Coleridge and the Luminous Gloom: An Analysis of the "Symbolical Language" in "The Rime of

the Ancient Mariner"

Author(s): Elliott B. Gose, Jr.
Source: PMLA, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Jun., 1960), pp. 238-244
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/460334
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 COLERIDGE AND THE LUMINOUS GLOOM: AN ANALYSIS
OF THE "SYMBOLICAL LANGUAGE" IN "THE
RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER"

By Elliott B. Gose, Jr.

OF the "plan of the 'Lyrical As Warren sees it, the poem has two themes,
SPEAKING
Ballads'" in Chapter 14 of his Biographia first "the theme of sacramental vision or the
Literaria, Coleridge pointed out that while theme of the 'One Life' " and second "the theme
Wordsworth was to deal with "the wonders of of the imagination." The first centers on the
the world before us," he himself was to try to killing of the albatross. In the second, "the
connect the human truth of "our inward nature" moonlight equates with the 'modifying colours
with the "shadows of imagination." The fruit- of the imagination'," while the sun "is the light
fulness of this connection is evidenced by of that 'mere reflective faculty' that 'partook of
"The Ancient Mariner"; its aesthetic basis was Death'"; "in the poem the good events take
analyzed by Coleridge at a later date: "The place under the aegis of the moon, the bad
romantic poetry," he decided, appeals "to the events under that of the sun."3 Clarke's approach
imagination rather than to the senses and to is similar to Warren's, though simpler and dif?
the reason as contemplating our inward nature, ferent in emphasis. As he sees it, "the Sun (with
the working of the passions in their most retired the Polar Spirit and the first Voice) is conceived
recesses." By "exciting our internal emotions," in Coleridge's imagination as suggesting the
the poet "acquires the right and privilege of us? stern, just, masculine, punitive side of the na?
ing time and space as they exist in the imagina? ture of God; and . . . the Moon (with the Her?
tion, obedient only to the laws which the mit and the Second Voice) normally symbolizes
imagination acts by."1 Philosophically, Cole? the gentle, feminine redemptive side." As the
ridge's transcendentalism is obviously responsi? word "normally" suggests, any thorough treat?
ble for this assertion of the superiority of the ment of these symbols must account for their
mind over nature; he had remarked its psycho? ambivalence in a more comprehensive way than
logical basis as early as 1805: either Clarke or Warren do.
In looking at objects of Nature while I am thinking, According to Warren's interpretation, the
as at yonder moon dim-glimmeringthrough the dewy voyage taken by the Mariner is a mental journey
window-pane, I seem rather to be seeking, as it were from conventional day-time thoughts to the
asking for,a symbolical language, for something with? land of imagination. Faced with this "land of
in me that already and for ever exists, than observing ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing
anything new. Even when that latter is the case, yet was to be seen" (Gloss), the crew is terrified.
still I have always an obscure feeling as if that new But their fear is abated and the ice splits before
phenomenon were the dim awakening of a forgotten them after the appearance of the Albatross;
or hidden truth of my inner nature. (Anima Poetae,
1
p. 136) Coleridge'sShakespeareanCriticism,ed. T. M. Raysor
(London, 1930) i, 129-130.Cited by RichardHarterFogle in
In view of statements such as these, the critic an illuminating article,"The Genreof TheAncientMariner,"
is justified in asking whether "The Ancient TulaneStudiesin English,vn, 1957.
21 agreewith Carl F. Keppler (Symbolism in The Ancient
Mariner" does not employ a language more
Mariner, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1956)
figurative than literal to tell of events more that the poem teils of a journeyinto the unconscious.But I
inward than outward.2 feel that the ship enterswhat Coleridgelater called "the
terraincognitaof our nature" (Statesman1 s Manual, p. 470)
not when it passes "the Line" (of the equator) but when it
entersthe Pacific: "We were the firstthateverburst/ Into
In recent years there have been several at? thatsilentsea." Coleridge'semphasison "our inwardnature,"
and on "the workingsof the passions in theirmost retired
tempts to explain the symbolism in "The An? recesses" (in the quotations includedabove), seems to me
cient Mariner." The two most important pub? evidenceof the importanceof the notionof the unconscious
lished interpretations are Robert Penn Warren's to him and of the likelihoodof his embodyingit in a poem.
well-known 1946 essay and George Herbert That he has done so in "The AncientMariner"is not,how?
Clarke's lesser-known and less ambitious "Cer? ever, a necessaryaxiom to my interpretation of it. On his
connectingGod and theunconscioussee Anima Poetae,p. 31.
tain Symbols in 'The Rime of the Ancient 3 The Rime of the AncientMariner
(Reynal & Hitchcock,
Mariner'" {Queen"'s Quarterly, February 1933). New York, 1946),pp. 71, 88, 93, 87.

