Coleridge: Nature, Fate, and the Moral Vision of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

This lecture examines the moral and theological ambiguities in Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, emphasizing the poem’s unsettling open-endedness. While the narrative appropriates Christian language, its treatment of sin, punishment, and redemption is inconsistent with orthodox doctrine. The Mariner’s crime does not correspond proportionately to his punishment, and his lack of absolution leaves him condemned to wander the earth, endlessly retelling his ghostly tale. Instead of resolution, the poem enacts a cycle of suffering that distorts the traditional sin–punishment–redemption framework. The universe Coleridge depicts is less a rational moral order than a projection of unreasonable fears and lingering guilt, where nature and fate become vehicles of existential dread rather than divine justice.