Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Analysis

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KEY WORDS

Wedding
Mariner
Sea- and ship-related words
Storm
Kirk

STYLE AND DEVICES

Side notes
4-9 line stanzas, varying rhyming schemes (typically ABAC or ABAB)
THEMES/MOTIFS/SYMBOLISM

Mariner as enchanter
 He holds him with his glittering eye—

 The Wedding-Guest stood still,

 And listens like a three years' child:
  15
 The Mariner hath his will.


Albatross as Christian symbol
 At length did cross an Albatross,
 Thorough the fog it came;
 As if it had been a Christian soul,
 We hail'd it in God's name.

Killing a Christian symbol!!!!! Blasphemy!!!!

 'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
 From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
 Why look'st thou so?'—'With my crossbow
 I shot the Albatross.
The ship stops moving after killing the albatross, perhaps signifying that without God, there is purgatory? Maybe it just means that those who sin, get punished

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

Spirits of inexplicable origins
And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun. The Spectre-Woman and her Death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton ship. Like vessel, like crew!
 Are those her ribs through which the Sun
 Did peer, as through a grate?
 And is that Woman all her crew?
 Is that a Death? and are there two?
 Is Death that Woman's mate?

Death (perhaps a parody thereof?)
His shipmates drop down dead.
 Four times fifty living men
 (And I heard nor sigh nor groan),
 With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
 They dropp'd down one by one.

But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.
 The souls did from their bodies fly—
 They fled to bliss or woe!
 And every soul, it pass'd me by
 Like the whizz of my crossbow!'

Forgiveness granted by praying
The spell begins to break.
 The selfsame moment I could pray;

 And from my neck so free
 290
 The Albatross fell off, and sank

 Like lead into the sea.


PART V
 'O sleep! it is a gentle thing,

 Beloved from pole to pole!

 To Mary Queen the praise be given!
 295
 She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,

 That slid into my soul.


By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.
 The silly buckets on the deck,

 That had so long remain'd,

 I dreamt that they were fill'd with dew;
 300
 And when I awoke, it rain'd.

Ghosts/zombies
The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on;
 The loud wind never reach'd the ship,

 Yet now the ship moved on!

 Beneath the lightning and the Moon
 330
 The dead men gave a groan.


 They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,

 Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;

 It had been strange, even in a dream,

 To have seen those dead men rise.
 335

 The helmsman steer'd, the ship moved on;

 Yet never a breeze up-blew;

 The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,

 Where they were wont to do;

 They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
 340
 We were a ghastly crew.


Creepy redemption, counterintuitive in its sacredness (I mean, this doesn't seem like something god would bless a good man with)
But not by the souls of the men, nor by demons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint.
 'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'

 Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest:

 'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,

 Which to their corses came again,

 But a troop of spirits blest:
 350

 For when it dawn'd—they dropp'd their arms,

 And cluster'd round the mast;

 Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,

Miracle
 Till noon we quietly sail'd on,

 Yet never a breeze did breathe:
 375
 Slowly and smoothly went the ship,

 Moved onward from beneath.


The telling of his sins alleviates agony
 Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd

 With a woful agony,
 580
 Which forced me to begin my tale;

 And then it left me free.


Be good to all god's creatures and you will be happier
And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.
 Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

 To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!

 He prayeth well, who loveth well

 Both man and bird and beast.


 He prayeth best, who loveth best
 615
 All things both great and small;

 For the dear God who loveth us,

 He made and loveth all.'


Stories impart knowledge and affect people
 He went like one that hath been stunn'd,

 And is of sense forlorn:

 A sadder and a wiser man
625
 He rose the morrow morn.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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