238

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 Elliott B. Gose, Jr. 239

"as if it had been a Christian soul, we hailed it II

in God's name." Because they accept it on these
The most important scene in the poem is the
terms, the Mariner is wrong to kill it, as are his
blessing scene at the end of Part iv. Although
fellows to judge the act solely by its value to it has been mentioned by most critics, only John
them. Their crime is at once slighter and more
Livingston Lowes has analyzed it minutely.
mundane than the Mariner's; therefore they And whereas he was interested in the sources of
suffer death at the Pacific Equator, while he its images and how they were combined, we shall
undergoes the harsher punishment of life in be interested in their meaning. The moon ap?
death. This situation is what Warren refers to
pears to dominate the scene.
when he talks of the theme of "sacramental
Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
vision or . . . the 'One Life'," presumably taking
Like April hoar-frostspread:
the last phrase from "The Eolian Harp" which
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
speaks of "the one Life within us and abroad" The charmed water burnt alway
(1. 26). But this pantheistic belief becomes sacra? A still and awful red.
mental only when God is brought in, and Warren
does bring Him in with his claim that the Mar? Beyond the shadow of the ship,
iner commits the original sin when he kills the I watched the water-snakes;
bird. I would support Warren's interpretation, They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfishlight
citing St. Augustine's definition of original sin: Fell offin hoary flakes.
"The soul abandons Him to whom it ought to
cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to Within the shadow of the ship
itself."4 The Mariner's act is as much an attempt I watched their rich attire:
to negate God's principles as to set up his own, Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
but the results of that act demonstrate his in- They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
ability to function once he separates himself from
God. For such a crime it is fitting punishment O happy living things! no tongue
that the Mariner is left alone, surrounded by Their beauty might declare:
the soulless bodies of his friends, reminders of A spring of love gushed from my heart,
what he had repudiated in killing the Albatross. And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
So far we have followed Warren's hypothesis
And I blessed them unaware.
that in killing the Albatross the Mariner sep?
arates himself from a Christian God?and cer? The beams of the moon are "like April hoar-
tainly the poem is filled with Christian trappings. frost," white and cold coming together as they
It begins with a church wedding and ends with did at the end of Part I when the moon first
an admonition to pray in church. In between we appeared and when the gloss spoke of "snow-
have mention of Christ, Mary Queen, Heaven, fog." These qualities are transferred to the
Spirits blest, Him who died on the cross, pen- water snakes in the next stanza: "shining white"
ance, Dear Lord in Heaven, a holy hermit, and and "hoary flakes." Equally important, however,
shrieving. Finally, Coleridge indicates that the is a contrast in these stanzas. The moonbeams
Albatross is important to the theme of the poem mock "the sultry main" away from the ship,
because it symbolizes a Christian soul. And
along with these Christian concepts and figures, 4 Basic WritingsofSaint Augustine,ed. WhitneyJ. Oates
we find a symbolic identification of God with the (New York, 1948),n, 257 (Book xiv, Chap. 13).
6 That thissymbolicuse of the sun was habitual in Coler?
sun:5 "Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, /
The glorious Sun uprist." Ironically, Warren's idge's mindmay be judgedfromthe numberoftimeshe uses
it as an imageof God. The earliestappearanceis in a passage
emphasis on Christianity leads away from his from"Religious Musings" (1794-96): "The veilingclouds
interpretation of the sun as symbolic of the retire,/ And lo! the Throne of the redeemingGod / Forth
"mere reflective faculty" and to a broader ap- flashing unimaginableday / Wrapsin oneblaze earth,heaven,
and deepest heil." (11.398-401) See also 11.98-104 of this
plication of Clarke's connection of the sun and
poem,the footnoteto 1.89, and the end of the poem (quoted
God. This connection has a long and honorable on p. 240). In "This Lime-TreeBower My Prison," (June
history in western culture, including Plato, 1797), Coleridgespeaks of "such hues / As veil the Almighty
Plotinus, and Augustine, to mention only three Spirit,when yet he makes / Spiritsperceivehis presence."
of the earliest and most relevant writers. The (11.41-43) The moststrikinguse ofthe sun as God is in "The
Destinyof Nations" (11.13-23), a passage quoted on p. 242.
qualities of the sun which Coleridge used in mak? J. B. Beer investigatesColeridge'ssourcesand his use ofthis
ing it a symbol for God are discussed in the next image in some detail in his valuable book, Coleridgethe
two sections. Visionary(London,1959). See fns.6, 10,and 14.

