Water, Water everywhere!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner obviously has a lot of content to analyze, but to do so extensively would take too many hours. So, instead, I will focus on the points which interest me most.

As I was reading the poem, my attention was drawn to the attention Coleridge gives to the Albatross. There is legend that the albatross represents the soul of drowned sailors in addition to being the driving force of the winds. With this in mind, Coleridge’s lines take on a meaning beyond just an anecdote concerning the birds.

“At Length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name”

After this point in the poem, the Albatross begins to follow the ship around wherever it sailed, which of course, can be read in such a way that the souls of drowned sailors were haunting the ship. I say “haunting” deliberately because the narrator feels the need to shoot the Albatross at the end of Part 1 of the poem, and once the Albatross is shot, the sun rises, which usually symbolizes positive aspects in poetry:

“The Sun now rose upon the right:

Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner’s hollo!”

Immediately after they establish that everything is fine and good after shooting the bird, the narrator makes a confession:

“And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ‘em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! Said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
The glorious Sun purist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
‘Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.”

Outwardly, and to the other sailors, the death of the Albatross was justified and the proper thing to do, but the narrator’s doubts on the matter, in going with the legend, seem to suggest that by killing the Albatross, he wasn’t paying proper respects to the fallen sailors, and that there would be consequences to his actions, which, of course, there are.  (Also note that the two stanzas where the narrator expresses regret are lengthened by two lines each, giving them emphasis and reiterating their importance – the meter is disrupted here to lengthen these two stanzas, which would not have been done lightly, if meter was indeed so important to these poets!)

After the narrator’s regret is expressed, the second part of the legend takes effect: The Albatross is responsible for providing favourable wind, and the next major event in the poem is that the sails drop, and the ship stops moving for a few days due to lack of wind, which brings me to my favourite lines in this poem, not only for them being part of a lovely little inside joke with my friends, but also because I think they are quite well constructed!

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.”

Following these beautifully crafted lines, terrible misfortunes continue to befall the crew of the sailing ship, part two ends as follows:

“Ah! well a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.”

Here, read that the sailor feels the weight of all the dead souls of drowned sailors on his shoulders as a burden to bear, taken upon himself for his actions of shooting the albatross. Although, at this point, I should think that he also feels the weight of all the souls of the living on the ship who are probably near death due to the misfortunes that the mariner supposedly caused by shooting the Albatross in the first place… Interestingly enough, once the sailor accepts the responsibility as his metaphorical cross to bear, something else big happens: Death approaches, and my prediction rings true: the living crew begins to drop dead as a consequence of the one sailor’s actions. Interestingly to this particular small analysis, Coleridge notes the following:

“The souls did from their bodies fly, -
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my cross-bow!”

Alone, and feeling bad about his actions, part four ends with the following:

“The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.”

At this point, the Albatross doesn’t only represent the drowned souls and the favourable winds, but it is used by Coleridge to include certain values into the anecdote like religion and forgiveness and regret to keep piling the layers of meaning of the Albatross.

Back to the narrative of the poem though, once the Albatross falls from his neck, the dead sailors start to rise. Here in the poem enters the idea of the savage torpor, which I’m not going to talk about except in terms of my Albatross examination. The image of the dead crew coming back as a ghost crew seems to me to be an attempt to show their souls. In fact, these souls eventually echo back to the sailor his own regret at killing the “harmless Albatross” where the living crew had celebrated it. The sailor’s penance is his regret and the blood on his hands from killing the Albatross, and the idea that he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to make things right again.

Interestingly, the narrator finds his peace in telling the story, which makes the anecdotal nature of this poem quite effective. And the Albatross legend thing is also very cool.