This essay will discuss literary themes and attempt to isolate the theme that underlies all others; the most important in narrative literature. Symbols are what an artist uses to communicate ideas to an audience. Northrup Frye in his essay The Theory of Symbols points out that a symbol: "…means any unit of any literary structure that can be isolated for critical attention. A word, a phrase or an image used with some kind of special reference… …are all symbols when they are distinguishable elements in critical analysis." ⁽¹⁾. This is necessarily very broad terminology. Since literature uses these symbols to convey all meaning, they must denote everything in the imaginable universe. Therefore, one might say that the most important theme of literature is simply that: communication. Frye explains, "the problem of convention is the problem of how art can be communicable, for literature is clearly as much a technique of communication as assertive verbal languages are. Poetry, taken as a whole, is… …but one of the activities of human artifice taken as a whole. If we may use the word 'civilization' for this, we may… …(look) at poetry as one of the techniques of civilization... …The symbol (here) is a communicable unit, to which I give the name archetype: that is, a typical or recurring image. I mean by an archetype a symbol which connects one poem with another and thereby helps to unify and integrate our literary experience." ⁽²⁾. For our purposes, we may concentrate on this aspect of communication: archetypes and their use in communicating symbolic associations. This essay will look at the use of archetypes in poems by Coleridge and Blake and explain how the associations made by the reader and the author serve to enhance our understanding and appreciation of their work.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Coleridge, in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, uses many repeating symbols in order to appeal to our sense of the marvelous. Frye states that "archetypes are associative clusters, and differ from signs in being complex variables." ⁽³⁾. For instance, the main character of the poem is the Ancient Mariner, an excellent example to begin with. He has a "long grey beard and glittering eye" ⁽⁴⁾, a "skinny hand" (line 9); yet we are told he detains a wedding guest "He holds him with his skinny hand," (line 9) and "He holds him with his glittering eye" (line 13). This image of an ancient grey-haired man with such enthralling powers is easily interpreted as a symbol of a prophet, wise man or even of a magician. The image is important because in the story, the mariner indeed seems supernatural, enduring events that would kill a normal man. The forces of nature play a great role in conveying Coleridge's meaning, as in: "The ice was here, the ice was there,/ The ice was all around:/ It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,/ Like noises in a swound."(line 59). The association Coleridge makes between tortured sounds and the fury of nature serve to highlight the direness of the mariner's plight. This symbol allows on to picture a lifeless, wind-swept vista, gargantuan blocks of ice groaning as pressure is applied by the hull of the boat; yet Coleridge has simply described the sounds the ice makes, giving it a life of its own as it growls and howls and roars. As another archetype, the albatross which the mariner encounters on his voyage would traditionally be seen as a symbol of freedom or hope; yet the albatross becomes a burden and the mariner must do penance for slaying the bird. Frye makes an interesting point when he says that tragedy is a mimesis of sacrifice, for the mariner is indeed the tragic figure, and the albatross is the sacrificial victim. Frye elaborates: "Tragedy is a paradoxical combination of a frightful sense of rightness (the hero must fall) and a sense of wrongness (it is too bad that he falls). There is a similar paradox in the two elements of sacrifice. One of these is communion, the dividing of a heroic or divine body among a group which brings them into unity with, and as, that body. The other is propitiation, the sense that in spite of the communion the body really belongs to another, a greater, and a potentially wrathful power." ⁽⁵⁾. The mariner is not in this case a pitiful figure, he does wrong by shooting one of god's creatures, and the albatross is the sacrifice that is made. With this in mind, could one not suppose that the albatross is symbolic of Coleridge's spirit, and the mariner his body? His drug addiction keeps his spirit chained to his body. And indeed, the drug addiction seems to be given reference in this associational framework as either the ocean or the inhabitants of the ocean, as: "The very deep did rot: O Christ!/ That ever this should be!/ Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs/ Upon the slimy sea."(line 123). A horrifying image, and repulsive to the mind. Perhaps this is how Coleridge felt about his own addiction, and the effect it had on his life.

A Poison Tree ⁽⁶⁾