All throughout my undergrad career as an English major I had constantly heard bout The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; that specific title--and to me it was only a title of some literary work, verse or prose I knew not which--had been thrown around it seemed more than any other. (Or maybe the title just stuck in my head because it was so unique; either way I found [and still do find] that the poem is referenced quite frequently.) Therefore it was with great anticipation that I finally cracked open my anthology and began reading. Now, it must be said that I had no prior encounters with Coleridge and was not sure what to expect. (I was somewhat under the impression that his work would be more or less the same as Wordsworth's.) And, not wanting to corrupt my literary palette with the lesser works, I made the decision to look first at Rime of the Ancient Mariner (before reading the other assigned poems). After reading it in its entirety twice, with the glosses and all, and after looking at the rest of the pieces, I began to notice a number of things.
I was first struck by the contrasts between the work of Coleridge and that of Wordsworth. In my opinion Wordsworth is much darker than Coleridge, more death-oriented and doom-worshipping. Maybe Wordsworth just posesses a Buddhist-like way of viewing death with detachment, but the fact remains that death and decline are typical Wordsworthian themes. Now, Coleridge meditates on death as well, but in a way that at some point offers redemption. (For example the Ancient Mariner is blessed by the hermit; in another instance the narrator confined to the lime tree bower comes to see beauty in his arboreal "prison.") I find Coleridge to be more of a poet of (grim) positivity, and Wordsworth a poet of despair, in a sense. In wondering why Coleridge leans more towards the "light," so to speak, I came to formulate another opinion of the poet and his works.
Coleridge seems to be much more in tune with (judeo-christian) religion than is Wordsworth, who could be described as almost pagan in his "green" spirituality, if you will. The over-all themes of redemption that kept appearing in Colderidge's work, along with some very thinly-veiled allusions to the death and resurection of Christ, gave me pause at times, and had me checking his biographical stats online to see if he was educated to be some sort of clergyman prior to his career as poet. The most obvious instance of this is the symbol of the albatross, who selflessly assists the sailors out of their arctic death-trap and into calmer waters. The ancient Mariner kills said albatross out of nothing but human perversity, much like man killed Christ who loved him. I found no paralell to this in the assigned Wordsworth poems.
Romantic Natures: Literature and Environment in 19th Century Britain and America
Reading over your blog post, I find myself mostly in agreement. From what I understand, Coleridge was, in fact, a Christian. I have heard nothing either way about Wordsworth, however. Wordsworth's poetry, indeed, does read as darker, with a kind of almost existential despair in the kind of faith in the senses that he finds to exist so often in children, as evidenced in his "There was a Boy," a poem that I argue is above all else about the pivotal moment of a higher consciousness achieved by a young boy upon realizing for the first time nature's indifference to him.
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