A Cyclic Struggle for Understanding and Acceptance

There are at least eighteen known versions of Samuel Taylor Coleridge?s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.(1) Not all of these were published, but their existence suggests that Coleridge was never so satisfied with his work to resist editing. Its first publication in the 1798 version of Lyrical Ballads was not well received by the public for its Gothic characteristics and archaic spellings. The poem has since been reviewed as ?the one perfect, complete, and rounded poem of any length which Coleridge achieved.?(2) However, if Coleridge wrote eighteen copies of a poem, it is not fair to evaluate simply one version when considering the perfection or completeness of the poem. Although the final version of the poem contains an interpretive gloss, this does not necessarily mean that this version is more perfect and complete than the first. In fact, one could argue that the original 1798 version is the most perfect, as it is the rawest version without censuring or editing that would drive Coleridge?s original intent. Jack Stillinger argues in his book ?Coleridge & Textual Instability? that one must evaluate the quality of the poem and the intent of the author when all versions are studied comprehensively. Coleridge once wrote, ?I must be understood.?(3) A review of the publication history of the poem, considering not one but all eighteen versions, reveals an author who was struggling not only to be understood by the public but for acceptance by his contemporaries and his more general audience. Constant revisions to ?The Ancient Mariner? over the course of thirty-six years show his accommodation of his audience and demonstrate his ongoing attempts to gain approval for his work.

The idea for ?The Ancient Mariner,? according to William Wordsworth in ?The Memoirs of William Wordsworth,? was formed in the autumn of 1797, when he, Dorothy Wordsworth, and Coleridge were walking from Alfoxden, England towards Watchet. During their walk, they began talking about a dream that Coleridge had about a friend, Mr. Cruikshank.(4) The three began to develop a story, and Wordsworth offers that ?much of the greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge?s invention, but certain parts I suggested.? Wordsworth adds that he contributed to Coleridge?s plot the shooting of an albatross, the navigation of the ship by dead men, and in particular, the lines at the beginning of the poem ?And listen?d like a three years? child: / The Mariner hath his will.?(5)

Lest Wordsworth?s representations of his contribution to his friend?s work seem boastful, it seems Coleridge shared the high opinion Wordsworth held for himself. In this regard, Wordsworth and Coleridge agreed to the terms of Lyrical Ballads where Coleridge would write about the natural characteristics of supernatural phenomenon, and Wordsworth would write about the unordinary aspects of ordinary occurrences and objects.(6) ?With this view I wrote The Ancient Mariner,? Coleridge later states in ?Biographia Literaria.? He continues, ?But Mr. Wordsworth?s industry had proved so much more successful, and the number of his poems so much greater, that my compositions, instead of forming a balance, appeared an interpolation of heterogeneous matter.?(7)

In March of 1798, Coleridge finished his original version of the poem and soon began making arrangements with Joseph Cottle for the publication of ?Lyrical Ballads.? Cottle visited Wordsworth and Coleridge in May; during this time, he bought the rights to the poems and took the manuscript for ?The Ancient Mariner? as well as some of Wordsworth?s poems to Bristol.(8) The original manuscript which Coleridge gave to Cottle no longer exists.(9)

Not wanting to discourage potential readers, the authors agreed to publish the first version anonymously. Coleridge explains, ?to a large number of persons (the name Coleridge) stinks.?(10) Cottle gave Wordsworth thirty guineas for his poems in the compilation, but Coleridge?s salary is unknown.(11) Five hundred first edition copies were made in 1798 and the books were sold at six shillings a piece.(12) By the middle of 1800, the first edition copies of ?Lyrical Ballads? had sold out, and Coleridge initiated a second edition by making publication plans with N.T. Longman.(13) The second edition was released in 1800 in two volumes; seven hundred fifty and one thousand copies were released respectively and were also sold at six shillings per book.(14)

In the 1798 edition of ?Lyrical Ballads,? Coleridge?s Mariner was not well received by the public and literary reviewers. Wordsworth, too, found enough fault within the poem to blame any criticism of this first edition on the unpopularity of ?The Ancient Mariner.? That unpopularity, Wordsworth felt, was not entirely unwarranted. Hearing his friend?s criticism of his piece, Coleridge offered to remove the poem from the compilation entirely.(15) Despite Coleridge?s offer, ?The Ancient Mariner? survived to be printed again in the 1800 volume.