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240 Coleridge and the Luminous Gloom

"But where the ship's huge shadow lay, the lines is, Sun is to glad stream freed of cold as
charmed water burnt alway a still and awful Love is to glad self freed of doubt. The passage
red." This contrast between the white, cold is expressive of that joy which was so important
light of the moon, and the red, burning color in to Coleridge (as we find in "Dejection: An
the shade is emphasized by a deliberate further Ode") and which is hinted at in the "April
contrast in the next two stanzas. The one con- hoar-frost" dissipated at the end of Part iv to be
necting the water-snakes with white and hoary replaced by the joyful dream which begins
begins "Beyond the shadow of the ship." The Part v.7
next one begins "Within the shadow of the ship,"
and gives an entirely different description of the III
snakes: Their "every track was a flash of golden But having established God the Sun as the
fire." And it is following this sight that the source of life and love and joy, we have still not
mariner is able to bless them. His conversion exhausted its symbolic import. In addition to
then does not take place because of the light its heat, the sun has color; it is "bloody" at the
cast on the snakes by the moon?comments by
6 The scenejust analyzedbridgesthe
Warren, Clarke, and a host of other critics to gap betweenPlaton-
ism and Christianity, as St. Augustineattemptedto do in
the contrary notwithstanding.
Chaps. 2 and 3 ofBook x, TheCityofGod.Even whenAugust?
Rather, the snakes are transformed by the red ine speaks of originalsin, his imageryis taken fromPlato
fiery light of the shadowed water. The impor? and Plotinus,and is similarto that Coleridgeused in the
tance of temperature becomes evident when we blessingscene: "If thewillhad remainedsteadfastin the love
remember that the Mariner had earlier been put ofthathigherand changelessgood by whichit was illumined
in intelligenceand kindledintolove,it wouldnothave turned
under the control of the "night-mare life-in-
away to findsatisfactionin itself,and so become frigidand
death . . . / Who thicks men's blood with benighted."(Book xiv, Chap. 13) Exactly the same image
cold," after which "fear at my heart, as at a and the same distinction(light-intelligence,heat-love)was
laterused by Swedenborg.See Coleridge as Visionary,p. 117.
cup, My life-blood seemed to sip." And later,
AlthoughColeridgedoes not treat God's illuminingof the
I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; we have seen what he makesof the cold
soul to intelligence,
But or ever a prayer had gusht, nightaway fromGod, until He kindlesthe Mariner's soul
A wicked whisper came, and made to love.
7 Joy also appears in a passage very reminiscentof the
My heart as dry as dust.
"Religious Musings" one, a passage describingthe musicof
This state changes when "A spring of love the angelicspiritsfartheron in Part v.
Sweet soundsrose slowlythroughtheirmouths,
gushed from my heart / And I blessed them
And fromtheirbodies passed.
unaware." Love warms the blood and is thus the
immediate means of his spiritual rebirth.
Around,around,fleweach sweetsound,
Love and warmth have an important source Then dartedto the Sun;
outside the Mariner. We are told that he is Slowlythe soundscame back again,
allowed to bless the snakes by his "kind saint," Now mixed,now one by one.
Sometimesa-droppingfromthe sky
God's emissary. Remembering that God is I heard the sky-larksing;
symbolized in the poem by the sun, we can not Sometimesall littlebirdsthat are,
only connect the saint with Him but also relate How theyseemedto fillthe sea and air
the "golden fire" with the sun, and appreciate With theirsweetjargoning!
both the imagistic and dialectic impact of the
And now 'twas like all instruments,
Mariner's conversion. The analogy of God's Now like a lonelyflute;
love affecting man as the sun's warmth affects And now it is an angel's song,
nature was well established in Coleridge's mind, That makesthe heavensbe mute.
as is clear from the ending of "Religious Mus-
It ceased; yet stillthe sails made on
ings" (1794-96): A pleasantnoise tillnoon,
In ministeries of heart-stirringsong, A noise like of a hiddenbrook
And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing In the leafymonthof June,
That to the sleepingwoods all night
Soaring aloft I breathe in empyreal air
Of Love, omnific,omnipresent Love, Singetha quiet tune.
The angelictroophave come fromGod to help the Mariner
Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul afterhis conversion,and here they celebrateGod the Sun
As the great Sun, when he his infiuence with music which is connectednot only with the sun and
Sheds on the frost-boundwaters?The glad stream heaven but also with singingbirds in the air and a hidden
Flows to the ray and warbles as it flows8 brook'smusic(as in "ReligiousMusings"we found"heaven-
ward wing" and "the glad stream. . . warblesas it flows.")
Another way of phrasing the analogy in these See also 11.56-58 of"Dejection: An Ode."

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 Elliott B. Gose, Jr. 241

Pacific Equator and afterward the shaded water of both. In the blessing scene we are told that
is an "awful red." The same color is present the "water burnt" and the snakes' "every track
when the Mariner returns to land, a scene very was a flash of golden fire." And in the harbor
similar in imagery to the blessing scene. scene, as the discarded lines make clear, the
The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, spirits are on fire: "each right-arm burnt like
That stands above the rock: a torch." These spirits, of course, are the
The moonlight steeped in silentness angelic troop previously connected with God
The steady weathercock. the Sun (see footnote seven).
And the bay was white with silent light, I would emphasize, however, that before the
Till rising from the same, Mariner sees the spirits, he is made aware of
Full many shapes, that shadows were, their presence in a situation analogous to that in
In crimson colours came. the earlier blessing scene: "A little distance from
the prow those crimson shadows were." In
A little distance from the prow
both these key transition scenes, then, the Mar?
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck? iner becomes aware of the divine by seeing it in
the shadows of this world, "the interpenetration
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!
of Light and Shade," and in both cases that in?
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
terpenetration results in "the highest unity, or
And, by the holy rood! the identity of Light and Shadow . . . RED."
A man all light, a seraph man,
What we have is not the result of any absolute
On every corse there stood.
logic or metaphysic; it represents simply the
In the original version of the poem (in the imagistic dialectic of Coleridge's mind. But the
Lyrical Ballads) Coleridge included four stanzas process of investing images with meaning was
immediately preceding these and emphasizing one which he felt was characteristic of all minds,
"dark-red shadows."8 Just as in the moonlit as shown by his assertion in the Biographia
scene at the end of Part iv the Mariner was Literaria that "an IDEA, in the highest sense
about to re-establish harmony with God, so in of that word, cannot be conveyed but by a
this moonlit scene halfway through Part vi he is symbol." The source of the symbolic value of
about to re-establish harmony with society, but the particular image we are concerned with can
both important changes are preceded by a vision be inferred from a phrase in Coleridge's Note?
of red in the shadow out of the moonlight. The book Number Five (dated 3-7 November 1799
importance of red imagistically in the poem in? by Kathleen Coburn in her edition of the
dicates a philosophic importance which Cole?
8 The moonlightbay was whiteall o'er,
ridge later expressed in prose: "The interpenetra?
tion of Light and Shade in the highest unity, or Til risingfromthe same,
Full manyshapes that shadowswere,
the identity of Light and Shadow is RED,
Like as of torchescame.
colour [preeminently] in positive energy."9 The
positive energy of the blood helps explain why A littledistancefromthe prow
Coleridge emphasizes it in describing the Those dark-redshadowswere;
Mariner's conversion. Red is also the color of the But soon I saw that my own flesh
Was red as in a glare.
sun when it appears at the Pacific Equator as
"the bloody sun" of the Old Testament God of I turn'dmyhead in fearand dread,
wrath demanding retribution for the Mariner's And by the holyrood,
crime. But in the New Testament, blood is im? The bodies had advanc'd, and now
Beforethe mast theystood.
portant as the sacrifice Christ made to save man
from original sin and bring him back into God's
They liftedup theirstiffrightarms,
grace. In this way Christ as the embodiment of They held themstraitand tight;
the eternal in the temporal represents the pene? And each right-arm burntlike a torch,
tration of the light in the dark. ("I am come a A torchthat's borneupright.
Their stonyeye-ballsglitter'don
light into the world, that whosoever believeth In the red and smokylight.
on me should not abide in darkness" [John xii. 9 Coleridge,
Notes,Theological,Political and Miscellaneous
46].) Similarly, the Ancient Mariner is saved by (London, 1853,) pp. 402-403. In commonwithseveralother
the immersion of God's light in the shades of quotationsin thispaper,thisone is citedby Craig Millerin
his unpubl.Ph.D. diss.,Key Termsin Coleridge's Prose Writ?
this world, which explains why the sun is not
ings (Univ. of Washington,1957). I also owe a debt to
physically present in either of the moonlit scenes WarrenTallman,withwhomI developedthe basic interpre?
discussed, though it does figure in the imagery tationoftheimageryin thepoem.

