Theme of Loneliness in Coleridge’s“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Abstract

AbstractS. T. Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” admits of many levels of reading and surely defies any one level of interpretation. The Mariner’s tale is simultaneously a tale of adventure, of romance, of horror, of joy, of comedy, of tragedy. It is a tale of another world of unseen worlds and spirits. It begins in a known world and steadily and quickly moves to the unknown, the mysterious, only to return again to the known, to the traditional. In fact it projects a spiritual journey to and through a world coloured by an active imagination, delineating the alienation of the psychic anguish and restlessness.