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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 52694 Views
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Description:
Mariners back in the day sure knew how to bust a rime.
Transcript
- 00:03
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a la Shmoop. Have you ever made a little mistake that turned
- 00:09
out to be… way bigger than you expected?
- 00:13
That little white lie that somehow snowballed until the FBI got involved?
- 00:18
The forgotten paper cut that eventually gave you your new nickname, “Stumpy?”
- 00:24
In Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a Daryl Dixon wannabe shoots down a lovely,
Full Transcript
- 00:31
innocent albatross.
- 00:32
Bummer, right? Especially for all you animal lovers out there.
- 00:38
But when the trigger-happy Mariner’s ship stalls on the ocean, and the rest of the crew
- 00:41
suddenly croaks, he really starts to second-guess himself.
- 00:47
It takes a spiritual epiphany and a lot of walking corpses to get our Mariner back to
- 00:52
business… pestering happy wedding guests. Just what is Coleridge trying to get at with
- 00:57
all this praying, redemption, and resurrection?
- 01:01
Is a bird just a bird, or does it stand for something more… inspirational?
- 01:06
Could Coleridge’s albatross be a symbol for Jesus Christ?
- 01:11
Could be.
- 01:12
By the middle of the voyage, the sailors are all pretty bored, and missing their parakeets
- 01:18
back home.
- 01:20
The albatross becomes sort of a mascot to them.
- 01:23
They treat him like a Christian soul, which is pretty high praise for a creature that
- 01:27
takes poop deck literally.
- 01:29
Plus, in Christian metaphors, Jesus is sometimes compared to a bird. Which definitely beats
- 01:34
a sea slug, or manatee. Have you ever heard the expression… an albatross
- 01:39
around your neck?
- 01:40
The Mariner’s dead-bird accessory isn’t only a symbol of his screw-up, but of the
- 01:44
human burden of sin.
- 01:47
The Mariner tells us, Instead of the cross, the Albatross around my neck was hung.
- 01:52
Sure, it’s a lot lighter than a cross, but not what you’d call…pine fresh.
- 01:58
It seems pretty obvious that the Albatross is there to teach the Mariner a lesson.
- 02:02
When the sailor blesses the sea creatures, his feathered accessory falls from his neck.
- 02:08
He feels a… spring of love… and praises Heaven and Jesus’ mom, the Virgin Mary.
- 02:13
The Mariner also gets a little of that forgiveness that J.C. is known for…
- 02:18
…but now he’s got to do a lifetime of community service as penance.
- 02:22
These all seem like pretty strong arguments for a Christian allegory. But what about the
- 02:26
poet behind the scenes?
- 02:32
Coleridge’s dad wanted him to go career with Christianity, but Sam wasn’t into it.
- 02:37
Instead, he became a rebel with too many causes.
- 02:40
Coleridge dropped out of college, got hooked on opium, joined a commune, and married one
- 02:44
woman while in love with another.
- 02:46
His radical, free-thinking opinions earned him a pretty scandalous reputation…
- 02:52
Would Coleridge himself have agreed with the Christ-albatross connection?
- 02:58
So is there a religious back story to our feathered homicide victim?
- 03:01
Does the albatross symbolize Christ or the cross?
- 03:02
Is it just there to get the Mariner into church?
- 03:06
Or would Coleridge laugh at the notion that there’s any connection?
- 03:16
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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