However, between publications of the first and second editions of the ?Lyrical Ballads,? the placement of ?The Rime of the Ancient Mariner? had changed. Originally the first poem in the collaboration, Wordsworth decided to make it the penultimate piece with only Tintern Abbey to follow. Wordsworth also included a ?Note to The Ancient Mariner? in the 1800 volume. In this note, he outlines the defects he found within the poem, endorsed previous rejection of the poem, and explains why he decided nonetheless to include it. He declares that if anyone was happy with its inclusion, Wordsworth was to be thanked because it was his decision, not the poet?s, to include it.(16) It is important to note that at no place does Wordsworth mention Coleridge?s real name. Rather, he refers to the author of ?The Ancient Mariner? only as ?a friend? in both his preface to the book and in the notes at the end. Wordsworth?s name alone was printed on the second edition. Jack Stillinger notes, ?For readers who turned immediately from the title page to the poems themselves, ignoring the long preface in between and the notes at the back, ?The Ancient Mariner? was a piece, like all the others in the volume, ?By W. Wordsworth.??

The 1798 edition published the poem as ?The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, in Seven Parts,? and by the second publication in 1800, the title had changed. Upon Wordsworth?s request, Coleridge altered the archaic spelling for which he had been criticized and changed the title of his supernatural piece to ?The Ancient Mariner, A Poet?s Reverie.?(17) This change was perhaps insisted upon by Wordsworth to subdue accusations of the poem?s Gothic characteristics. If the poem was categorized as a dream or trance elaborated and built upon by his ?friend,? the supernatural events in the poem would be more qualified.

However, reception of this alteration was not entirely positive. In a letter to Wordsworth after seeing the change made to the title, Charles Lamb writes, ?I am sorry that Coleridge has christened his Ancient Marinere ?a poet?s Reverie??What new idea is gained by this Title, but one subversive of all credit, which the Tale should force upon us, of its truth??(18) Coleridge?s efforts to escape criticism were ironically met with more criticism and opposition. Lamb found that the qualification as a trance rendered the poem illegitimate as a literary piece. The discouraged Coleridge could not win; he was disparaged in his first attempt to write an original poem and title it as such, and he was disparaged when he apologized for the tale through its qualification as ?a poet?s reverie.?

Coleridge also changed much of the archaic language in the second edition of ?Lyrical Ballads.? Most notably, as previously described, the spelling of the title changed from ?Ancyent Marinere? to ?Ancient Mariner.? Coleridge replaces ?eldritch,? with ?ghastly,? ?yeven? with ?given,? ?yspread? with ?spread,? and the printer changed ?Ne? to ?Nor.?(19) These changes addressed the criticism which the poem had received upon its first printing in 1798 about the outdated language.

In the first two editions, Coleridge included a preface to the poem titled, ?Argument.? In that preface, Coleridge summarized the events which occur. As printed in the 1798 version, the Argument states:


How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by Storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the Tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.(20)


This preface focuses on the progression of the ship, and the Mariner is not mentioned until the last line of the Argument. It speaks of the Mariner?s return, but does not fault him for the ?strange things that befell.? The Argument is visibly changed in the 1800 version of the poem. It reads:


How a Ship having first sailed to the Equator, was driven by Storms, to the cold Country towards the South Pole; how the Ancient Mariner, cruelly, and in contempt of the laws of hospitality, killed a Sea-bird; and how he was followed by many strange Judgements; and in what manner he came back to his own Country.(21)


Condemnation of the Mariner is explained in this preface. The audience learns of the ship?s location, but there is a focus on the acts of the Mariner. Coleridge warns that the Mariner will cruelly murder a sea-bird and that he will be punished for acting ?in contempt of the laws of hospitality.? This preface informs the moral in the poem.(22)

This more descriptive summary was printed after ?The Ancient Mariner? was criticized in the 1798 version. Although it adds a level of understanding to the poem, it is an appeal to the audience to accept the message of the text and approve of its place in the lyrical ballads. With this Argument, Coleridge veers from the supernatural and pushes the poem?s emphasis toward guilt, love and a moral that he felt could be derived from the poem.

The third edition of the ?Lyrical Ballads,? in which Coleridge was less involved (although he is thought to be responsible for the elimination the Argument and the shortening of the title to ?The Ancient Mariner? in response to Lamb?s criticism) was published by T.N. Longman in June of 1802.(23) Five hundred copies were made for the third publication.(24) In 1805, ?The Ancient Mariner? was again included in the ?Lyrical Ballads,? still without recognizing Coleridge as the author. Coleridge was not involved in the printing of the fourth edition where no substantive changes occur.(25)

