nterest in the inexplicable is articulated, through the senseless, wanton less killing of this beautiful creature. Human nature is being examined in perhaps its darkest and deepest place of consciousness. The mariner’s comrades condone the crime, committing a wrong of such forceful evil that there fates are sealed. After a time, the sailors luck begins to turn. ‘ Water, water every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. ’The Romantic interest in guilt and punishment is explored, with this most famous of stanzas in perhaps all literature echoing the horror of what is yet to come. The accompanying footnote once again says it all with most fearful foreboding…‘ And the Albatross begins to be avenged. ’The terrible powers of the ghostly are magnified as nature begins to operate in strange, supernatural ways. The punishment buries itself in nature as concentrated images of horror, the likes of which have never been seen before and perhaps even since, are painted with the gurgling oils that the ocean has transformed to. Tales of repulsion, almost too terrifying for the mariner to recount, pour out from his once ‘black lips’.‘ One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, Too quick for groan or sigh, Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye. ’The sense of inner torment reaches nearly to a peak as one after another the dozens of men, which the mariner has sent to death due to their reaction to his hideous crime, curse him with their lifeless eyes. Coleridge wants us to feel the intensity of the punishment indicating the intensity of the fault, which was the very nature of the crime. Human nature has being examined, and we are discovering what humans are capable of – the irrational violence portrayed is another of the Romantic interests.Even during the hideous intensity of punishment the rhythmic control ...
