Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is often regarded as having heralded the beginning of the Romantic era in British literature. The poem narrates the story of a sailor who has returned home from a long voyage having suffered great loss, yet survived. In this Studies in Theology and the Arts volume, poet and theologian Malcolm Guite leads readers on a journey with Coleridge, whose own life paralleled the experience of the mariner. On this theological voyage, Guite draws out the continuing relevance of this work and the ability of poetry to communicate the truths of humanity's fallenness, our need for grace, and the possibility of redemption.
"With great skill, Malcolm Guite has combined able scholarship, poetic eloquence, a grasp of history, and a penetrating spiritual intelligence to unpack and reweave the threads of Coleridge's wondrous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Engrossing and eminently readable."
Luci Shaw, poet, writer in residence, Regent College, author of Thumbprint in the Clay
"Malcolm Guite greatly enriches the field of Coleridge studies by producing an account of the poet's life and work that takes seriously his Christian faith. By ingeniously and tenderly aligning the poet with his Ancient Mariner, Guite casts Coleridge as a prophet who, not yet fully comprehending his own vision, recounts a story he only later comes to understand as his own. Guite also challenges us who are facing ecological, cultural, and spiritual crises to similarly recognize ourselves in the figure of the suffering Mariner and to become fellow mariners in the journey toward redemption."
Jane E. Kim, assistant professor of English, Biola University
