An Exploration of Coleridge's Strategic Transmission

A great deal of debate surrounds Samuel Taylor Coleridge?s intended message within The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Some favor the poem?s religious interpretation, citing numerous examples of the religious symbolism?the albatross, crossbow, and themes of sin, repentance, and redemption. Others believe that Coleridge stresses the importance of respecting God?s creations whether big or small. Others insist that the Mariner represents Coleridge; here the narrative illustrates the poet?s dilemma as a ?genius outsider.? Coleridge?s hazy and inconsistent means of transmission spawn these multiple interpretations. Throughout the poem, Coleridge strategically engages the reader using a flowing rhyme scheme, common language, and vivid imagery. Strangely, Coleridge simultaneously distances the reader from the poem and any single message by positioning the reader as an outsider, using a seemingly meaningless gloss, and sending out contradictory messages. When closely analyzing Coleridge?s means of transmission, one realizes The Rime of the Ancient Mariner does not possess a single meaning; instead, by both engaging the and distancing the reader from the text, Coleridge allows the reader to make his or her own judgments about life, religion, nature, and ultimately the Mariner?s intended message.

Initially, Coleridge makes numerous efforts to engage the reader; he grants the audience access to a deeper understanding of the poem using a strategic rhyme scheme, carefully chosen language, vivid imagery, and particular character qualities.

Coleridge immediately grabs the audience?s attention and draws the readers into the poem with a by allowing the poem to flow like a story. Generally, the poem?s stanzas are four, five, or six lines, with the exception of a single nine line stanza. The rhyme scheme follows ABCB, ABCCB, ABCBDB, and AABCCBDDB forms respectively. A typical four line stanza may read, ?The ice was here, the ice was there; / The ice was all around; / It cracked and growled, and roared and howled / Like noises in a swound? (59). This rhyme pattern, along with the poem?s others, are not complex; they allow each stanza to flow relatively quickly which gives The Rime of the Ancient Mariner story-like. It flows quickly and is easy to understand. The straight-forward narrative framing both allows the reader to focus on the poem?s messages and unfolding events rather than the deciphering of complicated lines.

The language Coleridge chooses to include in his narrative enhances the poem?s structural simplicity. Coleridge uses the ?language of men,? or common language. The simple language Coleridge uses further pushes the story along and enhances the reader?s understanding of the poem; the reader rarely has to stop mid-poem to decipher a word?s meaning; instead, the reader can spend his or her time pondering a word?s significance. We witness this style when the Mariner?s shipmates give him one last look before they die: ?One after one, by the star-dogged moon / Too quick for groan or sigh, / Each turned his face with a ghastly pang / and cursed me with his eye? (212). This stanza?s meaning is straightforward; the sailors curse the Mariner before their deaths. The straightforward superficial message within any given stanza allows the reader to focus on a deeper meaning rather than decoding plot. In this case, the reader may question the importance of the sailors? final glances and the significance of their deaths. Coleridge?s careful linguistic choices grant the audience access into the poem?s inner workings; it makes The Rime of the Ancient Mariner accessible to the average man, rather than a lofty intellectual undertaking. Coleridge?s language allows the reader to connect to the poem?s events in a way that would otherwise be more challenging.

Coleridge?s rhyme scheme and use of simplistic language engage the reader by making the poem literally undemanding and superficially straightforward. However, he pushes his agenda of engaging the reader one step further with his use of vivid imagery which makes both the poem?s natural and emotional components easy to relate identify with. Coleridge repeatedly transports the reader to different scenarios by vividly describing the atmosphere. The poem begins at a wedding. Coleridge highlights the open ?bridegroom?s doors,? ?merry din,? and ?feast? (3). The reader can closely relate to the wedding?s atmosphere and thus identifies with wedding guest?s surroundings. As the poem progresses, Coleridge continues to establish a relationship between the audience and numerous scenarios. While the Mariner?s ship travels towards the South Pole Coleridge states: ?And now there came both mist and snow, / And it grew wondrous cold: / and ice mast-high came floating by / As green as emerald? (51). Even if the reader has never been aboard a ship traveling next to ice bergs, Coleridge?s description transports the reader into the scene. Coleridge compares the enormity of the glaciers to the mast of the ship, a reference point that most readers would be able to make a comparison to.

