Caleb Hays

British Literature II

Alyson Kiesel

March 14, 2018

A Defense of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”:

An Analysis of the Preface to Lyrical Ballads

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge changed the landscape of poetry with

their collaboration on a volume of poems published at the turn of the century. The publication,

titled Lyrical Ballads, was a revolutionary work that kick started the Romantic period of

literature in Britain. The works contained in Lyrical Ballads were so different from the other

poetry of the time that it became necessary to provide some type of background on the

collective work; in the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth composed a brief

introductory preface to explain the change. The Preface to Lyrical Ballads outlined the purpose

behind the poems and also gave insight to Wordsworth’s personal philosophies of poetry.

Wordsworth refers to the poems as an “experiment” in literature that, if successful, could

produce a new “class of Poetry” that would “interest mankind permanently” (394). One of the

best known works to develop from the collaboration of these two great poets was Coleridge’s

famously obscure poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which takes the reader on a

strange journey into the supernatural. The poem was a point of some disagreement between

the two poets; Wordsworth eventually moving the poem to the back of the volume in a later

edition of Lyrical Ballads with a note citing the defects of the poem. Defects or not, the poem

has earned a place in the canon of Romantic literature in the 1800’s. Wordsworth may not have
been a huge supporter of the poem, but when closely juxtaposed with the ideas and guidelines

for poetry stated in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, it becomes clear the poem is the epitome of

the new “class of Poetry” Wordsworth was striving to create.

According to the Preface, the subject for this new collection of poetry was to be

“incidents and situations from common life,” specifically the incidents and situations of low and

rustic life (395). Wordsworth offers his reasoning by stating that rural, lower-class people are

ideal subjects because they “convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated

expressions” (396). In other words, it becomes easier for the poet to “forcibly communicate”

the complex emotions of man when the subjects are more forthright in their displays of

emotion (395). In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the main subject is the Mariner. A

mariner, or sailor, fits Wordsworth’s description of the appropriate subject for a poem

contained in Lyrical Ballads. The ancient Mariner is obviously part of the working class

community, and presumably lower class, based on the physical descriptions of the character.

Coleridge writes, “And thou art long, and lank, and brown, / As is the ribbed sea-sand,” when

describing the Mariner (226-227). He also refers to the Mariner’s beard a multitude of times,

which only adds to the characters course appearance. The image of an old, frail, and untidy

man begins to emerge, which only furthers the argument of him belonging to the lower class.

Coleridge’s use of a working-class character such as the Mariner is just one of the many ways

this poem follows the guidelines set by Wordsworth in the Preface.

Along with his appearance, the language the Mariner employs as the narrator of the

poem is quite plain. Language is one of the defining points of the works in Lyrical Ballads; a

large section of the Preface is devoted to describing the language of the poems, and his
reasoning behind the employment of said language. Wordsworth’s attitude towards the

language used in poetry at the time seems to be one of disdain. He refers to the language of

neo-classical writers as “gaudiness and inane phraseology” (395). He prefers to stay away from

the elaborate, and often pretentious, writing of the time and keep things simple, like the

subjects of his poems. Wordsworth states that he will use the “real language of men in a state

of vivid sensation” (394). This is a complex and difficult endeavor, one that Coleridge executes

perfectly in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. The language in the poem is the complete

opposite of the phraseology of the time. The line, “‘Twas sad as sad could be” is a perfect

example of the simple, everyday language used by the Mariner (108). Coleridge utilizes the

repetition of simple wording to emphasize a point rather than substituting a more complex

word in its place. Another great example of such usage arises in this stanza,

Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink. (119-122)

The informal, conversational tone of the poem helps achieve the “real language of men” that

Wordsworth describes in the Preface (394). Coleridge doesn’t just successfully write in the real

language of men, but also completes the second part of Wordsworth’s guidelines by

successfully adding the element of vivid sensation. Since the Mariner is telling a riveting story,

he is naturally in a state of vivid sensation throughout the poem. Coleridge shows the passion

of the Mariner by the reactions of the Wedding-Guest. Multiple points emerge in which the

Wedding-Guest will interrupt the story, obviously disturbed by the Mariner’s story. Coleridge is
successful in creating a worthy subject and writing in a language akin to what the Preface

suggests, but the poem does wander from Wordsworth’s guidelines in different aspects.

