“Water, water, everywhere / Nor any drop to drink” (Coleridge lines II.121-122). These often repeated lines of poetry are found in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, undoubtedly Samuel Coleridge’s most famous work. As this poem opens, the reader finds the Mariner, a former sailor, pulling aside a man to listen to a harrowing adventure he once had while at sea. Despite expressing reluctance at first, this man, simply referred to as the Wedding Guest, is soon spellbound by the Mariner and compelled to listen to his story. This woeful tale leaves him “[a] sadder and a wiser man” (VII.624), but what exactly about this story has evoked this response? Though Coleridge does not specify, the reader can speculate on such reasons by assuming that what he gleaned from his own reading is similar to what the guest has learned. Three lessons, each bringing a touch of sorrow along with increased wisdom, the Wedding Guest acquired as he listened were that it is beneficial to share personal past mistakes, that every sin has a consequence, and that all things must be shown love.
The Wedding Guest learned how imparting the wisdom of personal experiences on those willing to listen is profitable both to the listener as well as the speaker. As he listened to the Mariner, he could not help but see a reflection of himself in the story. With sadness, he began to see his own shortcomings and realized he was not that different from the Mariner. This tale simply cast a light of awareness on these issues. Perhaps, he too had a story that would benefit others and provide a way to reach out to them. Seeing that with experiences comes knowledge, he began to discern the value of such times He realized how much he had learned in his darkest moments, but that he had...
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...d and that it not only affects the offender but those around him as well. His final lesson taught him that love must be his outlook on life, for without this, his life would be an empty void. These lessons came to the Wedding Guest who never suspected his life would be forever changed when stopped by an elderly gentleman, the Mariner, with a powerfully moving tale. Near completion of this poem, the two parted ways, but the Wedding Guest left forever a changed person. Ecclesiastes 1:18 sums up the effect of the Mariner’s tale on this person: “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” It is very true that the Wedding Guest left “[a] sadder and a wiser man” (Coleridge lines VII.624), but this helped him to become a better person For that, he is indebted to the unexpected blessings brought when stopped by the Ancient Mariner.
The author shows the reader the sea just as the sailor does as death, but more than death
The story describes the protagonist who is coming of age as torn between the two worlds which he loves equally, represented by his mother and his father. He is now mature and is reflecting on his life and the difficulty of his childhood as a fisherman. Despite becoming a university professor and achieving his father’s dream, he feels lonely and regretful since, “No one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly in the waters of the pier” (MacLeod 261). Like his father, the narrator thinks about what his life could have been like if he had chosen another path. Now, with the wisdom and experience that comes from aging and the passing of time, he is trying to make sense of his own life and accept that he could not please everyone. The turmoil in his mind makes the narrator say, “I wished that the two things I loved so dearly did not exclude each other in a manner that was so blunt and too clear” (MacLeod 273). Once a decision is made, it is sometimes better to leave the past and focus on the present and future. The memories of the narrator’s family, the boat and the rural community in which he spent the beginning of his life made the narrator the person who he is today, but it is just a part of him, and should not consume his present.
The reader might not understand how to interpret the stanza; they could interpret however they wanted to. Coleridge placed the glosses in so that the reader would understand the Mariner woke up and realized that he had done his penance. These...
“The Seafarer” voluntarirly gives up on the worldly things in life that you should follow in a christain life style. He abandons all love; from relationships and community. “Hardship groaned around my heart.” This is used to give the reader a sense of emotions of the seafarer. Even though the seafarer is desparing because he is alone, he is glad to be out on the sea because of a loss. He actually goes out in search of a new home and a happiness. This poem is written in the envelope style, which switches back-and-forth to inside and outside speakers. “The Wanderer” has much more of a mournful mood than “The Seafarer”. The wanderer believes that God is the “our every
The poem The Ancient Mariner is important to Walton because the sailor in the poem is going to polar regions and not respecting nature during its journey. The stranger is similar to the ancient mariner because they both have suffered tragedy, and now have a story as a result. The wedding guests in the poem can be related to Walton, while the unknown man represents the mariner. The author, Shelley, creates an enchanted and mysterious
“The Seafarer” begins with a man’s story of the hardships he faced at sea. He is on a voyage to discover new lands and riches, yet he is not happy. Despite the great journey the man is undertaking, he feels in exile from his people. He has been lonely for a long period of time now and has had no success. As he is pondering this topic, he thinks of how he only hears the sounds of birds instead of the laughter of people in the mead hall. He thinks of how he is cold instead of warm and sharing drink with his friends; he is lonely and his kinsmen can offer him no comfort, so his soul is left drowning in desolation.
