10 Years After

While driving to school I listened this this passage from The Complete Angler that reminded me of the albatross of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

But, above all, the taking fish in spawning-time may be said to be against nature: it is like taking the dam on the nest when she hatches her young, a sin so against nature, that Almighty God hath in the Levitical law made a law against it.
         (http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext96/tcang10.txt)

And, arriving early at school, I went to speak with my British Lit professor. He and I discussed the symbolism of the albatross. I brought up some of the issues from Warren Penn AHarding, Lowles' "The Road to Xanadu" and several other books I have perused. My current feeling is that the poem is too vast for a 'unified theory' of imagery and that claiming the albatross as a Christ figure is an injustice. Easily the albatross could be replaced by the sea-serpents as the targetof the Mariner's unreasoned aggression. No, rather than placing the emphasis on the albatross, which is conventient since it is a concrete thing within the poem, I think the impetus for the actions of the poem from the point of the slaying of the albatross is the action itself. Employing occam's razor I think it is easiest to relate the albatross to a fellow human- he responds to their hallos, he eats with the sailors, and even partakes of prayers (vespers nine) with them. It is the mariner's attack on the albatross, wholely without reason, that is the significant thing. Quite easily this unthinking crime could have been committed against the sea-serpents. If the alabtross is a christ figure to what end does it die, as Christ did, and where does the redemption, partial or whole, that the albatross offers, as Christ does?

Anyways, my instructor seemed to concur that there is too much imagery for their to be a symbolic interpretation that takes all the fantastic imagery into consideration.As talked some more he stated that he felt my first paper for class displayed a keen insight into literature that is often employeed by literary critics. He inquired what my major was and when I told him English he was delighted. I stated that my hope was to be a university professor. He expressed that he felt the profession was, undoubtably, soon to open up as the previous generation of English professors reached the age of retirement. He also, gratiously, offered to assist me in pursuit of my major.

Then before class started he told me of a movie that was playing locally, Possession, that he thought I might enjoy. It's a sleuth mystery about an American student of English studying in England. The scene cuts back and forth between the modenr day and the Victorian era where the text the persent day characters are investigating takes place. The professor stated it was based on the book of the same name by A.S. Byatt.