A Greimassian Reading of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Abstract

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, first appearing as the opening poem to Lyrical Ballads, has proved to be highly enigmatic since its publication. The blending of supernatural and reality along with the intricacy of the underlying structure seem to have added to the complication. The present article is an attempt to read the poem through the lens of Algirdas Julien Greimas's actantial model and semiotic square to shed some light on the semantic richness of the poem. The results seem in line with Coleridge's idea of imagination as the Mariner's imagination in co-presence with his will, along with the Moon as the source of Nature's benignity and his muse, assist him with his object-value: the unity between man, Nature, and the Creator. Moreover, the Mariner's suffering and atonement could be attributed to his moments of reasoning and free-will, devoid of imagination or spirituality and associated with the presence of the sun or diurnal elements. Greimas's model offers the possibility to elucidate the moments of confusion as 'void' or 'all' phoric states of passion in which the absence of diurnal and nocturnal elements or their co-presence could justify the Mariner's wanton murder of the Albatross or his survival.