The Biblical Symphony of Rime of the Ancient Mariner In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner the key to understanding the moral purpose of the story comes from the numerous biblical allusions in the poem. Coleridge designs his poem to be a moral parable to the life of a Christian in his time period, and his views on the failings and trappings of religion. His poem parallels the life of the mariner and the life of the wedding guest to Christians at different points in their walks of faith, narrating the causes and doubts that occurred in his own life, while responding to those doubts with the societally accepted narrative of Christian faith. The parallels in the poem bring to light the many biblical allusions of the text. Coleridge
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The story told puts Coleridge in the shoes of both the old mariner who was shaped by the trials and tribulations of his voyages at sea, and in the shoes of the wedding guest, walking a blissfully ignorant path of blind faith. The killing of the Albatross represents the first leap that Coleridge took in breaking away from his faith and stepping towards the belief that he himself would be perfectly capable of handling all of the trials and tribulations of life without the divine intervention of a higher power. Coleridge, who identified with the Unitarian beliefs of Victorian England set his original act of defiance to the faith of the time in the murder of the Albatross, which in the situation of the poem represents both a worthy and innocent sacrifice, and the lost hope of a believer. The significance of the capitalization of the name Albatross cannot be overlooked, due to its significance in the fact that in the bible the name of God is always capitalized. When Coleridge has the mariner explain the killing of the Albatross to the wedding guest the mariner describes his killing of the Albatross as horrible. He says “'God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—Why look'st thou so?'—'With my crossbow I shot the Albatross,” explaining that in his …show more content…
Kathryn Wells states that the multifaceted understanding of the symbolism of the wedding gives the biblical light to the poem from the very beginning. Wells uses two different sources within the Christian church to expand upon her point that the wedding that the guest wants to attend represents Holy Communion and complete dedication to the church. She says that her tow sources are “The first is 'The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion' that is to be found in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the Church of England Prayer Book used in Coleridge's day. The second is Christ's parable of the wedding feast, which is referred to several times in the Communion service,” which put context in the time period because these are the sermons the Coleridge would be hearing every time he attended church, bringing up his issues with the true value of the sacrifice on the cross and his inability to reconcile the need for a savior with the act of communion and his feelings about purgatory (Walls). The concept of the bridegroom used in reference to the poem means the act of Jesus taking the church upon his shoulders and making them new again in his love and grace, which Coleridge proves in the poem that he cannot reconcile with his issues of Unitarianism. There are direct
The story told puts Coleridge in the shoes of both the old mariner who was shaped by the trials and tribulations of his voyages at sea, and in the shoes of the wedding guest, walking a blissfully ignorant path of blind faith. The killing of the Albatross represents the first leap that Coleridge took in breaking away from his faith and stepping towards the belief that he himself would be perfectly capable of handling all of the trials and tribulations of life without the divine intervention of a higher power. Coleridge, who identified with the Unitarian beliefs of Victorian England set his original act of defiance to the faith of the time in the murder of the Albatross, which in the situation of the poem represents both a worthy and innocent sacrifice, and the lost hope of a believer. The significance of the capitalization of the name Albatross cannot be overlooked, due to its significance in the fact that in the bible the name of God is always capitalized. When Coleridge has the mariner explain the killing of the Albatross to the wedding guest the mariner describes his killing of the Albatross as horrible. He says “'God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—Why look'st thou so?'—'With my crossbow I shot the Albatross,” explaining that in his …show more content…
Kathryn Wells states that the multifaceted understanding of the symbolism of the wedding gives the biblical light to the poem from the very beginning. Wells uses two different sources within the Christian church to expand upon her point that the wedding that the guest wants to attend represents Holy Communion and complete dedication to the church. She says that her tow sources are “The first is 'The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion' that is to be found in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the Church of England Prayer Book used in Coleridge's day. The second is Christ's parable of the wedding feast, which is referred to several times in the Communion service,” which put context in the time period because these are the sermons the Coleridge would be hearing every time he attended church, bringing up his issues with the true value of the sacrifice on the cross and his inability to reconcile the need for a savior with the act of communion and his feelings about purgatory (Walls). The concept of the bridegroom used in reference to the poem means the act of Jesus taking the church upon his shoulders and making them new again in his love and grace, which Coleridge proves in the poem that he cannot reconcile with his issues of Unitarianism. There are direct