When Samuel Coleridge set pen to paper, it is clear, he knew his bible good. In his Frost of the Ancient Mariner, Christian mythology and symbolism abound. The three chief elements of the narrative, the Mariner, the Albatross, and the Sun, each drama a function as Jesus. From the first stanza, Coleridge begins his scriptural allusions and, through the Mariner’s eyes, pigments a graphic image wrought with the Christian God and beatific hosts as repeating focal point.
Coleridge begins his analogues with the scene, a nuptials twenty-four hours. One of Christ’s most celebrated miracles, that of turning H2O to wine, took topographic point at the nuptials at Cana, in Galilee. The Ancient Mariner is the quiet invitee who performs a miracle of his ain in the retelling of his narrative. He is the Christ figure besides in the position of the whole verse form, as when Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert. Like Jesus, the Mariner endures many tests, but his failure at the first costs him in a heartfelt way during those which follow.
The initial “enticement” was to kill the good sea bird, which he does without scruples. And, like the enticement in the desert, the Mariner is parched with thirst, “Water, H2O, everyplace, /Nor any bead to drink.” And when the Mariner attempts to pray for redemption, he hears a diabolic voice, like Lucifer: “I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; /But or of all time a supplication had gushed, /A wicked susurration came, and made/My bosom every bit dry as dust.” [ ln 244 ]
As the shade ship attacks, “I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,” in mention to Jesus’usage of the vino at the last supper as his ain blood. When the liquors move the ship, “Slowly and swimmingly went the ship/Moved onward from beneath,” the Mariner is, in a sense, walking on H2O. The stoping is the more dry to see that the Mariner, as a sort of Christ figure, is rescued by a Pilot, where Jesus died by Pontius Pilate, pronounced in the same manner.
Coleridge so makes usage of “holy” Numberss, such as three and seven, on several occasions. Three is represented in the Holy Trinity: Father Son and Holy Spirit, while the 7th twenty-four hours is the Sabbatical. At the verse form’s gap, the weeding invitee is picked out of three work forces in the 2nd line, and is shortly mesmerized by the Mariner into “a three old ages’child.” [ ln 15 ]
When Death and Life-In-Death drama die despite Einstein’s claim, “God does non play die with the universe” for the Mariner’s life,” The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!’/Quoth she, and whistlings thrice.” [ ln196 ] When the Mariner sails into the seaport with the Seraph, he is picked up by a Pilot and his boy, and “I saw a third.” And, when his crew is dead and all he has to look frontward to is decease himself, he recalls, “Seven yearss and seven darks, I saw that expletive, /and yet I could non die.” [ ln 261 ]
With no pretence, the Sun is instantly deified in the Mariner’s narrative. Each clip it is referred to, it is capitalized and personified. “The Sun came up upon the left, /Out of the sea came he!” [ ln 25 ] Even more blatantly, “Nor dip nor ruddy, like God’s ain caput, /The glorious Sun uprist.” [ ln 97 ] When Death’s ghostly ship arrives, the Sun is blocked: “When that unusual form drove suddenly/Betwixt us and the Sun.” [ ln 175 ] What stands between a adult male and his God? Merely decease, as the transition illustrates. In the undermentioned stanza, “And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,” the position is that of a captive looking to the outside universe the crewmans are imprisoned, both in life and in the ocean. Death is all that keeps life contained from grace, so the bars across the Sun ( God ) are suiting symbolism.
A scriptural allusion referred to repeatedly is the similarities between the masts of a ship and the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. Describing the Sun’s and therefore God’s acclivity as they near the equator, “Higher and higher every twenty-four hours, /Till over the mast at noon.” [ ln 30 ] This imagination paints a graphic image: from the Mariner’s point-of-view on the deck, the Sun is a superb aura over the mast and its trave. As the ship encounters a storm, the ship vaulting horses and sways: “With inclining masts and dunking bow, /As who pursued with cry and blow/Still treads the shadow of his enemy, / And frontward bends his head.”
The consequence of the storm is that the masts are non unsloped, but at an angle, as though they were being carried. Christ bore his ain cross before the crucifixion, holding rocks thrown at him and being yelled at as he followed the Romans, his enemies. When the Albatross is shot, the masts become the cross of the crucifixion one time more: “The bloody Sun, at midday, /Right up above the mast did stand.” [ ln 112 ]
This clip, the mention to the “bloody” Sun, in concurrence with the Sun stand foring the caput of God, can be construed as the Crown of irritants upon Jesus’caput, and his subsequent hemorrhage. Finally, when the ship one time more Begins to travel, the Sun is revealed silver ain, “The Sun, right up above the mast, ” [ ln 383 ] merely as it had been when their journey began. This is parallel to Jesus’ life, decease, and Resurrection.
