Analyzing The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
with Coleridge and Doré
with Coleridge and Doré
This Deep Readings site considers The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which is a seminal poem for British Romanticism, through the eyes of three interlocutors, listed below:
- The engravings of Gustav Dore, which lend themselves to an interpretation of the poem that emphasizes a dark and Romantic focus on nature and natural spirits, but ultimately points towards a Christian interpretation of the poem as a journey of redemption
- John Livingstone Lowe’s mammoth 1927 commentary on Coleridge titled The Road to Xanadu, which meticulously traces Coleridge’s textual sources for The Rime and in doing so, concludes that the poem ultimately stands with no moral save as a testament to the power of the imagination
- The 1963 commentary on The Rime by David Jones, which agrees with Dore as to the ultimately Christian nature of the poem’s message, but which expands the interpretation of The Rime to reflect Jones’ own specifically Catholic preoccupations with Mary as a force in the poem and the Church or soul as a ship captained by Christ
Hopefully, engaging with these three thinkers and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner will help you to
- see Coleridge’s epic in new light,
- perceive the poem’s significance as a work of literature, and
- engage you alongside Dore, Lowe, and Jones to follow different, but similarly attentive, routes of deep reading through this rich work.