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242 Coleridge and the Luminous Gloom

notebooks): "The sunny mist, the luminous But awful as is God's vengeance, the excess
gloom of Plato?" Besides being a concentrated of his presence, even worse comes with the ap?
image for the penetration of the light in the dark pearance of the Spectre ship which cuts the
which we have found in two key scenes in "The mariners off from the sun.12
Ancient Mariner," "the luminous gloom" also That strange ship drove suddenly
has an important connection with Coleridge's Betwixt us and the Sun.
philosophic development. The year before he
began writing "The Ancient Mariner," he And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
finished a more overtly philosophic poem, "The (Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon grate he peered
Destiny of Nations," (1796):
With broad and burning face.
For what is Freedom, but the unfettered use
Of all the powers which God for use had given: Further, the sun is forced to set after the spectre
But chieflythis with holiest habitude (1. 15) woman wins the dice game. God, the source of
Of constant Faith, him First, him Last to view
life, punishment, and redemption, is replaced
(1. 15a)
by another force, not just black death (which is
Through meaner powers and secondary things a negation of God's light), but the Nightmare
EfFulgent,as through clouds that veil his blaze.
For all that meets the bodily sense I deem life-in-death who wins the Mariner. She is ob?
Symbolical, one mighty alphabet viously outside the Christian hierarchy and is
For infant minds; and we in this low world connected with a whole strand of non-Christian
Placed with our backs to bright Reality, figures, incidents, and images in the poem. The
That we may learn with young unwounded ken Polar region, for instance, is presided over by
Things from their shadows. Know thyself my soul!10 the Polar Spirit, which is of a different order
from the angelic spirits, being specifically
The individual sees God by looking at the
labelled as outside the Christian framework by
shadow, an analogy that bears a close resem? the gloss: "A spirit had followed them; one of
blance to Plato's myth of the cave, which Cole?
the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither
ridge evidently had in mind when he attributed
departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the
"the luminous gloom" to Plato. But where
learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Con-
Plato scorns the shadows which constitute our
stantinopolitan, Michael Psellus may be con-
world of the senses, calling them inferior copies
sulted. They are very numerous, and there is no
of the ideal, Coleridge tells us "all that meets
climate or element without one or more."
the bodily sense I deem / Symbolical, one
Where the sun is connected with man's im?
mighty alphabet" by which to see God.11 The mortal soul, the moon is connected with the one
real affinity of Coleridge's images, then, is with
later Platonic thought. This is especially true
of "thy sunny mist" which appears in the fore- 10Lines 15 and 15a are an earlyversionof line 15 as it ap?
going passage as God the life-giving sun Whom pears in Hartley Coleridge'seditionof the Poems (London,
it is better to see "Through meaner powers and 1912),p. 132. See fn.on thatpage. Later,in a letterto Crabb
Robinson (March 1811), he spelled out the concept in the
secondary things / Effulgent as through clouds
image: "The sun calls up the vapour?attenuates, liftsit?
that veil his blaze." it becomesa cloud?and now it is the Veil of the Divinity?
The sun does not appear south of the equator, the Divinity transpiercing it at once hides and declareshis
in the land of ice and snow, until the first stanza presence.We see, we are consciousof Lightalone, but it is
of Part ii, at which point the ship has left the Light embodiedin the earthlynature,whichthat lightitself
awoke and sublimated.What is the body, but the fixtureof
known Atlantic and entered the unknown themind."Berkeleytracedtheoriginofimageand conceptin
Pacific (see footnote two). "The Sun now rose his Siris. See Coleridgeas Visionary,p. 119.
11In fairnessto Plato, I shouldquote a distinctionhe makes
upon the right," and is "hid in mist," causing
the crew to chide the Mariner. Soon, however, in the same Chap. vn of The Republicwhichbeginswiththe
it rises "Nor dim, nor red, like God's own head," mythofthe cave. He speaks of utheimagesin thewaterwhich
aredivine,and are theshadowsoftrueexistence(not shadows
and they praise his deed. But according to ofimagescast by a lightoffire,whichcomparedwiththe sun
Coleridge in "The Destiny of Nations," the is onlyan image)." (TranslationJowett's,italics mine.)
12As Clarke
proper way to see God is through mists "that putsit, "Guilt and Fear have interposedthem?
veil his blaze." Seeing him directly is a foretaste selves between God and the sinfulMariner and his mates,
who findthemselvesnow whollyin the powerof Death and
of the vengeance which soon comes: "All in a Life-in-Death"(p. 39). Because of his hypothesis,Warren
hot and copper sky / The bloody sun at noon sees the spectrebark as connectedwiththe sun in an "emo?
/ Right up above the mast did stand." tionalequating"by meansof"iteration"(p. 94).

