The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: Dream and Reality Analysis

This essay analyzes Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' focusing on its interpretation as an escape from reality, drawing from C. M. Bowra's analysis. The student compares Bowra's perspective with their own understanding, exploring the poem's dreamlike qualities and the role of secondary imagination. The essay examines the influence of dreams on the poem's characters and settings, considering how Coleridge's work contrasts with his contemporaries. The student discusses points of agreement and disagreement with Bowra, ultimately concluding that the poem functions as an extended dream, blurring the lines between reality and illusion and highlighting the power of imagination in literature.

Running head: THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The paper seeks to analyze how the essay entitled; Coleridge’s Dreamscape by C.
M. Bowra on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous Romantic poem called The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner justifies how the poem is an escape from the reality. Through Kubla Khan,
Coleridge has shown that how fragments of incoherent dreams can be a projection of a bigger
frame in the light of universal appeal of poetry. The paper will encompass the comparison
between C. M. Bowra’s interpretation of the poem and my own understanding of how the
poem can be a significant extension of dream.
According to Bowra Coleridge had never been like Homer who would be considering
the opinions and familiarity of the concept regarding the horror and supernaturalism of the
contemporary audience. Coleridge had always depended on his own imagination and fancy
that he perceived through his secondary imagination and had incorporated the elements of
supernatural in his poems (Bowra). However I feel that “Biographia Literaria” has been an
exemplary invention in literature that had shown us how with the application of secondary
imagination that is a special gift acquired and processed only by the poets gradually with time
can reach the zenith of imagination. I believe that I will come to an agreement with Bowra in
this case because he also believed that Coleridge had been such a different poet form his age
that he did not rely only on the “Nature” to draw inspiration from rather he was highly
indebted to draw an Albatross to become real on the journey where it is killed signifying
the end of another journey.
Bowra thinks that dreams are so powerful and effective that it completely discards its
relationship with the world of reality where the elements of dreams become so overpowering
that it almost stirs the entire world of the visionary however I think I am going to contradict
in this case because in Kubla Khan when he wakes up he remembers his dream only in bits
and fragments that would not let him put the puzzles together to form the dome. The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner seems to act like amalgamation of multiple dreams. The dreams,

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according to him became the living characters that were so overpowering that an uncanny
force had driven the imagination of the poet and obsessively kept on haunting him while my
belief is also similar where the poet became so obsessed with the concussion of dreams that at
times there was no shadow between the dreams and reality (Tutchell 145). Even though there
was a constant effort of keeping the barrier between the illusion and reality intact yet it was
not always possible.
The dreams tend to cling on to the owner and seem to come back to the reality time
and again as mentioned in the article while I could not believe that dreams are made of
incoherent thoughts that could be so overpowering that one can get obsessed by it
completely. Therefore I think it is secondary imagination that helps a poet to segregate
himself from that of his contemporary layman who cannot put their thoughts together to
shape an imagination into a masterpiece. I would like to draw an instance of Christabel where
the poet is able to create a world of supernatural exactly like the world of the “wedding
guest” from the poem. The settings of the poems seem to be the parasites on dreams because
everytime the poem is finished the reality is questioned. The poems seem to be so different
from that of his contemporary poets’ that they create an illusion out of the core of his long
drawn imagination where dreams and reality become overlapping and intertwining while I
believe that dreams are segregated from reality in his The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In
this poem the poet might have chosen the way to escape from the world of reality to meet the
world of illusion and float in the world of fancy (Kundu). For me it is not true the poems are
the cauldron of fusing dreams with reality rather it is an escape from the reality that the
human world craves to achieve through attaining the alternative reality.
Therefore it can be concluded that the world of poem and imagination are so
engrossed in its deep philosophical foundation that it is true that I could not agree at some
points and also could not control from agreeing with some really relevant points shown by

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Bowra. The poem is an extended dream that had beautifully carved its edge to draw the
distinguishing line between the two.

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References
Bowra, C.M. Coleridge's Dreamscape : The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. 2020, Accessed
21 Feb 2020.
Kundu, Pritha. "Christabel and Intertextual Imagination: From Coleridge to Keats." MIDDLE
FLIGHT.
Tutchell, E., Edmonds, J., Tutchell, E. and Edmonds, J., 2017. Lessons From Our History',
The Stalled Revolution: Is Equality for Women an Impossible Dream (pp. 139-184).
Emerald Publishing Limited.