Many critics see

Milton Parallels? Shelleys Interpretation? the Rime of the

Ancient Mariner
(Paradise Lost) (Frankenstein)
as an allegory of
some kind of fall,
STRUCTURE: like
Sin, Punishment, Redemption

Of Lucifer - Of Adam - Of Coleridge -

Cain?
cast into hell? forbidden fruit? opium?
slimy things I shot the albatross witchs oils, / burnt
green, and blue and
Slimy sea and I had done a white
the very deep did hellish thing
rot Phantasmagoria!
Purely inspirational? Dark gothic?
cursed me with his eye
poetry gives most pleasure when only generally
Life-in-death
and not perfectly understood"
spectre bark
- Coleridge
Many critics maintain, as Christopher Lamb does,
that the Ancient Mariner is a work of complete
and pure imagination. As

No single interpretation seems to

fit the entire poem

In essence, it is a very imaginative

and unusual piece
Gustav Dors Dark Etches
 Just as the
Ancient Mariner
has to re-tell his
Coleridge felt a deep sense of sin,
tale, Coleridge
for his opium addiction and
has to keep on
otherwise.
returning to this
poem and
The poem could be his way of fathomingrevising
his it
feelings.
The strange power of the Ancient Mariner, as his difficult feelings.
mingled strangely with my fears
I know that man must hear me / To him my tale I teach

Hence, his sensitivity and saying that the poem

should not be analysed?
(poetry gives most pleasure when only
generally and not perfectly understood)
 Instead of the cross, the Albatross/
About my neck was hung
I had killed the bird / That made
the breeze to blow
Hailed it in Gods name
Christian soul

Crimson red like Gods own head blessed them

Crew unawares
- Hid in mist
distanced
- dungeon-grate from God
 Vs.
Some critics maintain that this ballad was
an exploration, by Coleridge, into the
science vs. spirituality debate:

There are many mysterious fantastical images,

He was the
at glittering
a point in hiseye with itshestrange
life where was more
power
concerned with the rational than the empirical,
the
this poem polar
was spirits andofseraph
an exploration band
the former.

The latin preface says, Human cleverness

has always sought knowledge of these
things, never attained it.
THE
END.