The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Essay

A close reading of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner will reveal that the Ancient Mariner-who is at once himself, Coleridge and all humanity-having sinned, both incurs punishment and seeks redemption; or, in other words, becomes anxiously aware of his relation to the God of Law (as symbolized by the Sun), and in his sub-consciousness earnestly entreats the forgiveness of the God of Love (represented by the Moon-symbol).

... For Professor Lowes, while he has disclosed a Coleridge of amazing intellectual grasp ... stops short on the border line of purely imaginative experience. In his long study of The Ancient Mariner, he seems to miss the essential allegory.... when all is said, his unsparable book is content to be a review of Coleridge's
There is nowhere here or elsewhere in the book [The Road to Xanadu] a hint of the history behind the Mariner's glittering eye, a suggestion of the poet's bold transfer of the glitter in the dead seamen's eyes (Death) to those of the Mariner (Life-in-Death). The poet introduces the Mariner abruptly and repetitively as one with a glittering eye. A similar emphasis is given to the epithet bright-eyed (as in the penultimate stanza of Part VII); and when the fearful question, "Why look'st thou so?", is asked, our thoughts revert to that sinister glitter. Now consider this stanza in Part
The almost magical manner in which the poet combines these opposing motives here and in the next stanza deserves especial attention. Dread appears in

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, and hope in the reappearance of the familiar reassuring word softly
Yet she sailed softly too.
Hope is augmented in the line:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze-
But lingering dread lifts itself again in the melancholy reflection:
On me alone it blew.

The Mariner prays (for he has learned long since to pray) that his incredible homecoming may not be as the vision of a dream. "He beholdeth," says the gloss, "his native country." And he loves it as never before, not only for the welcoming that its familiar landmarks offer his heart, but also because the Moon still accompanies him, steeping in calm and silentness the bay, the rock, the kirk, the steady weathercock. He had not heeded the white moonshine that glimmered through night and fog when he slew the Albatross; but now he knows the meaning of the Moon-the eternal Love of God-and he turns to the Hermit for confession and absolution. Confession made, he is duly shriven, but, says Coleridge in the gloss, with penetrating intention: " - Th penance of life falls on him. And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to land. And to teach by his