In addition to the focus on simplicity of man and language, Lyrical Ballads is also

centered on the simplicity of form, so it only makes sense that Wordsworth would shy away

from poetic devices. One such poetic element that Wordsworth seems to have a special dislike

for is personifications, namely, abstract personifications. Wordsworth prefers to keep his

“Reader in the company of flesh and blood” (398). “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a poem

that certainly does not stay in the company of flesh and blood, both in style and content. The

poem is chalk full of personifications, especially for abstract ideas like death. Wordsworth

believes that this infringes on the idea of writing in the real language of men, since no one

actually employs personification in their everyday speech. While Coleridge does not perfectly

conform to every idea described in the Preface, the argument still stands that “The Rime of the

Ancient Mariner” is the quintessential poem Wordsworth is describing. The poem fails in areas

such as abstract personifications, yet thrives in other areas, specifically in the realm of

imagination.

Wordsworth, as an artist, obviously understands the importance of a strong imagination

being present in writing. While he does want to utilize the “language really used by men”, he

also calls for a “certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented

to the mind in an unusual way” (395). In his Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, he describes this

colouring of imagination as “moon-light or sun-set diffused over a known and familiar

landscape” (622). The idea then becomes to take something out of ordinary life and throw

some imaginative qualities over top of it as to change its appearance, like the way light changes
a familiar landscape. It cannot be denied that “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” has plenty of

imaginative quality. Coleridge takes the reader into the world of the supernatural, and by doing

so creates something new out of an ordinary sailor’s tale. This is the whole idea behind Lyrical

Ballads: to create something new.

Coleridge may fail to satisfy some of the frivolous guidelines set by Wordsworth in the

Preface, but that is the cost of creating something fresh and innovative. “The Rime of the

Ancient Mariner” exceeds in displaying the ordinary in an unusual way and also in other areas

outlined in the Preface—areas that Wordsworth, based on his treatment of Coleridge’s poem,

may have overlooked. One such area is pleasure. In his Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth

makes the claim that a poet “writes under one restriction only, namely, that of the necessity of

giving immediate pleasure to a human” (401). Wordsworth considers giving pleasure to his

reader to be the utmost goal, stating that the entire objective of poetry is to “produce

excitement in co-existence with an over-balance of pleasure” (404). The faults that can be

found in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” when critiquing it through the lens of the Preface

should all be expunged based purely on its ability to give pleasure to the reader.

The Mariner’s tale is a new, imaginative type of poetry that allows the reader to relate

and understand its subject, while still experiencing something different. Coleridge’s poem aligns

with the standards set by Wordsworth’s Preface: the subject of the poem, the language of the

poem, the content of the poem, and the ability of the poem to bring pleasure to the reader. If

found lacking in any of the above criteria, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” more than makes

up for in imagination and pleasure. In the final pages of the Preface, Wordsworth describes

poetry as the “image of man and nature” (401). It can be surmised that Coleridge held this
same belief of man and nature being two parts of a whole, together forming poetry as is made

apparent by his story of the Mariner, which when stripped of its imaginative colors, becomes no

more than a story of a man alone in nature with God’s creatures; therefore, “The Rime of the

Ancient Mariner” becomes the embodiment of a Romantic lyrical ballad.

 Works Cited

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Biographia Literaria”. The Longman Anthology of British Literature.

Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J.H. Dettmar. Fourth Edition. Pearson Education, Inc.,

2010. 617-629. Print.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. The Longman Anthology of British

Literature. Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J.H. Dettmar. Fourth Edition. Pearson

Education, Inc., 2010. 567-582. Print.

Wordsworth, William. “Preface to Lyrical Ballads”. The Longman Anthology of British Literature.

Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J.H. Dettmar. Fourth Edition. Pearson Education, Inc.,

2010. 394-406. Print.