The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Essay

Romantic poets are widely known for challenging Renaissance era thinking, by focusing heavily on feelings and emotions, rather than on scientific knowledge or thought. Such is the case for the narrative poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge crafted an epic, narrative style poem, which explains to the reader, a story told from the perspective of an old mariner. The mariner stops a guest at a wedding party and lulls him into a state of almost hypnosis, he then goes on to weave his story. The mariner, while out at sea with his crew, gets caught in a foggy, ice field; an albatross appears in the sky to steer them through the harsh weather. The mariner shoots the innocent bird and the wind stops, stranding the ship’s crew

A ship is seen in the distance by the mariner, which turns out to be driven by two spirits, Death and Life-in-Death. Everyone on the mariner’s ship dies, except for the mariner. With his ship now full of dead bodies, with nothing to look at other than the slimy creatures of the sea, the mariner discovers a new-found appreciation for the water snakes he watches in the ocean, after he blesses the water snakes, the albatross drops off his neck and falls into the ocean. The mariner falls asleep and is woken by rain, spirits then inhabit the dead bodies of his crew members and they begin sailing the ship, another spirit guides the ship through the water. The mariner hears two voices speak about how he still has penance to pay for killing the albatross. The crew sails the ship to port and the mariner sees angels next to the bodies of the crew, a rescue boat driven by an old hermit comes to take the mariner to shore, the mariner’s ship sinks into the ocean, and the mariner feels an overwhelming urge to tell his story to the