the Sidenotes are Strange

For the most part the notes on the side of the poem read to me like footnotes but more authentic, since they appear to be a part of the poem. I’m not sure how it was formatted originally, though (?). Still, I felt they were things that I could have figured out if I’d read the poem carefully, and this made them seem more like anxiety on the poet’s (speaker's?) part—a way for him to be a part of a poem that perhaps leaves him out, as well as a way for him to be sure that the reader understood the plot of the poem. Perhaps this is because Coleridge, so focused on language, didn’t take care to make sure—or thought that he didn’t, at least—that the actual plot of the poem was clear. In that sense, this then makes the plot even more important, because he takes time he doesn’t take in other poems to explain it. Although it is maybe evident in other poems to a lesser degree—at least in “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” he starts out with a description of the setting (one that is then layered interestingly again with the anthology’s footnote—he only describes the incident as “an accident, which disabled him from walking”—I get the impression Coleridge might be less than enthused to know that the exact nature of the accident was described for the reader along with the poem).

Around line 119 of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the side note “And the Albatross beings to be avenged” seemed to give the notes a purpose they didn't have before. I couldn’t find anything in the accompanying stanza—“Water, water, every where…” (119) that I would have been able to clearly interprete as the albatross being avenged without having read the note. It felt like the first one that added something completely new to the poem. Of course, this may only indicate that there is something in every note that adds a new understanding to the poem, it is just more subtle in some places than others. The notes definitely serve as a way for the poet (speaker?) to control when the reader realizes what is happening. The inconsistency is odd, though—there are some points, such as the note for lines 216-219 “His shipmates drop down dead”—where the sentiment in the side note is pretty obvious from the stanza—“With a heavy thump, a lifeless lump/They dropped down one by one” (218-9).

I suppose that despite the inconsistency in their usefullness as far as understanding plot, all of the foot notes work to add another layer to the poem’s narrative. There is the story, then the Mariner telling it to the Wedding guest, then the speaker telling the story of the Mariner telling his story to the guest, then a further speaker writing the explanatory notes, and then the poet (we can maybe condense some of those—we could consider the notes the poet, or the notes the speaker of the poem, or all three the same—but they can be separated, too). The distance that this creates is mythlike—as though Coleridge wanted to create a new myth and throw it back through time so that it wasn’t a new story anymore. 

Not within the narrative, but another aspect of the story are all the implied times that the Mariner has had/will continue to have to tell the story to different people. This is another odd aspect to the poem—it suggests that this story does not exist only within the poem. Not the base story, that is—this is only one story of the story being told, of which there are perhaps as many as there are people the Mariner runs into. This makes it even more mythic—it creates an illusion that there could be different versions to the story, that this poem is only one and therefore perhaps less valuable, and in a way succeeds in making the poem appear as though it is not as carefully constructed as it is.

The intricate construction to make the poem into a myth is interesting also when considering the expression “albatross around one’s neck” that we use now—the poem has become a myth we reference, which gives it another layer when we read it now.

Here’s a relevant song! (although it maybe confuses the metaphor since it tells you both to shoot your albatross down and let it go when it's already around your neck? still, interesting):