Symbols and Poetry in Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge

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Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Humans naturally feel strongly about ones own personal religion, imagination, and individualism. Today freedom to think and speak for oneself is a common notion. In Europe during the end of the 18th century, freedom of thought was not as easy for the people. Artists express feelings and emotions through their art and for Samuel Taylor Coleridge, his poems illustrate what some people of his time period were afraid to say. During the Romantic era when imagination and nature was stressed, Samuel Coleridge used his poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner to reflect his ideas based on religion through symbols and poetry.
The importance of religion during the Romantic period was massive. The people of this time period often turned to religion when faced with unexplainable events. In an academic journal reviewing Coleridge’s poem, Christopher Stokes says, “(The poem) Focuses on the irrational moral order presented in the poem and its foundation in the Christian doctrine of original sin” (Stokes 1). Coleridge’s work is essentially a large prayer by having the Mariner learn through experience within his journey. At the beginning of part III the Mariner could not speak because he was so thirsty. The inability to speak comes from the punishment the Mariner received for his actions or in the Christian view, sins. In addition to speaking the Mariner also was cursed with the loss of ability to pray. The Mariner had to deal with the lack of water in the poem. The Mariner was forced to find a way out of the drought when he said, “With 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!” (Co...

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...Cited
Al-Rashid, Amer H. M. "Between Flux And Fixity: Negotiations Of Space In Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner." Cross-Cultural Communication 7.3 (2011): 59-71. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Greenblatt, Stephen, gen. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. 
A. New York: Norton, 2012. Print.
Rudolf, Matthias. "Unspeakable Discovery: Romanticism And The “Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”." European Romantic Review 24.2 (2013): 185-210. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Smith, C U. "Coleridge's "Theory Of Life." Journal Of The History Of Biology 32.1 (1999): 31-50. MEDLINE. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Stokes, Christopher. "My Soul In Agony": Irrationality And Christianity In The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner." Studies In Romanticism 50.1 (2011): 3-28. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.

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