As delineated in paragraph one, Coleridge’s poetic field is one rampant with erratic thought and ultimate change. The proposed subject of the poem, an eolian harp, is virtually abandoned and replaced with veneration of a God as well as a lover. One would think that such a fickle publication would be kept isolated by its author. Although, Coleridge may have staked importance in showing his adoration for God publicly. Hence,
The main theme of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem is to learn from your mistakes. After telling his tale to the Wedding Guest, the Ancient Mariner realized that the murder of the Albatross was a mistake and lived a life of penance. The act of murder was an impulsive act because the Mariner felt threatened by the Albatross their actions. The deaths of both birds brought about memories from both the Ancient Mariner and Hagar which they shared with other people, the Wedding Guest and Murray F. Lees. These memories help them to realize the mistakes they made. Through their own personal recollections, the Ancient Mariner and Hagar both achieved a better understanding of their lives and in turn were able to die with a sense of contentment and relief.
the story of a sailor suffering through hardships because he was meant to be a
He starts the story immediately with a lot of detail creating the setting of where the mariner is going and to whom the mariner is going to tell his tale. He chooses three men on their way to a wedding and one in particular we know as the “wedding guest.” When we think of a wedding we think of a happy event where two people are united under the grace of god. The mariner stops him from going in this event though and tells him the story, at the end of which he tells him that he doesn't need anything but god to be happy. The detail and emphasis of the wedding symbolizes temporary happiness on earth. The mariner explains that loving god and having him in your life is “Oh sweeter than the marriage feast, 'Tis sweeter far to me” (Coleridge, lines 86-87). Here the mariner is saying that the temporary happiness on earth that one may get from a marriage celebration is nice but it is nowhere near as good as the love of god you get from making a religious transformation. Coleridge explains all of the sing and drinking and happiness going on in the wedding as the mariner is telling the story but in the end the mariner tells the guest that none of that is as good as the love of god. And we can see that wedding guest actually learns something from the story because he decides to not go into the wedding but rather “and now the wedding-guest. Turned from the bridegroom's door. He went ...
Though the mariner is spared he is also in some ways still being punished. He will be used to spread his story, and what he has learned from it. “I pass, like night, from land to land;/ I have strange power of speech;/ That moment that his face I see,/ I know the man that must hear me:/ To him my tale I teach”(Coleridge 458). In spreading his tale to those that need its lesson in some ways the mariner has become a prophet. In this way he is the closest to God he has been in the poem both in the way that he “loves all lives” but also in the way that he is sharing what he has learned from his punishment (Guthrie 204).
The Seafarer, The Wanderer, and The Wife’s Lament all contains faith verses fate. The three poems are very similar and very different. The three poems ranging from a lonely man, to a lost soldier, to a wife’s bedrail. The medieval poems show hurt, confusion, and loneliness.
...ous allegory represents Christian ideals such as sin, forgiveness, and prayer. In addition, Coleridge’s use of language and form contribute to the message conveyed in the text. The form fluctuates throughout the text by use of different rhyme schemes, loose meter, and stanzas in length varying four to nine lines. The variety of form could be representative the array of interpretations of this text. Coleridge conveys profound religious meaning by using symbolic language with interpretive representations. Although his use of elevated language possibly narrowed the audience, that could have been his intentions due to the complexities of this philosophical poem. In the end, Coleridge’s depiction of the Mariner’s journey ultimately conveys the Christian ideal, which is to love and appreciate all creatures created by God, whether Albatross or snake.
As the ancient Mariner described his adventures at sea to the Wedding-Guest, the Guest became saddened because he identified his own selfish ways with those of the Mariner. The mariner told the Guest that he and his ship-mates were lucky because at the beginning of their voyage they had good weather. The mariner only saw what was on the surface -- he did not see the good weather as evidence that Someone was guiding them. Also, when he shot the Albatross, the Mariner did not have any reason for doing so. The Albatross did nothing wrong, yet the Mariner thought nothing of it and without thinking of the significance of the act, he killed the bird. At this, the Guest was reminded of how self-absorbed he, too, was, and the sinful nature of man. At the beginning of the poem he was very much intent on arriving at the wedding on time. He did not care at all about what it was that the Mariner had to tell him; he did not want to be detained even if the Mariner was in trouble. Instead, he spoke rudely to the mariner, calling him a "gray-beard loon", and tried to go on his own way.
He has to feel a pain in his chest that becomes unbearable until he sees a certain soul that is the right one to tell. No matter what. In the long poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge has three lessons about human life: supernatural, pride, and suffering. In “Rime” by Sam Coleridge, the mariner goes through many supernatural events that scare him into submission. Coleridge does a great job of describing the scenery around the boat that the mariner resides in.