Jack Stillinger numbers eighteen versions of the text to ?The Ancient Mariner.? The original manuscript no longer exists, and because of this, he terms the first published version of the poem to be Coleridge?s original text.(26) Before the second edition of ?Lyrical Ballads? was published, Coleridge makes corrections to ?The Ancient Mariner? so that the version which was included in this second edition was actually his fourth version of the poem. The fifth version, published in 1802 in the third edition of the ?Lyrical Ballads,? removes the Argument from the beginning of the poem, as previously discussed. The sixth and seventh versions make minor punctuation changes and add several lines respectively. The eighth written, but only fifth published, version was published in 1817 and includes major changes to the content of the poem. Versions nine through fifteen contain word substitutions and offers variant glosses to the text published in 1817. The sixteenth version of the poem was printed in 1828 and makes several changes to the verse of the 1817 version. The seventeenth version differs from the sixteenth in only one punctuation mark. The eighteenth and last known version makes various grammatical changes and prints the poem in the third edition of Coleridge?s book, ?Poetical Works.?(27) The changes noted above are the changes which Stillinger described of the eighteen versions of Coleridge?s poem.

Despite the various previous revisions, the first time the poem was published under Coleridge?s own name was in a collection of two volumes entitled ?Sibylline Leaves: A Collection of Poems.? Printing of the collection began in August of 1815. However, it was not released to the public until July of 1817.(28) Seven hundred fifty copies were made and sold at 10.5 shillings per copy.(29) As in the first edition of ?Lyrical Ballads,? ?The Ancient Mariner? was placed as the first poem in the collection, although its appearance was drastically different from the 1798 edition. Coleridge added a Latin epigraph, taken from Thomas Burnet?s ?Archaeologiae philosophicae? of 1692, and placed it on the page facing the first page of the poem.(30) The epigraph requires translation for most to understand it, and when translated, its symbolism requires the reader to connect it to the events of the poem. Where the Argument had imposed the author?s interpretation of the story, Coleridge provides through the epigraph another lens through which the reader may create his own interpretation. In ?Coleridge & Textual Instability,? Jack Stillinger writes, ?Thus we now have, at the beginning, three basic entities in the process of the work: the story; the author teasing and challenging the reader; and the reader confronting epigraph, author, and story simultaneously.? He continues, ?The story, which in effect had been the entire content of the 1798 version, has diminished to one-third of the effective materials now operating in the work.?(31)

The text of 1817 also includes the controversial addition of a gloss to the text. The gloss, which again imposes the author?s moral and interpretative descriptions of the events of the book, reinforces Coleridge?s continuing effort to promote understanding of his message. However, many critics feel that while Coleridge promotes his own interpretation, the gloss limits other readings of the text. Jean-Pierre Mileur states in his book Vision and Revision that ?The gloss?represents Coleridge?s self-conscious and retrospective comment on the life history of the poem.? Mileur adds that the gloss represents Coleridge?s failure within the original poem to ?impose some order on psychological contingency?(32) and deliver a comprehensible meaning to the poem.

Although most readers agree that the imposition of Coleridge?s gloss was an attempt to respond to claims that the poem was confusing and irrelevant, others believe that the gloss offers a strange sense of unity and understanding.(33) Lines 79 through 83 of the 1834 edition state: ?God save thee, ancient Mariner! / From the fiends, that plague thee thus!-- / Why look?st thou so???With my cross-bow / I shot the Albatross.? The gloss which accompanies this verse is ?The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.?(34) Coleridge has thus imposed an interpretation which one cannot derive from the verse alone. Descriptions of the act as ?inhospitable? and of the bird as ?pious? add qualifications from which a moral may be derived.

Criticism of the gloss also lies in its location; the varied positioning of the glosses imposed on the text offers different interpretations of the poem. Thus, if the gloss was positioned to the right of the actual text, as it is in the 1828 version of ?Poetical Works,? the audience would first read the verse and then scan the gloss?reading from left to right--gathering Coleridge?s written interpretation of the events after they have read his verse.(35) In the ?Poetical Works? of 1834, readers would first experience the gloss, and thus would have a summary of the verse before actually reading it.(36) Many of the texts available online include the gloss actually within the text, directly in front of the stanzas which it summarizes.

Coleridge died in 1834, the same year in which the eighteenth version of ?The Ancient Mariner? was published. Just as through death he lost control over the publication of his poem, so too he lost control over the public reaction to the tale. He could no longer edit his verse in response to criticism or misunderstanding. The internet has in some ways mitigated Coleridge?s plight by making multiple versions of the text available to a wide audience. As multiple versions are read, the audience realizes that consideration of a single version is not necessarily an accurate representation of the poet?s work. The Lyrical Ballads Bicentenary Project allows anyone connected to the internet to view images of the pages in the 1817 version of ?The Ancient Mariner? as they appeared printed in ?Lyrical Ballads.?(37) Illustrations, such as those by Gustave Doré, are also readily available through the internet to help the audience visualize the text.

