About “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”:

Although Albatross acts as a prequel of sorts, it is heavily based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem of memory, penance, and navigation through the spirit and the natural worlds. In it, a nameless man known only as a The Mariner weaves a tale to a wedding guest about a ship sailing to the South Pole becoming enveloped in a storm.

In this tale, an albatross appears and seemingly leads them to good winds, but is inexplicably shot by the Mariner. The crew, outraged, believed the sea bird to be a good omen causing the winds to blow. But soon after, the clouds break and the fog lifts. The good winds also cease, leaving the crew trapped out on a calm sea. Believing the Mariner’s actions angered a spirit, the sailors hang the dead bird around his neck.

As circumstances grow dire, the crew is approached by a ghostly ship. Two haunted figures, Death and Life in Death, roll dice for the soul of the sailors. Life and Death wins the soul of the Mariner while the sailors begin to die of thirst all around them.

The Mariner, surrounded by the dead bodies of his crew, prays to heaven. He is visited by water snakes swimming besides the ship. He realizes the beauty of not only these creatures but that of all of nature. The albatross falls from his neck and into the sea.

Falling into a trance, The Mariner awakens to find the Sailors reanimated by angels and at work on the ship. The ship is now heading back home at full speed. In the distance he sees a small boat with a crew of three— a Pilot, the Pilot’s Boy, and a hermit. The Mariner’s ship sinks, and he finds himself on this small boat. The Mariner rows them to shore, and in turn the Hermit grants him absolution from his sins.

Back in the present, the Mariner explains to the wedding guest that he feels compelled to tell this tale, and this particular guest seemed to be a man who needed to hear it. His greatest lesson to impart being that prayer is life’s greatest joy and that the best prayers are of those revering God’s creations.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the longest major poem Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is considered a landmark poem and a classic of the romantic idiom, despite its use of archaic language. It is unique in that it has little in common with other Romantic works and gives the impression that the “Rime” is an ancient ballad. By describing the Mariner as “ancient,” Coleridge makes him a timeless artifact which has always existed and always will exist.

The spelling of the word “Rime” has different levels of meaning. On the most basic level, the poem is a “rhyme”— rhyming verses— told by an old sailor, or mariner. The spelling “rime” refers to frost, specifically frost that forms in fog and wind when the temperature cools down. “Rime” often forms on the windy side of sails and ships. Much of the poem takes place in the Arctic, in a “land of ice and snow” where “rime” is found. The Mariner himself is described as being “frosty,” for example his beard is described as frosty or, “hoary” (7.142). Some critics suggest that the use of “Rime” is symbolic of the Mariner's soul being covered with a layer of frost until he learns to have pity on his fellow creatures.

The albatross has become a symbol of the heavy burden of guilt (albatross around one’s neck) because of the popularity and endurance of the poem. It is an English language idiom describing “a heavy burden of guilt that becomes an obstacle to success.”