The Need to Examine Cultural ClichesThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a highly complex poem.
It is a shame that in the minds of most, it has been reduced to the cliche phrase
'albatross around the neck'. Most of us have a hazy idea that the Ancient Mariner mariner forces everyone to listen to his story.
And most assume that the Mariner is cursed to go wandering forever, cursed with the need to 1) tell the story repeatedly and 2) cursed to tell the story while the dead albatross bird still hangs from his neck.
So we equate Mariner's need to tell his story with his still being under a curse.
It is not this way at all.
1) By the time he tells his story, the Mariner has been freed from his curse.
2) He is telling his story without the bird hanging from his neck. The albatross dropped away off his neck while the Mariner was still at sea.
3) The Mariner does not impose his story on everyone. He only tells the story when he senses that someone needs to hear it.
4) The Mariner is not always in a state of torment. He ends the poem speaking of Gods blessings and the loveliness of all creation. The Mariner has gone through hell but has reached a state of grace.
He tells his story not to large audiences but to selected listeners.
And...at no point does the Mariner ask for money in return for telling this story. Never.
In some ways the Ancient Mariner is quite a demanding person. Yes, he does reach out and grasp the arm of the particular man he wants to tell his story to.
But, this man is one of a group of
three 'gallants' on their way to attend the wedding.
The Mariner could have told all three men his story. He could have selected an audience.
But...the Mariner is not attracting attention to his personality. He is not doing missionary outreach. He needs to tell his story, but to not to large audiences.
He singles out one person, and lets the other two go. More about this, later.
And in the end...the Mariner lets the listener go home. He does not accumulate followers who tell others to believe the Mariner.
He lets his listeners go home, afterwards. He doesnt set up a Friends of the Ancient Mariner Worship Group.
'Albatross around the neck' is a metaphor, an image of guilt and shame that is now part of the cultural pattern of persons acculturated to speak and think using English and terms from English literature.
That image 'albatross around the neck' is from Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and we refer to it so often that we do not think about it very much.
Often we equate the 'albatross around the neck' not only to shame and guilt, but see it as the very same thing as being compelled to force your story upon persons who do not want to hear you.
Quote
And if they didn’t know the story, I’d repeat it like some ancient mariner with an albatross around my neck, effectively weighing myself down, and everyone else, and then needing to put her out of my mind again.
later the write of this essay noted
Quote
I may continue to be a jerk sometimes, but I’m a jerk with awareness; so many of my old stories, so carefully created and maintained, have collapsed like a house of cards. I could feel this one crumbling as I sought to cling to it.
My mentor, the author Byron Katie, has famously said, “Forgiveness means that what you thought happened, didn’t.”
[
sasee.com]
Now, to repeat:
The Ancient Mariner undid his curse when still at sea. The moment that was accomplished and he was freed from his curse, still at sea, the albatross dropped off of his neck.
And...note that this deliverance happens when the moon appears (The Ancient Mariner does not 'lose the moon' friends, its appearance signals the onset of deliverance from the curse). The Mariner sees the loveliness of creation and can see beauty even in water snakes. This signals his impending deliverance.
(Part Four of the Poem)
Quote
By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm.
Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes :
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire :
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam ; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
Their beauty and their happiness.
He blesseth them in his heart.
O happy living things ! no tongue
Their beauty might declare :
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware :
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
The spell begins to break.
The self-same moment I could pray ;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
PART V
Oh sleep ! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole !
To Mary Queen the praise be given !
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.
By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.
So, by the time the Ancient Mariner returns home, his albatross has fallen off. He is freed from the curse.
But he remains telling the story when he feels the need--not because he is cursed, but because he is human, he has lived through an ordeal and he has a lesson to offer.
And he speaks of human community 'goodly company'--this isnt an individual salvation that excludes all else. It is inclusive and sees all creation, humanity, animals, .
Quote
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company !--
[
historyofideas.org]
So to equate the 'albatross around the neck' with 'being cursed to tell a story' is sloppy remembrance of a far more complex poem that is worth revisiting and re-reading in adulthood, when no longer forced to rush read it hurriedly so as to get a passing grade at school.
This man was rendered lonely at sea and now on land wants to tell a tale of remption and of grace. And it regards 'all creatures great and small--including the water snakes referred to above--with a loving eye.
Quote
I pass, like night, from land to land ;
I have strange power of speech ;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me :
To him my tale I teach.
**(Corboy note)'I know the man that must hear me'--Coleridge does not have the Mariner is say, 'I know men must hear me', nor does he say 'I know all men must hear me'.
Instead, Coleridge has the Mariner speaking of his listener--in singular. He gives his story person by person, selectively. As in, 'I know the man that must hear me'. Our Ancient Mariner is not doing hard core outreach, nor door to door proslytization.)
What loud uproar bursts from that door !
The wedding-guests are there :
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bride-maids singing are :
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer !
O Wedding-Guest ! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea :
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seeméd there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company !--
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends
And youths and maidens gay !
And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.
Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest !
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small ;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone : and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn :
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2009 02:47AM by corboy.