatross", has the special ability to destroy all creatures that
       are damaged by it. The controller of that creature could pay two
       life points to prevent this special effect, injuring himself to
       save a creature he controls. As a result the Giant Albatross is put
       into the discard pile when played.
     * In the computer game Marathon Infinity, one of the levels is named
       "One thousand thousand slimy things", a line in the poem.

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