Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria ll summed up the strategy he had in mind when he composed his epic Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
"Yet so as to transfer from our inward nature human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure ... that willing suspension of disbelief for the the moment which constitutes poetic faith...With this view I wrote the Ancient Mariner."
Now was that 'human interest and a semblance of truth' prefigured by one Fletcher Christian? (Christian being of great contemporaneous public interest in England for his leadership of the mutineers on HMS Bounty). A clue may be found in Coleridge's notes.
Coleridge's Notebook
Coleridge kept a notebook (now in the British Museum) from the spring of 1795 to the summer of 1798; the three years up to and including his most creative period.
John Livingstone Lowes in his definitive 'Road to Xanadu' describes the notebook and its content as, "A catch-all for suggestions jotted down chaotically from Coleridge's absorbing adventures among books."
Listed number twenty-two is this cryptic entry in the ninety-page notebook : Adventures of Christian, the mutineer. (The word Christian is underlined). To see the most probable relevance of that entry it will be worth a brief revisit to the poem.
The Theme of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
On the face of it the Rime tells of the misfortunes that follow a seaman who shot an albatross to the subsequent detriment of his ship and fellow sailors. Significantly, the cross the Ancient Mariner wore at his neck is replaced by the albatross.
Coleridge's underlying theme is one that most people would agree as being true to life: evil or ill-considered deeds are apt to have long term consequences for the person responsible, and those consequences will most likely invade other folk as well.
The protagonist may indeed repent and obtain forgiveness, (" Shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!" – line 574 of the Rime) yet cause and effect work inexorably on, and Coleridge holds that the recurring sense of guilt will pervade until the end. Such is the life of the soul in torment.
When Coleridge penned entry number twenty-two in his notebook he made reference to a story that had generated widespread interest in late 18th Century England.
Fletcher Christian and The Mutiny On The Bounty
In 1789, Fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutineers aboard HMS Bounty disappeared off the map after setting his commander, Lieutenant Bligh, together with eighteen other officers and men adrift in an open boat in the South Pacific Ocean.
Against the odds, Bligh eventually made it back to England to tell a story that caught the nation's imagination and evidently that of Coleridge too.
According to Bligh, his very last words as he was forced out of his ship, were to ask Fletcher Christian if this was a proper return for the many instances of friendship that had been shown him.
Christian answered, apparently with much emotion:"That, – captain Bligh, – that, is the thing; I am in hell , – I am in hell." (from Bligh's, Voyage to the South Sea, pp 161 – quoted by J. L. Lowes in his book )
It seems entirely likely that when Coleridge read Bligh's account he had happened upon inspiration for the soul in torment that was key to his portrayal of the guilt-stricken ancient mariner.
Believing that to be the case, some hold that the old seaman who claimed the attention of the wedding guest to listen to his story may have been none other than Fletcher Christian.
Coleridge himself never admitted this speculation to be true, but at the very least one can be sure that a great poet in his genius assembled out of the chaos of his jumbled notebook the jewel which is the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
REFERENCES
The Road to Xanadu, John Livingstone Lowes, Pan Books, London, 1978
The Portable Coleridge, Ed. I.A. Richards, Viking Press, New York,1982
George Backwell - Merely a reporter who endeavors to provide a reliable compass for those who look for one.
