Iron Maiden and Coleridge: Exploring Adaptation through Narrative Perspective

As a major Iron Maiden fan, I was a bit disappointed by Dr. T highlighting the very adaptation of Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” that I hoped to draw the class’s attention to. Still, Dr. T refrained from going into a detailed analysis of the connections between the song and the poem – connections I plan to freely explore in this blog.

                Primarily, I would like to complicate Dr. T’s claim that Coleridge’s narrative is primarily first person, while Iron Maiden’s version is told in third person. Coleridge does, in fact, write the Mariner’s tale in first person in his poem. However, one must also remain aware of the fact that in both works, the story is being relayed to the audience by a third party who is neither the “Ancient Mariner” telling the tale nor the wedding guest(s) listening to it. Though the Mariner’s tale is told in first person in Coleridge’s poem, the Mariner’s words are actually being quoted and relayed by another guest at the wedding.  In the first part, Coleridge establishes this by writing, “The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:/ He cannot choose but hear; / And thus spake on that ancient man, / The bright-eyed Mariner” (20-23). The narrative that follows, though told in first person, does not come from the same voice that opens (and closes) the poem.  Ostensibly, Coleridge writes “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in the first-person, but having the narrator of the poem be a separate character from that of the Mariner complicates the traditional first person perspective.  The Mariner does not directly relate his story to the audience, as traditionally occurs, but instead has his story related to the audience through a third party.

                Similarly, the Iron Maiden version of the poem also tells the tale of the Ancient Mariner through a mediator – a mediator who, similarly to Coleridge’s version, is not the Mariner’s primary audience. Iron Maiden writes, “And the music plays on, as the bride passes by / Caught by his spell and / the Mariner tells his tale.”  Just like Coleridge’s version, