Nautical Poems: The Wreck of the Hesperus by Longfellow vs. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge

So, upon my reading of the Wordsworth/Coleridge collaboration Lyrical Ballads, I felt that I should review what is arguably one of Coleridge best poems; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Anyone studying GCSE, A-level or degree level English will inevitably stumble across this lengthy narrative poem, and it has been prolifically referenced in culture. A brief synopsis of the poem is that 'the ancient mariner' is recounting his tale to 'a wedding guest', the tale is essentially a voyage the mariner took on his ship wherein the crew became lost but a lone albatross served to guide them to their destination, the mariner gets annoyed by the presence of the bird and shoots it with an arrow. The crew is left lost in the middle of the ocean and the famous lines:

Water, water everywhere and all the boards did shrink/ 

Water, water everywhere ne a drop to drink 

The poem is characteristic of the despair present in Coleridge's poetry yet there is also a supernatural element that adds a certain charm that is not always present in his fellow poet Wordsworth, whose odes to nature reflected in tranquility lack the action  and intrigue of The Ancient Mariner.

I chose to include here, as a point of comparison, The Wreck of the Hesperus by the American poet, Henry Longfellow. This is also a narrative poem and has an almost identical theme of a captain ignoring advice and thus facing dire consequences. In the poem, the captain of the Hesperus is warned by a crew member to avoid a dangerous current, but the captain is too proud to heed the advice as his daughter is on board. As the ship enters the stormy area the captain ties his daughter to the mast so that she is safe, when the storm settles the ship has been destroyed and all that remains is the captain's daughter left tied to the mast in the'frozen gloom'. Both these poems are about the consequences of ignoring help, both the Ancient Mariner and the captain of the Hesperus were overcome by hubris and agitation which led to their Hamartian fates.

Unlike some other poets of their age (Wordsworth and Whitman, to name but a few), Coleridge and Longfellow write in a very readable style and this is perhaps the reasoning behind their gratuitous use in schools. They are enjoyable tales that are relevant to the present day and their cultural significance makes them necessary reading for any budding poet.