The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

In real-life maritime history, the albatross has been seen as a good omen. This also appears to be the case when the albatross first appears in the poem. The wind picks up and moves the trapped ship. However, some sailors believed that if an albatross were seen, one of their crew would soon die. There is confusion between the crewmen in the poem. When the Mariner kills the albatross, they are angry at first, but then are happy later. The symbol of the albatross becomes complicated with the Mariner’s killing of it. First, the Mariner’s line that: “Instead of the cross the Albatross / About my neck was hung,” suggests that the albatross can be read as a symbol of Christ and yet also, and instead, a symbol of the natural world; there is overlap between the theological and the natural here, but also separation. The albatross saved the Mariner and the sailors, and the Mariner’s killing of it is inexplicable, other than he did not appreciate it. He therefore had to be punished. When he finally appreciates nature and the sublime, the albatross drops from his neck, returning to the water—its rightful place as a seabird.