Rime of the Ancient Mariner

When Rime of the Ancient Mariner was published, it was criticised for its obscure archaic language which made it difficult to read and understand. Coleridge prided himself on the fact that his poem was typically wrote in a common language which enabled it to be enjoyed by a greater amount of people. In 1815 and 1816, the criticism reoccured following the reissuing of the poem with Coleridge’s glosses wrote in the margin to which many disliked believed it was mocking the Bible. Charles Lamb, who had deeply admired the original for its attention to "Human Feeling", claimed that the gloss distanced the audience from the narrative, weakening the poem's effects. The religious criticism which the poem received is equally peculiar as the belief is an existing theme within the narrative with the poem’s ultimate message encouraging the reader to respect God and nature. Coleridge does not reject religion, instead he embraces it and rather significantly too. Wordsworth notoriously did not like Rime of the Ancient Mariner believing it did not belong so early in lyrical ballads. He wrote in 1799 “From what I can gather it seems that the Ancient Mariner has upon the whole been an injury to the volume, I mean that the old words and the strangeness of it have deterred readers from going on. If the volume should come to a second Edition I would put in its place some little things which would be more likely to suit the common taste.” The most appealing piece of criticism is that by the Mariner travelling South rather than North, he is not respecting religion however juxtaposing rejecting it. However, this sense of geography is not used by Coleridge to represent anything other than to symbolically emphasis how isolate the Mariner is surrounded by sea in a foreign place of the globe. Furthermore, the idea of expedition is quite simply just exploring the contextually excitement of a period where explorers were discovering new land - hence how the poem was wrote inspired by the voyage of James Cook. The criticism of the poem being wrote in archaic language is ironic because the poem focuses on such deep psychological and spiritual factors however the fact that more people was compelled to the use of language demonstrates how the reader has not understood the Mariner’s tale nor its significance. Although wrote in archaic language, the message of the poem is still heard and prominent. “In the 1798 version of the ‘Rime,’ Coleridge acts as a poet by endowing the Mariner with the simple and prophetic poetic qualities that eighteenth century scholars assigned to the authors of Biblical narrative. In the 1817 version of the poem, Coleridge complicates his depiction of the Mariner as a primitive poet by adding the comments of a fictional editor in the margins of the Mariner’s verse. This marginalia indicates a significant shift in Coleridge’s poem. By attaching the commentary of a fictional editor, Coleridge begins to act as critic, and not only a poet.”

In Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge uses a framed narrative within his poem to capture the oral traditional of a ballad’s storytelling nature. Throughout the poem, Coleridge uses glosses (brief notes in the margins of his work to explain a poet’s thought process.) However, this has been criticised by critics as arguably Coleridge’s use of glosses prevent the reader’s interpretation. There is a regular beat that is hypnotic. reinforced by frequent use of repetition, as in ‘Alone, alone, all all alone …’ Imagery is predominantly focused on the weather, vividly described.