The Albatross, holding a merely a short clip within the verse form, besides represents the Christ- figure. As the ship reaches the south-polar part, its journey is endangered by the cold and ice. This serves as the dark clip of Humanity, when all world was purportedly still enduring for “Original Sin,” until Christ came to alleviate them of the load. The Albatross, as Jesus, has a marvelous power, and brings the ship to safety; the Mariner becomes Judas as he slays the good bird: “With my crossbow/I shot the Albatross.” [ ln 81 ]
Fittingly, the Mariner uses a crossbow to kill the savior-bird. The crewmans, at first hard-pressed, alter their heads as the conditions clears: “‘ Twas right, said they, such birds to murder, /That conveying the fog and mist.” [ ln 101 ] This is similar to non merely the treachery, but Peter’s denial of Christ coincidently ( or non ) , “before the prick crows thrice.” As penalty for killing the bird, and conveying about their tragic destiny, “Alternatively of the cross, the Albatross/About my cervix was hung.” [ ln 141 ]
The Albatross therefore becomes a definite representation of the crucifixion. Possibly non scriptural, but historically challenging however, the Roman Empire, responsible for Jesus’decease, underwent a tragic prostration shortly thenceforth. Inept and huffy emperors followed, and the civilisation, as it was, fell to pieces, as do the crew members of the Mariner’s ship.
Prevalent besides in Rime is the use of colour to mean life and decease. Green is typically regarded as the colour of life things, such as when spring comes after the greies of winter, conveying life and colour back into the universe. “Her beams bemocked the sultry chief, /Like April hoar-frost spread; /But where the ship’s immense shadow ballad, /The charmed H2O burnt away/A still and atrocious red.” [ ln 268 ]
The Mariner was on a ship of decease a hoar in April, projecting a shadow which kills, altering colourss to red, the colour of decease. However, even in decease, the Mariner finds life: “Blue, calendered green, and velvet black, /They coiled and swam.” [ ln 279 ] This is the turning point for the Mariner, as he is one time more able to bless and pray.
The overall colour of the ocean is besides a really deep viridity, “I viewed the ocean viridity,” [ ln 443 ] and the oceans are considered the beginning of life. Relatively, decease is bantam following to life. The whole of the ocean, life, holds the full ship and all of the decease aboard, and takes off such decease in a minute. “The self-same minute I could pray; /And from my cervix so free/The Albatross fell off, and sank/Like lead into the sea,” [ ln 288 ] and, “It reached the ship, it split the bay; /The ship went down similar lead;” [ ln 548 ] in both, the ocean swallows decease without intermission. In completion of this life-from-death, “It is the moss that entirely hides/The decayed old oak-stump.” [ ln 521 ]
However, perplexing is the line, “And ice, mast-high, came natation by, /As green as emerald,” [ ln53 ] because such a sight is highly unsafe to a ship. Of class, Coleridge was perchance seeking to be more truth than allusion, as polar ice does reflect a great trade of green. Red, as was stated above, is the colour of decease blood. “All in a hot and Cu sky, /The bloody Sun, at midday,” [ ln 111 ] is the signal to the crewmans that something wicked is in shop for them.
Coleridge besides throws in more minor mentions throughout the verse form: “Merrily we did drop/Below the kirk,” seems to state more than simple way; it implies that the ship and crew are nearing an country beyond the range of their God. The reappearance at the terminal, “Is this the kirk? /Is this mine ain countree?” signifies the return of the Mariner to his God’s graces. Not mere mention, but existent characters, the seraph like angels are elements of scriptural history, as defenders and retaliators. “This seraph set, each waved his manus: /It was a celestial sight! /They stood as signals to the land, /Each one a lovely light.” [ ln 491 ] These seraph service as the former, conveying the Mariner place at last, at the command of his guardian saint: “Sure my sort saint took commiseration on me.” [ ln 286 ]
Last, the scriptural narrative of Lot’s married woman is insinuated with the stanza, “Like one, that on a only road/Doth walk in fright and apprehension, /And holding one time turned round walks on, /And turns no more his caput; /Because he knows, a atrocious fiend/Doth near behind him tread.” Evil seems to skulk near behind at all times.
Coleridge, surely an exceeding author, would non hold been dissatisfied, it seems, to hold been a adult male of the fabric. From Rime of the Ancient Mariner entirely, he makes an feeling of how a great trade of the universe mimics Christian belief. Although non intended to be factual, nor construed as such, Rime is a good developed, character-based morality drama.
