In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, considered by many scholars the masterpiece par excellence of English romantic poetry, the themes symbols of mystery and the supernatural play a crucial role in the overall effect of the poem which John Hill Spencer sees as Coleridge's "attempt to understand the mystery surrounding the human soul in a universe moved by forces and powers... immanent and transcendent" (157) . Yet Mariner himself appears to be trapped in this supernatural world due to ghostly manifestations that come from the realms of the unknown. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was first published in Lyrical Ballads in 1798, a collection of poems written and published jointly by Coleridge and his good friend William Wordsworth. Yet the text of the poem generally in use today appeared in Sibylline Leaves in 1817. The narrative in "Rime" draws on many sources, and some of the ideas expressed in the poem were inspired by other passages of verse read by Coleridge. The central action, however, appears to have been suggested by Wordsworth, who was familiar with Shelvocke's A Voyage Round the World by the Way of the Great South Sea (1726) which describes the killing of an albatross by an anonymous sailor during a very bad time. weather. According to the Reverend Alexander Dyce, a close associate of Wordsworth, "Rime" was initially based on a strange dream experienced by John Cruikshank in which he saw a ship manned by a skeleton crew. As Graham Davidson points out, the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" "reads like a supernatural poem in which the representation of the real is secondary to the representation of spiritual realities" (134). This observation can be supported by the examination of some crucial stanzas that contain images and symbolic themes related to mystery and the supernatural, such as the strange climate encountered by the ship (1.11-12), the land of ice and snow (1.14 -15) , the appearance of the albatross as a sign of good omen (1.16-18), the death of the albatross at the hands of the sailor (1.19-20), the revenge of the albatross (2.9-11), death and death in life (3. 10-11) and the appearance of the dead crew members on board the ship (5. 9-10). The story describing the strange time in the first part, stanzas 11-12, is the first instance in which Coleridge begins to draw the reader into its disturbing symbolism. “And now the Storm came, and he/was tyrannous and strong” (lines 40-41) identifies time as a physical manifestation dominated by a male presence with “dominant wings” (line 42), much like an evil messenger sprung from 'Hell itself. In his study of the Romantic imagination, J. Livingston Lowes notes that in this stanza "the natural and the supernatural seem to blend" (57) which can also be applied to stanza 14 ("And now came both the fog and the snow/As became wonderfully cold", lines 55-56). While this setting may seem strange and otherworldly at first glance, it is actually based in reality, such as crossing the Equator in the Southern Hemisphere during the winter months with "ice, tall tree" (line 57) floating in the open ocean. "green as emerald" (line 58). But the spiritual realm of the sea, long regarded by sailors as benevolent and peaceful, will soon be transformed into an arena of terror and mystery when the ancient mariner commits a heinous crime against nature itself. With stanza 16, the reader is introduced to the albatross, a large, snow-white seabird that has long been regarded by sailors of all cultures as aa good omen sign, especially when one's ship is caught in the clutches of a terrible storm. This form of exultation is best expressed with "And a good south wind rose behind / The albatross made follow / And every day, to eat or to play / Came to the sailor's cry!" (verses 65-68). And it is here that Coleridge begins to focus on whiteness, such as that of the bird, which symbolizes not only purity but also the terror associated with the unknown and mysterious. In stanzas 19-20, the death of the albatross at the hands of the ancient mariner symbolizes much more than a crime against creation, as it ensures that the mariner and his crewmates are doomed to wander the seas as living ghosts in death. Richard Holmes notes that in this stanza Coleridge "recognizes a pagan theme older than revenge" (419) which signals that the bird itself is a pagan symbol for the death of the soul. As the albatross "perched for the nine vespers" (line 76), a reference to the prayers uttered by the crew or the ship's nine bells tolling in the fog, while "all night, through the fog the white clear glimmer of white moon" (lines 77-78), the ancient mariner suddenly kills the bird with his crossbow ("I shot the albatross", line 82), which shows that the narrative of the poem is set in the Middle Ages when, according to Celtic myth, birds represented prophetic knowledge or bloodshed in the form of an omen or messenger of bad news (Nooden, Internet). In the second part of the "Balance of the Ancient Mariner", the albatross begins its revenge on the sailor and his crew by initiating two distinct "plague" motifs: first, when mourning and guilt overwhelm the sailor, becomes very thirsty and realizes that he will not be quenched ("Water, water, everywhere / Nor any drop to drink", stanza 9, lines 39-40). Then he sees "... slimy things" that "crawl with their legs / Over the slimy sea" (stanza 10, lines 43-44) while the body of the dead albatross dangles in a noose tied around his neck. Stanza 11 really elicits the motifs of mystery and the supernatural, as "The fires of death danced at night / The water, like a witch's oils / Burnt green, blue and white" (lines 46-48) representing a symbol of the bird's revenge and conjures up images of a witch's cauldron bubbling with colored "oils". Interestingly, water, for the medieval alchemist, was a very powerful magical element that could dissolve everything, including perhaps guilt and the consequences of murder. In the third part of this excursion into the mysterious and supernatural, the reader is presented with Coleridge's Gothic themes which were heavily influenced by writers such as Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto, 1765). His description of Death in verse 11 as having the form of a woman ("Her lips were red, her countenance was free/Her locks were yellow as gold/Her skin was white as leprosy", lines 48-50) which is "the Nightmare Life-in-Death" (line 51) is very reminiscent of a vampire who "thickens man's blood with cold" (line 52). Thus, the Mariner is trapped in a world caused by the killing of the albatross and the vengeance of life in the death of the bird and once again Coleridge focuses on whiteness as a means of expressing the terrors felt by the Mariner as he observes this "woman" . ,” the very image of female beauty and horror. Finally, in the fifth part of “The Rimes of the Ancient Mariner,” the flesh-and-blood spirits of the sailor's crewmates, due to the curse cast upon them from the albatross, they return to haunt the instigator of their untimely death: "Under the lightning and the moon / The dead groaned" (stanza 9, lines 38-39)., 1983.