Travelogues of the Natural World

Travelogues of the Natural World and the Picturesque Fantastic:

Coleridge's "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner"

Two journeys frame the text of Coleridge's "the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner." The first journey is the external travail of the main protagonist, the ancient mariner of the title. This man is condemned to wander the earth, after cruelly killing the fair bird of prey, the albatross, while he was sailing as a young man. The second journey of the framed poem is the internal, psychological progression of the wedding guest. This unnamed individual is also changed, and goes through a moving journey by listening to the travelogue of the ancient sailor. The journey of the wedding guest is not a physical one, as he never moves from his chair, unlike the related tale of the mariner, which is an external trip in space and time. In fact, the mariner's tale is paralyzing to the wedding guest -- he literally cannot move while the ancient mariner's "skinny hand" holds him, and the man's voice drones on in its travelogue. Yet both men are changed by the telling, perhaps the wedding guest even more than the mariner, as the mariner has told this tale many times, while this is the first time the guest has heard such a narrative.

The framed, narrative event of the poem highlights the Romantic emphasis not only on travel narrative but also on the interrelated fabric of humanity and the natural world. Its use of travel stresses the ability of the story-telling art to take human beings on psychological journeys of equal importance to the soul as external journeys. The mariner becomes a different man from his journey, becoming an ostracized land dweller, and the wedding guest, by hearing the tale, becomes a more sober man.

Coleridge's mariner begins his journey by sea as a rather callous man, hardened by a long life at sea. The prose of the early poem highlights the beauty of sea journeys, and of how the mariner benefits from this and yet has grown hardened to it. He is careless of the natural world, despite its beauty and despite his reliance upon it for his livelihood. Thus, despite warnings of sailor's lore, on a lark, he shoots the albatross of the story. "Ah wretch! Said they, the bird to slay/That made the breeze to blow!"

Now, the mariner's life will never be the same. First of all, this action estranges him from the water and from nature, as he will no longer be a wanderer upon the water as a professional sailor, but become the wanderer seen at the beginning of the tale. It also ostracizes him from humanity, as his fellow sailors reject him and eventually die because of his action. Humanity's need to respect the often irrational laws of the natural world, such as not shooting the albatross, are highlighted by these actions, and thus the Romantic need of man to dwell respectfully in nature is also highlighted.

The mariner initially disdains myth and superstition -- to his peril. Thus, the medieval stress upon faith critical to the evolving Romantic Movement comes to the forefront of the poem's theme. However, as he is condemned to a life in death, as highlighted in the poem, and his fellow sailors are animated and begin to pilot the boat, his distain of the fantastic becomes harshly foolish. The mariner seems half-driven mad by this horrible sight, and the horror of this event hangs upon him to such an extent that the wedding guest himself is shaken to his very moral core, simply watching the mariner's guise as the old man tells what he saw occur.