The Mariner's Penance

JR Hilcher English 12 Mrs. Mavrikos 8 March 2014 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Research Paper The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was published in 1798 by the notorious author Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a first person account of a sailor who had just returned from a long sea voyage. At the beginning, The Mariner decides to stop a man who is on his way to a wedding celebration, as this happens, the Mariner decides to narrate what happened on his trip.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a tale of crime and penance on the high seas. Written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poem takes place on a vast and unforgiving sea, where an old mariner must come to terms with his sins and the folly of humankind. Although, the core story of the poem is agreed upon, its finer details and intricacies remain a highly debated topic among literary critics. In my opinion, it is the story of the heavy price one must pay for disrupting the order of nature. Others debate that the tale is about the penance one must pay after committing a crime against God himself. Regardless, the tale remains that of a man who spent his life atoning for his crimes.

Occasionally, the wisest people are often the sadest. The harsh realities of the world often take an effect on the experienced individuals, causing a depressed mindset. The world as we know it has many luxuries, but with those commodities also comes sorrow and miseries. One piece of literature that shows this relationship is Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A sailor is cursed for killing an albatross, and primarily lives to tell the tale of the ghost ship. The mariner informs a young man who is about to attend a wedding. The boy decides to bypass the wedding after hearing the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and flees the conversation

The beginning of all zombie movies, and the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes the birth of both of these topics in his short story The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a story written in the Romantic generation. While Coleridge wrote this short story, along with many other stories, Coleridge was under the influence of drugs. Whether he was under the influence or not, Coleridge wrote a story that would forever change the views of many stories. In the following text, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Mariner’s lifelong penance deals with the burden of killing of an Albatross, and finally how the story affects the listener, and a lesson about human life; dealing with taking things for granted.

Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner can be interpreted in many different ways regarding the question of the relationship between the man and the nature. According to Geoffrey H. Hartman "Coleridge's poem traces the 'dim and perilous way' of a soul that has broken with nature and feels the burdenous guilt of selfhood" (48). Robert Penn Warren explains his perception and “the primary theme in this poem as the theme of sacramental vision, or the

In conclusion, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a great example for our society to view and learn from. Going all the way from a lifelong Penance, to how someone should feel about a deep set poem, and finally how it affects our lives as a society and how we view nature. Coleridge does a magnificent job at explaining just this, the importance of nature in our society.

The fear of being sent, either by force or self enforced, into exile was a common fear of the Anglo-Saxon society. This exile could be interpreted both as an exile on Earth and exile from Heaven to Earth. To be exiled means to be utterly alone with only thoughts to accompany a person. The possibility of exile was terrifying to the Anglo-Saxon people because they were so dependant on the village or town they lived in along with the people in it. A warrior would live to serve his lord in battles. Without a lord or community, there was nowhere to go and nothing to do. As the Christian religion crept into Anglo-Saxon culture, religious metaphors also began to show in the ancient text. The exile these people feared could also be interpreted as being banished from heaven to live on earth. From this interpretation, it was thought that if one lived a good life, he or she would be reunited with God eventually.

Though the interpretation that the Mariner’s cursed immortal life is an accursed state of penance for his lack of reverence for one of God’s creatures could certainly be made given Coleridge’s clear vested interest in deny the explained supernatural as attributed to the divine, it is more likely that the Mariner’s governed by a force more ancient and, in a manner of speaking, more holistic than the God of Christianity. The Mariner’s rationale behind killing the Albatross is certainly rather ambiguous as Coleridge seems to give little credence to the event itself in the grand scheme of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner I interpret the Mariner’s subtextual motivations not as an effort on Coleridge’s behalf to showcase an instance of spiting God, but rather as a moment of mankind’s ill-advised assertion of dominance over the natural world. This harkens back to philosophies of Thomas Burnet from Archaeologiae philosophicae in which it is suggested that the writing, publication, and widespread popularity of the Bible is an effort on the part of humankind of assert dominance over the unknown through crafting a Creation mythology. Later in The Rime, when the Mariner is surrounded by

The Allegory of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner According to Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia, an allegory is described as a fictional literary narrative or artistic expression that conveys a symbolic meaning parallel to but distinct from, and more important than, the literal meaning. This is true in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. " "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is an allegory that symbolizes the inherent struggle of humans facing the ideas of sin and redemption.

The difference between the punishment of the mariner and that of his crew is the crew all died in an instance and the mariner was left among his dead crew. For example, in “With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, / They dropped down one by one.” (PIII, ST17) shows how vividly the mariner experiences about two hundred deaths on his ship. I believe the mariner’s punishment was just; however, if you consider it a punishment. One may look at it and say this event is a blessing because the mariner did not die while all of the men died, while others can say this is a punishment because he had to suffer watching about two hundred men dying while looking at him. Pertaining to the question, I believe the punishment was just because the mariner killed a harmless