Coleridge also makes the poem?s supernatural elements accessible to the audience. Coleridge describes the water snakes that surround the Mariner?s enchanted ship in great detail: ?I watched their rich attire:/ Blue glossy green, and velvet black, / They coiled and swam and every track / Was a flash of golden fire? (277). Here Coleridge concentrates on the water-snake?s color; the audience would fail to connect with the image of the snakes without this element. The focus on color allows the reader to paint his or her own image into this scene; the act of imagination allows readers to immerse themselves in the poem which leads to a deeper understanding. With personal recreations of the poem?s supernatural events, Coleridge allows the readers to become active participants in the poem?s transmission.

Coleridge does not stop after establishing an image based connection between the audience and the poem; he furthers his agenda by giving the wedding guest and the Mariner distinctly human emotions. Coleridge?s efforts allow the reader to make a sentimental connection with both the characters, and by doing so, become even more involved in the poem. Coleridge immediately establishes a relationship between the wedding guest and the reader in the poem?s first five stanzas. The Mariner ?holds? the wedding-guest, who is also a groomsman, against his will: ??Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!?? (11). Coleridge?s audience connects with the significance of a wedding and more importantly the seriousness of missing it. Here, the audience closely identifies with the wedding guest; he lacks defining qualities and thus represents an average man. The reader easily substitutes him or herself as the wedding guest. Coleridge also urges the audience to establish a relationship with the Mariner by allow him human to display emotions?loneliness, pain, and remorse. After his crewmates spontaneously drop dead, the Mariner describes his ?soul in agony? and his isolation ?Alone, alone, all all alone, / Alone on a wide wide sea? (231). The audience connects with the Mariner?s pain as he desperately attempts, but is unable, to escape his cursed surroundings: ?Seven days, seven nights I saw that curse / and yet I could not die? (261). And finally, the audience relates to the Mariner?s journey towards redemption; the audience associates with the guilt and repentance triggered by a harmful action. The emotional connection that Coleridge establishes between the audience and the poem?s two main characters not only makes the poem accessible to anyone, it also allows the reader to establish a close, personal connection with the poem.

Coleridge intentionally engages the reader, making him or her feel as if he or she can draw distinct meaning from the poem?s events, by using an uncomplicated rhyme scheme, common language, vivid imagery, and relatable character qualities. After examining the previous four elements, one would assume that Coleridge intended not only to make this poem accessible to his audience, but to also to leave the reader with a clear message upon the poem?s completion. Strangely, Coleridge does quite the opposite. While he makes constant efforts to draw the audience into his work, he simultaneously makes multiple to attempts to make the reader feel like an outsider, an onlooker to events that he can neither understand nor take part in. Coleridge dissociates the audience from the poem by positioning the reader as an outsider, using a meaningless gloss, and sending out contradictory messages.

Coleridge initially pushes the audience away by establishing the reader as an outsider; from the poem?s onset, Coleridge forces the reader to question where and if he truly fits into the poem. Coleridge confirms the audience?s relationship to the poem within the first five stanzas. In the first two lines of the poem the wedding-guest speaks solely to the audience; this changes abruptly in the following two lines of stanza one where the wedding-guest directly addresses the Mariner. In this first stanza, Coleridge merely acknowledges the audience?s presence. The wedding-guest returns to the audience in stanza two where he sets the stage for his interaction with the Mariner. In stanzas three, four, and five, the poems narrator, a figure scarcely seen throughout the remainder of the poem, verifies the interaction between the narrator and the wedding guest using direct quotations from each; Coleridge writes these three stanzas as if the narrator were present during the Mariner?s oral transmission of his story. In stanza six, the Mariner and wedding-guest begin their personal interactionsee first six stanzas. From this point on, with the exception of the final two lines of the poem, Coleridge disregards the audience?s presence.

As the poem progresses, Coleridge removes the audience from the poem more drastically. Throughout the poem, the Mariner often converses directly with secondary characters as he recounts his story to the wedding-guest; in these cases, the wedding-guest becomes once removed, and the audience is one step further from the poem?s message. The reader witnesses this scenario as the Mariner points out a ghost ship on the horizon: ??She tacks no more, / Hither to work us weal; / Without a breeze, without a tide, / She steadies with upright keel?? (166). Here the Mariner speaks directly to his crew and the audience feels increasingly disconnected from the unfolding events. Shortly after, both the Mariner, wedding-guest, and audience are removed from the poem?s message as Death and Life-in-Death discuss the Mariner?s fate. The Mariner overhears their conversation, relays it to the wedding-guest and the audience once again has no choice but to listen in.