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 Elliott B. Gose, Jr. 243

life or mutable nature, as is clear from two stan? Coleridge also approves Lewis' use of "the
zas at the beginning of Part vi. burning cross on the forehead of the wandering
Still as a slave before his lord, Jew" (Ibid., pp. 370-371). But despite the un-
The ocean hath no blast; doubted infiuence of The Monk on Coleridge, his
His great bright eye most silently objections to it should be recorded, especially
Up to the Moon is cast? since they neatly distinguish it from real litera?
ture. The following is obviously a variation on
If he may know which way to go;
the theme which Coleridge later developed to
For she guides him smooth or grim.
justify his supernatural poems:
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him. The romance-writerpossesses an unlimited power over
situations; but he must scrupulously make his char?
Smooth or grim. As Warren has pointed out, the acters act in congruity with them. . . . The extent of
storm in Part i is connected with the moon, as is the powers that may exist, we can never ascertain;
that in Part v. But in addition to the storms, the and thereforewe feel no great difficultyin yielding a
moon has a grim persona, which appears in Part temporary belief to any, the strangest, situation of
iii, the grimmest section of the poem. The death things. But that situation once conceived, how beings
like ourselves would feel and act in it, our own feelings
ship, we have seen, cuts the mariners off from
sufficientlyinstruct us; and we instantly reject the
God, just as utter darkness negates the sun. If
clumsy fiction that does not harmonise with them
dark death takes the mariners from sun-life,
(p. 373).
what function is filled by the "Night-mare life-in-
death"? "Her lips were red, her looks were free, When on the return voyage the ship again
her locks were yellow as gold: her skin was white reaches the Atlantic Equator, it is stopped. The
as leprosy, . . . she . . . thicks men's blood with gloss teils us that "the Polar Spirit's fellow-dae-
cold." That she is the alter ego of the moon is mons, the invisible inhabitants of the element,
indicated by the white cold connected with her. take part in his wrong; and two of them relate,
The vengeance of the moon is to put the Mariner one to the other, that penance long and heavy
into a state in which he is incapable of love. In for the Ancient Mariner hath been accorded to
fact nature becomes to him what it is to "the the Polar Spirit, who returneth south ward." In
other words, though God has been satisfied by
poor, loveless ever-anxious crowd" in "Dejection:
An Ode"?an "inanimate, cold world."13 the Mariner's blessing of the water snakes, the
In his review of The Monk (Critical Review, representatives of this world demand additional
Feb. 1797), Coleridge praises "the tale of the penance.
bleeding nun" as "truly terrific," and calls "the We have already noted that in Part iv the
character of Matilda . . . the author's master? light of the moon makes an important contrast
piece. It is, indeed, exquisitely imagined, and as to the luminous dark with which the Mariner's
exquisitely supported" (Coleridge's Miscellaneous conversion is associated. The imagery at the end
Criticism, pp. 370-371). Looking forward to the of the poem brings in the moonlight again, indi?
Nightmare Life-in-Death and to Geraldine, we cating that the compulsion the Mariner feels to
can understand Coleridge's appreciation of teil his tale is associated with the moon. In the
