Symbols and Symbolism in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner :: Rime

Symbols in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner   A close reading of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner will make known that the Ancient Mariner-who is at once himself, Coleridge and all humanity-having sinned, both incurs punishment and seeks salvation or, in other words, becomes anxiously aware of his relation to the God of faithfulness (as symbolized by the Sun), and in his sub-consciousness earnestly entreats the forgiveness of the God of Love (represented by the Moon-symbol).   ... For Professor Lowes, while he has disclosed a Coleridge of amazing able grasp ... stops short on the border line of strictly imaginative experience. In his long study of The Ancient Mariner, he seems to get away the essential allegory.... when all is said, his unsparable book is content to be a refresh of Coleridges intellectual and creative relation to his available sources in books, in conversations and in his life bill, not (save on occasion as supplying a casual argument) to a rticulate part with part in the poetic role as a whole ....   ... There is nowhere here or elsewhere in the book The Road to Xanadu a hint of the history behind the Mariners shineing midriff, a suggestion of the poets bold transfer of the glitter in the dead seamens eyes (Death) to those of the Mariner (Life-in-Death). The poet introduces the Mariner abruptly and repetitively as one with a glittering eye. A similar focus is given to the epithet bright-eyed (as in the penultimate stanza of Part VII) and when the fearful question, wherefore lookst thou so?, is asked, our thoughts revert to that sinister glitter. Now consider this stanza in Part III   One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, Too dissolute for groan or sigh, Each turned his face with a dark pang, And cursed me with his eye, and these stanzas also from Part IV The cold sweat dissolve from their limbs, Nor rot nor reek did they The look with which they looked on me Had never passed away. An o rphans curse would tow to hell A spirit from on high But ohl much horrible than that Is a curse in a dead mans eye Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die and these again from Part VI All stood together on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter All fixed on me their stony eyes, That in the Moon did glitter.