Dec 18, 2009

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Social Sensitivity

In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Coleridge focuses on humanity's relationship to the natural world. Coleridge makes it clear that the killing of the albatross brings dire consequences upon the mariner. In a larger sense, it is not his killing of the bird that is wrong, but the mariner's—and by extension humankind's—callous and destructive relationship with nature that is in error. Coleridge intends to confront this relationship and place it in a larger philosophical context. If the reader grasps the lesson that the ancient mariner learns from his experience, then there are...