In addition to preventing any direct interaction between the audience and the Mariner, Coleridge creates more distance between the poem and the reader with a meaningless, scientific gloss present in the poem?s margins. Coleridge?s gloss serves to disrupt the flowing narrative that exists without its presence. One stanza reads, ?The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, / The furrow streamed off free: / We were the first that ever burst / Into that silent sea? (103). A gloss in the margin accompanies this passage: ?The fair breeze / continues; the ship / enters the Pacific Ocean / and sails northward, even / till it reaches the line? (103). Here, the gloss reveals the same message as the poem and serves no purpose. Coleridge decides to include it as a means to disturb the flowing passage that would exist in its absence. As previously discussed, the flowing rhyme scheme and simple language makes the audience?s understanding of the plot undemanding; it allows the reader to focus on a deeper meaning and make a stronger connection with the unfolding events. The gloss interrupts the poem?s rhythmic flow and puts a strong emphasis on the poem?s plot which halts creativity and personal connection.

Coleridge additionally distances the reader from the poem and any single interpretation of its message by including glaring contradictions within its confines. The audience witnesses these contradictions on two main occasions. The first concerns the magnitude of the Mariner?s message. Coleridge highlights the importance of the Mariner?s message with his ?glittering? eyes early in the poem and the Mariner stresses the importance himself towards the end: ?I pass, like night, from land to land, / I have strange power of speech; / The moment that his face I see, / I know the man that must hear me? / To him my tale I teach? (581). Strangely, the Mariner often fails to spread his message. Outside the wedding he ?stoppeth one of three? wedding guests; he attempts to grab two men?s attention before one guest sits and listens. Later in the poem, the Mariner?s attempt to relay his story to the hermit fails. The interactions between the Mariner and those who refuse to heed his story, force the reader to question the importance and validity of the Mariners message. His failed attempts spawn an obvious question; if the poem?s characters often disregard the Mariner and his message, why should the audience listen.

The audience finds another glaring contradiction when examining the importance the Mariner places on life at the end of the poem. In the poem?s final stanzas, the Mariner leaves the wedding-guest with a single piece of advice: ?Farewell, farewell! but this I tell / To thee, thou wedding-guest! / ?He prayeth best who loveth best / All things both great and small, / For the dear God who loveth us, / He made and loveth all? (610). The Mariner?s killing of the albatross does trigger a course of events displaying the significance of life. He sins, suffers, repents, and ultimately seeks a path towards redemption once he ?blesse(s) (God?s creatures) unaware? (287). However, only shortly before the Mariner realizes the error of his ways, Death and Life-In-Death decide his fate using a dice game. The determination of the Mariners fate within the poem emphasizes the futility of life rather than its importance. The sharp contradictions within the poem?s messages confuse and distance the audience, making any single interpretation of the poem unlikely.

As seen, Coleridge tactfully pulls the reader into the text with his rhyme scheme, carefully chosen language, and vivid imagery, while simultaneously disengaging the reader by positioning him as an outsider, using a seemingly meaningless gloss, and sending out contradictory messages. Coleridge?s actions are intentional; he uses The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to spark intellectual internal conflict. Upon the poem?s completion, the reader fails to decipher any single message, but wrestles with numerous possibilities. Rather than relaying a single, decisive message, Coleridge allows his audience to decide for itself. By simultaneously engaging and distancing the reader, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner becomes a bastion of independent thought. The poem clearly highlights certain topics?religion, the importance of life, and the human connection to God?s other creations; however, the hazy narrative never gives the reader a definitive glimpse into Coleridge?s own stance. Coleridge draws the reader into the poem just enough to get him to look beyond the poem?s superficial message, but pushes him away to avoid any single interpretation of the poem?s events.

If Coleridge had wanted The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to convey a single, definitive message, he would not have gone to such lengths to mystify and dissociate his audience. The poem continues to evolve as more readers bring their own interpretations to Coleridge?s narrative. However, while drawing personal meaning from the poem, we must not lose sight of The Rime?s most unique aspect?the poem?s habitual internal conflictions. These hazy messages force the reader to explore his or her own beliefs. Only when one solidifies personal viewpoints can one truly extract meaning from Coleridge?s narrative. With this established, Coleridge emphasizes the journey to a conclusion rather than the conclusion itself.