INTERPRETATION OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. How much does the Ancient Mariner mean? Is it true, as is ingeniously argued by a contributor to the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (July, 1880), that this poem embodies a complete system of Christian theology, presenting "the Fall from the innocence of ignorance, from the immediacy of natural faith; and the return, through the mediation of sin and doubt, to conscious virtue and belief"? Does the Ancient Mariner represent mankind? the ship, the physical environment of the soul? the Albatross, faith in spiritual things? the snow-fog, ignorance ? the golden sun, knowledge of good and evil? the tropic seas, the weary calm of “mere finite subjectivity"? the demon woman, unbelief? the spirit under the keel, divine grace? the Pilot and the Pilot's boy, sensuous.knowing and finite understanding"? the Hermit, reason? and the happy outcome, the loss of “all particularity" and recognition of "the true Universal" ? 66 However edifying such a hieroglyphic reading between the lines may be to the philosophers, there is little reason to suppose that Coleridge and Wordsworth, in their merry tramp over the Quantock Hills, had the faintest suspicion of their own profundity, as they planned together, with young imaginations aglow, this wild, picturesque, melodious ballad of dreamland. Certainly any attempt to expound to youthful students of the "Ancient Mariner" an interpretation so technical—may philosophy forgive the term !— would result for them in mental bewilderment and disgust and an echo of Endymion's cry, "And now, by Pan, I care not for this old mysterious man!" Yet few teachers will be content to pass the poem by without an effort to impress upon their classes not merely its marvellous poetic beauty, the elfin sweetness of the music, the vivid imagery of the swiftly shifted scenes, the terse energy cf phrase, and artistic order and harmony of the whole, but also its undoubted, inmost teaching that the soul makes its own world, and that in alliance with the living spirit of love is the only life of man. "My endeav 66 ors," says Coleridge, distinguishing between his work and that of Wordsworth in the Lyrical Ballads, were to be directed to persons and characters supernatural, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest, and a semblance of truth, sufficient to procure from these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith." And throughout the "Ancient Mariner" we clearly perIceive it to be the "inward nature" which is mirrored upon the changing face of that magical, moonlight ocean. It is the storm of life that rages there so "tyrannous and strong"; it is the dreary, stagnant selfishness of the soul which by wanton act has severed itself from the living principle of love-the wretched soul, "alone, alone," and perishing of thirst that paints the ghastly waters of that awful tropic sea; it is the revival of love in the heart that calls down from Heaven the sweet rain of refreshment. "Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner,"" writes Professor Corson of Cornell University, in his "Introduction to Browning," "is an imaginative expression of that divine love which embraces all creatures, from the highest to the lowest, of the consequences of the severance of man's soul from this animating principle of the universe, and of those spiritual threshings by and through which it is brought again under its blessed influence." - The temptation is strong to carry on this thought into minute illustration, but it is dangerous for prose to attempt to speak for poetry. The "Ancient Mariner" is its own best interpreter. Every reader who becomes subject to its subtle spell will prefer to be left free to read his own meanings into its flashing hints. For that it teaches by inspired suggestion rather than by infolding within itself an elaborate system of thought or even a detailed history of human experience follows from its essential character as the most poetical of poems, as first and foremost a tour de force of the imagination. Rev. Stopford Brooke, in "Theology in the English Poets," insists upon the simplicity of its lesson. 'We see in it how childlike the philosophic man could be in his faith, how little was enough for him. Its religion is all contained in the phrase He prayeth well who loveth well both man and bird and 66 beast.' On this the changes are rung throughout; the motiveless slaughter of the bird is a crime; the other mariners who justify the killing of the bird because of the good it seems to bring them are even worse sinners than the ancient mariner. He did the ill deed on a hasty impulse; they deliberately agree to it for selfish reasons. They sin a second time against love, by throwing the whole guilt on him, and again for selfish reasons. They are fatally punished; he lives to feel and expiate his wrong. And the turning point of his repentance is in the re-awakening of love, and is clearly marked. Left all alone on the sea, he despiseth the creatures of the calm, and envieth that so many should live and so many lie dead,' and in that temper of contempt and envy Coleridge suggests that no prayer can live. But when seven days had passed, he looked again on God's creatures of the great calm, and seeing their beauty and their happiness, forgot his own misery, and the curse, and himself in them, and blessed and loved them, and in that temper of spirit, prayer became possible." On this at least all the interpreters are agreed, that the kernel of the whole poem is love, love as the living link between man and nature, — love as the atmosphere wherein alone spirit life is possible, that love of God which involves the love of the least of His beloved. In one of Coleridge's early poems, a meditative essay in blank verse entitled "Religious Musings," which is believed by certain critics to present in a didactic form the meanings of the "Ancient Mariner," this chief burden of the ballad is distinctly voiced: "There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, Omnific. His most holy name is Love. |