the metre is itself unfit for long poems

Wordsworth considers Coleridge’s choice of a “harmonious metre” for this long poem as one of the “defects” of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. However, this inherent paradox is at the heart of the poem’s theme: freedom from reason and authority. The Mariner shooting the Albatross, the main event of the poem, is most significant for its arbitrariness. Immediately after the shooting, the crew insists on giving symbols to the Albatross and on interpreting the Mariner’s actions. As is evident by the crew’s wavering interpretations, Coleridge demonstrates that reason is nothing more than socially accepted nonsense. The message to the reader, therefore, is that interpreting this poem for more than that is conforming to a standard belief that poems must mean something. The double-paradox is that this one does.