by Anna Miller

Created on: January 30, 2010

The rhythmic crash of waves on the hull of the ship and the mournful cry of sea birds bid many to the sea. Many have heard the unvoiced call of that draws the longing soul to the sea. Literature often shows life at sea in a romantic light in which the siren calls the sailor from the comforts of the settled life to a blissfully compulsive life at sea. However, the life of the sailor is not the romantic tale often penned by the poet. The life of the sailor is a difficult life. No two tales better illustrate the hardships of life at sea than “The Seafarer” and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. “The Seafarer” and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner are both different and similar in their perspectives of life at sea.

First, “The Seafarer” differs from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in that it presents a realistic view of life at sea while The Rime of the Ancient Mariner presents a fictitious picture of life at sea. In “The Seafarer,” the narrator tells that he once viewed life at sea in a romanticized light, but his romantic ideas about life at sea were soon changed when he “learned that ships are homes of sadness” . He goes on to tell of “The arduous night-watch, standing at the prow…My feet were tortured by frost, fettered/ In frozen chains.” Despite the fact that the sea has lost its romantically enticing charms for the sailor, it still holds for him the raw beauty “Of the mountainous streams, the tossing salt waves;/ My heart’s longings always urge me/ To undertake a journey.” The Mariner’s tale also starts out happily, as is seen by his telling the wedding guest, “The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared,/ Merrily did we drop/ Below the \kirk.” He goes on to describe how the sun shown down higher on them each day until “the Storm blast came, and he/ Was tyrannous and strong.” From this point, the Mariner tells a far-fetched tale of shooting the albatross that was their source of hope and being the lone survivor on a ghost ship piloted. “The Seafarer” and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner differ greatly because their respective tales show the sea in a realistic or morbidly romantic light.

              However, “The Seafarer” is similar to Rime of the Ancient Mariner in that both speakers are driven by strong compulsions. The narrator of “The Seafarer”

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