However, access to different texts and various illustrations may also complicate understanding of Coleridge?s poem. In a poem which is already descriptive without illustrations, different illustrators will depict the images differently among each other and as compared to the images created by the poet?s text. For example, ?Gustave Doré?s elaborate engravings originally published in 1876?darkly brooding, richly detailed, almost symphonic in their comprehensiveness and complexity?are immensely different from Alexander Calder?s cartoonlike (images) of 1946.?(38) Even though Coleridge is no longer living, his text still struggles to explain itself, and this struggle is complicated through the revisions made by multiple illustrations.
The publication history of Samuel Taylor Coleridge shows a constant effort by the author to perfect his text. Through the changing of archaic dialect and punctuation, the inclusion and deletion of the Argument, the addition of the epigraph and gloss, and the continuous text amendments from the first to the last publication, Coleridge responds to criticism of the poem. He wants badly to be understood, and even more intensely seeks the approval of his audience and critics. Criticism by literary elite such as Wordsworth, Lamb, and others sparked the changes made within the text. Although his desire for approval was not well known, his immediate editing of criticized aspects of the poem suggest that he was highly sensitive to negative feedback. He also sought greater approval by his general audience. The Argument and gloss provide his interpretation of the events after initial reviews attacked the poem as irrelevant and unimportant. Ironically, each time he edits in the name of understanding and comprehension, he adds confusion by providing additional textual changes to ponder. Technological innovations such as the internet increase accessibility to his text, but also contribute to the complexity of his message. Although ?The Ancient Mariner? was the constant target of criticism in his lifetime, the long-term survival of his poem would have pleased the sensitive Coleridge enormously.



(1) Stillinger, Jack. Coleridge & Textual Instability: The Multiple Versions of the Major Poems. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. p. 10

(2) Campbell, 596

(3) Ferguson, Frances. Georgia Review. ?Coleridge and the Deluded Reader: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.? Volume XXXI. 1997. pg. 630

(4) Campbell, 594

(5) Campbell, 594

(6) Campbell, 595

(7) Campbell, 595

(8) Stillinger, 14-15

(9) Stillinger, 120

(10) Stillinger, 15

(11)Stillinger, 15

(12) St. Clair, William. The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. p. 661

(13) Stillinger, 15

(14) St. Clair, 661

(15) Campbell, 596

(16) Campbell, 596

(17) Davidson, Graham. Coleridge?s Career. New York: St. Martin?s Press, 1990. p. 48

(18) Stillinger, 64

(19) Stillinger, 63

(20) Campbell, 512-513

(21) Campbell, 512

(22) Ferguson, 629

(23) Stillinger, 15-16

(24) St. Claire, 661

(25) Stillinger, 16

(26) Stillinger, 120

(27) Stillinger, 61-67

(28) Tiefert, Marjorie A. The Samuel Taylor Coleridge Archive. ?S.T. Coleridge Time Line.?Electronic Text Center. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/stc.html.

(29) St. Claire, 594

(30) Stillinger, 70

(31) Stillinger, 71

(32) Mileur, Jean-Pierre. Vision and Revision: Coleridge?s Art of Immanence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. p. 68-69

(33) Ferguson, 622

(34) Stillinger, 16

(35) Stillinger, 121

(36) Stillinger, 162

(37) Lyrical Ballads Bicentenary Project. ?The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.? Edited by Ronald Tetreault and Bruce Graver. Dalhousie University Electronic Text Centre. http://is.dal.ca/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~etc/lballads/L98frames.pl/a001?98_1

(38) Stillinger, 122-123

Bibliography
Coleridge, S.T. The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by James Dykes Campbell. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1938.

Davidson, Graham. Coleridge?s Career. New York: St. Martin?s Press, 1990.

Ferguson, Frances. Georgia Review. ?Coleridge and the Deluded Reader: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.? Volume XXXI. 1997.

Lyrical Ballads Bicentenary Project. ?The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.? Edited by Ronald Tetreault and Bruce Graver. Dalhousie University Electronic Text Centre. http://is.dal.ca/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~etc/lballads/L98frames.pl/a001?98_1

Mileur, Jean-Pierre. Vision and Revision: Coleridge?s Art of Immanence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

St. Clair, William. The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Stillinger, Jack. Coleridge & Textual Instability: The Multiple Versions of the Major Poems. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Tiefert, Marjorie A. The Samuel Taylor Coleridge Archive. ?S.T. Coleridge Time Line.? Electronic Text Center.http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/stc.html.