Lewis' two demon women. The influence of the next to last stanza we are told, "The Mariner,
bleeding nun on the "Spectre-Woman" in "The whose eye is bright, whose beard with age is hoar,
Ancient Mariner" is especially worth remarking. is gone." As Clarke has pointed out, the Mari?
Rather than develop the parallel in detail, how? ner's eye connects him with the crew who curse
ever, I would like to emphasize the image Lewis him with their eyes by "the star-dogged moon."
has his narrator use when he describes the nun We may also remember two stanzas already
leaving him. "The charm now ceased to operate; quoted in which the ocean's "great bright eye
the blood which had been frozen in my veins most silently / Up to the Moon is cast." The
rushed back to my heart with violence; I uttered Mariner's life-long penance is having to act like a
a deep groan, and sunk lifeless upon my pillow" "grey-beard loon." Yet his listeners "cannot
(Grove Press, 1952, p. 171). That Lewis' frequent choose but hear," a tribute to the power of the
connection of cold with the demonic struck moon and lunacy, as was clear in some lines in?
Coleridge as appropriate is indicated by his sin- cluded in the original version of the poem: "Mar-
gling out the scene in which "blue fires ... in? 13The red and yellowassociatedwithherare thusa fright?
crease the cold of the cavern" (Miscellaneous colors associated with the sun
ful parody of the life-giving
Criticism, p. 373). whoseplace she has temporarily usurped.

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244 Coleridge and the Luminous Gloom

inere! thou has thy will: / For that, which comes relation explains why it must be reaffirmed
out of thine eye, doth make / My body and soul throughout the Mariner's life. But in truth the
to be still."14 Mariner teils us little of our relation to Words-
The Mariner had regained harmony with God worthian nature, to wind, sea, sun, and moon.
first and decisively in the blessing scene, in im? Our premise has been that his tale deals with no
ages which were reiterated in the harbor scene. literal geographical voyage. Rather it is emblem?
But not until he mixes with the mortals of this atic of the Romantic urge to explore the eternal
earth is he enabled to do bodily penance for his soul and the temporal emotions. The voyage was
violation of the one life. In 1802 Coleridge wrote Coleridge's, as it becomes the reader's: plunged
in a letter to Sotheby, "Nature has her proper like all men into the mist and gloom of life on this
interest, and he will know what it is who believes planet, he sought to comprehend the lifegiving
and feels that everything has a life of its own, and source which called up that mist, to appreciate
that we are all One Life." The word proper indi? the luminosity which informed that gloom. "The
cates that by 1802 (as in "The Ancient Mariner" Ancient Mariner" is the finest fruit of that labor.
itself) Coleridge's pantheism is subordinate to his
transcendentalism. More simply, nature is sub? University of British Columbia
ordinate to God: philosophically and poetically, Vancouver 8
man's relation to nature is subject to time,
whereas the relation of his soul to God is timeless.
14Insertedimmediatelyafterthe stanzas quoted in fn. 7.
The absolute nature of this second relation means
See Lane Cooper,"The Powerofthe Eye in Coleridge,"Late
it can be fixed once and for all, as I feel it is in the Harvest(Ithaca, N. Y., 1952). See also Coleridge
theVisionary,
blessing scene. The relative nature of the first pp. 51-52, passim.

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