nature in “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner”
The “rime” of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Ancient
Mariner denotes not only the “rhyme” that is the
mariner’s story of his voyage, but also the “rime”
that is a condensation of saltwater, mist, or fog and
that collects on objects exposed to it for some time.
Like the rime that collects on a ship, the mariner is
coated with the rime of his experience. The Wed-
ding-Guest acquires a veneer of it as he is exposed
to the mariner’s story and the presence of the old
salt himself. The first object identified in the title of
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “rime” serves
to underline the nature of the work itself as a poem,
points to the ancient spelling of the word rime in
medieval ballads, and suggests a link between nature
and humanity.
“Rime” asserts a literary relationship between
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and medieval
ballads. Coleridge’s poem generally consists of four-
line stanzas (quatrains) of balladic meter in which
the second and fourth lines rhyme. The poem also
invokes medieval imagery, including “The merry
minstrelsy” at the wedding (l. 36), which alludes
to the ballad-poet or minstrel. The Sun “flecked
with bars... As if through a dungeon-grate he
peer’d” (ll. 177–179), “The water, like a witch’s oils”
(l. 129), and “the elfish light” (l. 275) of the water
snakes all present images of nature—cosmos, sea,
and animal—through medieval images of imprison-
ment, heresy, and superstition. All can be associated
with the unnatural: A dungeon is built by man and
deprives man of his naturally free state, witches con-
vert nature to unnatural uses, and elves were viewed
in medieval times as demonic spirits.
Another discernible medieval idea is the great
chain of being. This is a hierarchical construct that
extends from God at the top to the lowliest creatures
of the earth at the bottom and human beings above
animals but below, for example, saints and angels.
In the poem, images of the highest and lowliest
creatures mingle, from the albatross that inhabits the
heights of the sky to the water snake coiling in the
depths of the sea. Rather than occupying a position
above all the animals, however, the Ancient Mari-
ner seems figuratively located between these two
creatures. By shooting the albatross (literally bring-
ing it down to the earth’s surface) and blessing the
water snake (endowing it with a spiritual nature and
thus raising it figuratively), he brings both creatures
toward this central position.
The concern with descent and elevation can also
be traced in the ship’s journey. Upon leaving his
home shore, the mariner notes, “The Sun came up
on the left” (l. 25), indicating a departure point in
the north, and journey toward the equator with the
sun rising “Higher and higher every day, / Till over
the mast at noon” (ll. 29–30). Driven by a storm,
“southward aye we fled” (l. 50) until “ice, mast-high,
came floating by” (l. 53), and the ship becomes
trapped in the southernmost ocean of the earth.
The albatross leads the ship back north but west-
ward, for “The Sun now rose upon the right” (l. 83).
After the mariner shoots the albatross, the ship will
continue to drift until, after his blessing of the water
snakes, he is absolved by the Hermit. At length, he
returns to “his own countree” (l. 570), completing
a geographical journey of descent and elevation,
although he will be forced to wander, telling his tale.
Finally, Coleridge employs the sea, the weather,
and the cosmos to parallel the condition of the
mariner’s soul and the human condition in general,
suggesting the imminent peril in which human-
kind lives at all moments. The journey begins
under a fair wind, but man can become incautious
and, more dangerous still, complacent, his soul
frozen until some beacon awakens it. Inexplicably,
the mariner shoots the albatross, dooming his
own soul to the hellish parching torment of the
southwestern seas, until he recognizes the beauty
of the water snakes and blesses them. That night
“it rained” (l. 300), and the sky is filled with mete-
ors, as though even the heavens are celebrating the
mariner’s learned lesson that mankind must love
“all things both great and small” to mirror God’s
own nature.
Concepts of nature echo throughout the poem,
reflecting the nature of the poem itself and the
imagery of nature representing the development of
the mariner’s soul. Together, they deposit a new layer
of rime not only on the Wedding-Guest but also on
the reader.
Jennie MacDonald“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” 297