The Lack of Unity of Art and Life in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The idea of attaining unity within the poem is expressly made impossible by the lack of a unifying moral to adequately explain the heavy guilt and appalling events taking place on the ship as described by the ancient mariner himself. The mariner’s moral for what has taken place is described to the wedding guest in this way: “He prayeth well who loveth well / Both man and bird and beast. / He prayeth best who lovest best / All things both great and small, / For the dear God who loveth us, / He made and loveth all” (612-617). If this is in fact the moral which the mariner’s tale is to teach us, then the first question that may come to mind is where was God’s love when he was causing all the mariner’s shipmates to drop dead even though it was the mariner alone who had killed the albatross? Why were the shipmates chosen to drop dead instead of the one who had actually killed the bird he should rather have loved? Where is the sense in that morality? Rather than answering questions, it raises questions about what kind of God is the mariner talking about.
The mariner seems content in placing upon his harrowing story a moral that is far too pat and simple-minded to account for the exceptional guilt he feels and to answer for the strange events to which the mariner has been witness. In essence, there is no satisfying unity between the moral learned and the sin and the guilt that has led to the mariner arriving at this moral lesson. This lack of unity puts into question the entire meaning of the poem. Does the moral belong to Coleridge, or is it instead only that of the mariner? And if it only belongs to the mariner, then why does Coleridge see fit to add the marginal glosses that seem to echo the moral as explained by the mariner? For instance, what to make of the gloss which reads “And to teach by his own example love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth,”?
This is clearly not the mariner speaking, so is it meant to be Coleridge? If so, then it is, indeed, Coleridge himself who is offering the simple moral put forward by the mariner as the true moral of the poem. If so, then one must wonder what on earth Coleridge was thinking. The astounding disunity between moral and the events which leads to the acceptance of that moral is enough to question whether Coleridge was the towering intellect that some would make him out to be. How could one create this complex and fabulously entertaining story only to the come to the ultimate conclusion that what it all means is that we shouldn’t kill birds because, after all, God made them, too?
And yet there are other lapses of unity within the poem which, while not as astonishing as that between moral and events, makes one question whether Coleridge had actually decided that the poem was concluded, or was it rather still a work in progress that attained publication too soon. The central event of the poem, the action upon which everything else follows and from which everything else attains meaning, is never given any psychological, spiritual, or motivational explanation of any kind. The mariner apparently just decides for no reason to kill the albatross, a bird traditionally regarded as a harbinger of good tidings among sailors. Not only is there no reason given for this decision, but also in a poem of 625 lines the defining moment of the poem is dramatized in just one and a half lines. “‘With my crossbow / I shot the albatross” (81-82.)
It is as if Coleridge wanted to get the crux of the story out of the way as soon as possible and with as little dramatic fuss as possible in order to get on with his true interest, which is detailing the aftereffects of the crime and how the mariner deals with his sin, guilt and redemption. Once again, there is a singular lack of unity. Now it is between the apparently senseless crime and the deeply detailed and dense rendering of how the mariner reacts to that crime. The disconnect between the amount of attention given to the crime and the amount of attention given to its consequences is conspicuous and raises troubling questions. Why does so much death and psychic injury follow upon what seems to be a rather mundane trespass? The full weight of the mariner’s crime can’t be appreciated because Coleridge chooses to focus neither on why it should be so important nor on why the mariner committed the crime in the first place.
Without an understanding of why we should care so deeply about such a seemingly innocuous “crime,” it becomes difficult to appreciate not only the significance of the complexities of the poem which are to follow, but also why we should even care about the mariner and his guilt since we aren’t enlightened at all in regard to what kind of person he was to commit the crime in the first place. A sense of unity is undeniably lacking between the supremely questionable primacy of the alleged crime and the absolutely unquestionable import of the guilt and drive toward redemption that follows.
Despite the significance of the redemption that the mariner seeks and needs, his quest for deliverance also demonstrates the lack of unity within the poem. After his blessing of the water-snakes, the mariner symbolically casts off his sin. “The self-same moment I could pray, / And from my neck so free / The albatross fell off and sank / Like lead into the sea” (288-291). Despite this supposed respite from his guilt, however, the mariner is still not done with paying for his crime. “The man hath penance done / And penance more will do” (408-409). So, even though he has been freed of the burden of carrying the albatross around with him, he still is not quite yet done with paying for his sins.
To muddle things further, a gloss on the side tells us with finality that “The curse is finally expiated.” Despite that promise, however, he has still not attained atonement and will instead be forced to circle the globe, continually re-telling his story in what appears to be a vain attempt to achieve salvation. The disunity here is so obvious that it almost doesn’t even need explanation. The mariner has been given the expectation of atonement for his sins several times within the text of the poem, yet at the end he is still there explaining to the wedding guest why he must continue telling his tale.
Coleridge’s desire for unity is firmly rejected in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It is certainly not in complete disarray, but it is burdened with several unresolved questions that leave the reader with a sense of dissatisfaction with a poem that in other areas-such as storytelling and rhyme and meter-holds up quite well and can be considered a success. This division among the various components of the poem is itself evidence of the sense of disunity at stake in it. One cannot sincerely label the poem either an unqualified success or an unqualified failure. Ultimately, there is not enough unity in the poem from either perspective even for that.
