I agree with C.M. Bowra's positive evaluation of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Bowra states as a general principle that the Romantic poets were not trying to create otherworldly or unrealistic texts. To the contrary, they were trying to use their poetry to illuminate and make evident the spiritual element that is part of the natural, everyday world of the here and now. Bowra argues that this is what Coleridge does in his long poem. The supernatural elements that are brought to fore after the Mariner kills the albatross simply highlight the spiritual truth that God wants us to treat generously those creatures—like the albatross in the poem—who are generous to us. All of nature is God's creation, and we show our reverence for God when we show reverence for his creatures. As Coleridge writes near the end of the poem:
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All...
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things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
The Mariner has to learn the above truth, which, of course, he does. Like many humans, however, he begins by treating nature carelessly and without respect. It takes time and suffering for him to perceive God's presence in the natural world. Colderidge, according to Bowra, wants his audience to understand that reality by entering imaginatively into the underlying truth of his poem.
C.M. Bowra sees the natural setting for Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" as a particularly clever reinterpretation of the supernatural tradition in Romantic poetry:
The new setting and the new persons with which Coleridge shapes the supernatural give to it a new character.
This statement makes sense as Coleridge chose to set his poem on the sea, which is a familiar and natural environment many readers will recognize. By choosing something as familiar as the sea to be the backdrop against which fantastical events take place, Coleridge is enhancing the effect of the imagery. Traditionally, the Romantic tradition would combine the gothic with the supernatural, and strange events would take place in dark and shadowy places; out on the open sea, where the sun shines, the presence of the supernatural is even more unexpected. Coleridge heightens the fearful qualities of the supernatural by juxtaposing them against a natural backdrop.