Ethan Hunt

Professor Langbauer

English 121

13 October 2019

In Coleridge’s “The Rime of The Ancient Mariner” the narrator stops and captivates a

Wedding Guest with his horrific sailor’s tale. When paired with Dore’s illustrations the poem

reveals its twist on the Romantic style of sublimity and the Mariner’s true motivation of guilt for

telling such a story. Through the poem the narrator emphasizes the Mariner’s eyes and the

Mariner emphasizes the eyes of the crew, which occurs in nineteen different occasions.

Coleridge manufactures sublime feelings of judgement, awe, and fear within both the Mariner

and Wedding Guest, through the ability of the descriptions and illustrations surrounding the eye

of the Mariner and crew.

From the beginning Coleridge introduces the Mariner’s features and creates the

surrounding environment of the Mariner and Wedding Guest. The first mention of the Mariner’s

“glittering eye” occurs when the Wedding Guest is curious as to why he is being stopped

(Coleridge, 3). This curiosity of the Wedding Guest begins to reveal that the eye has a form of

sublimity within the character of the Mariner. Dore’s illustration of “by thy long beard and

glittering eye” depicts the scene of a Wedding Guest who is unsure of why such a stern faced

Mariner has approached him (Dore, Plate 1). The depiction that Dore gives through illustration,

highlights the eyes of Mariner, which are very bright and seem to pierce into the Wedding Guest,

causing sublime feelings of wonder within himself. When the text and illustration are paired

together they further substantiate the claim for the Mariner’s eye and its power to capture the full

attention of someone like the Wedding Guest through the sublime feeling of awe.
 Within the fourth and fifth stanza the Mariner is able to obtain the complete attention of

the Wedding Guest. Coleridge again references the Mariner’s “glittering eye”, which is able to

communicate sublime feelings of overwhelming awe to the Wedding Guest, as he is thus

incapacitated and unable to resist the Mariner (Coleridge, 13). The second plate by Dore further

supports that the eye is an object that can reveal and create feelings of the sublime, as the

illustration heavily contrasts the Mariner’s eye in a way that makes the Wedding Guest look

terrified because of the sublimity which he finds within the eye (Dore, 2). The Mariner’s eye

reveals the sublime because it is able to hold the Wedding Guest when the Mariner’s words are

unable to hold him. Even when the Wedding Guest tells the Mariner to not hold him with his

hand, the poem says that “He holds him with his glittering eye” (Coleridge, 13). The captivity

that eye beholds upon the Wedding Guest is not possible without making him have a feeling of

the sublime, whether it be awe, fear, or curious horror. Whatever the sublime feeling that is felt

by the Wedding Guest is communicated through the Mariner’s penetrating eye, which has

achieved its sublime status through the events of the Marine’s tale.

In the Mariner’s tale he often comments upon of the eyes of his fellow crew members,

but only a few instances does the he find himself having sublime feelings when their eyes are

turned toward him. The Mariner says that each man looked at him and “cursed me with his eye”,

showing that the men put judgement on the Mariner for what they believed he has caused

(Coleridge, 215). From the eyes of crew the Mariner begins to have sublime feelings of guilt,

which is also revealed within Dore’s illustration of this scene and the Mariner. In Dore’s

illustration the Mariner is shown to be wide-eyed with a sense of fear attached to him (Dore,

Plate 15). Horror and guilt are the two feelings the Mariner fights within himself and he says for

“seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse”, caused by the sublimity that is projected from the
eyes of the crew (Coleridge, 261). At this point the sublime feeling of guilt presses on the

Mariner, which makes him want death to come to relieve him of his sufferings.

The eyes’ ability to be a symbol of sublimity is emphasized throughout the Mariner’s tale

when the Wedding Guest finds the strength to break his silence in short burst of protest. The

Wedding Guest’s sublime feelings of fear that arise from the both the eyes of the crew and the

eye of the Mariner cause him to break the hold of the Mariner and speak. Within his cry out to

the Mariner he says “I fear thee and they glittering eye”, revealing that the Wedding Guest feels

the sublime weight of judgement that has been placed upon the Mariner’s glittering eye and is

being transferred onto himself. The guilt of the Mariner is a reason for his telling of the tale to a

stranger, as he tries to shake off some of the burden that he acquired in his tale.

Through the eye of the Mariner we find sublime feelings of awe, guilt, fear, and horror

within Coleridge’s poem. The eye establishes itself as a symbol for the sublime, which invade

both the Mariner and Wedding Guest emotional state and is seemingly expressed through their

eyes. In pairing the text with Dore’s illustrations, the sublimity of the eye throughout is better

revealed. The illustrations show the Mariner’s eye with contrast to that around him and it

provides a better understanding of the weight of the eyes that were upon the Mariner. From the

feeling of guilt within the Mariner, the true motivation for telling such a story is revealed, as he

can longer handle the weight of burden that has been placed upon him.
 Works Cited

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Rime of The Ancient Mariner.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-

1834.

Dore, Gustav. The Rime of The Ancient Mariner Illustrated by Gustave Dore

https://www.ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/coleridge/samuel_taylor/rime/