The Redeemed Mariner:

A Post-Pastoral Reading of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Abstract

In English literature, pastoral is commonly identified as an idealized place where nature serves as a healer, nurturer, and protector. While anthropocentrism received criticism for neglecting the environment, John Barrell and John Bull shook the foundation of the pastoral due to its “traps of idealization”. Terry Gifford revived the term for its befitting usage in the present age. This paper will use Gifford’s pastoral, anti-pastoral, and post-pastoral as a background to finally establish Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” as post-pastoral in nature. This study will thus incorporate the holistic vision of the post-pastoral in the poem. The interpretation is built on the idea of ecocentrism that makes the mariner realize the force of nature that lies at the center of creation. As a result, he surrenders his hubris and overcomes his arrogance to give up anthropocentrism. Undergoing a humbling experience, he takes responsibility for his action (of killing the albatross), develops a symbiotic relationship with nature and its creatures (as he blesses the water snakes), and accommodates himself in it. The argument will, thus, be in favour of “mature environmental aesthetics” over “false consciousness”. To strengthen its thesis, the poem will be studied in view of Gifford’s six qualities of the post-pastoral.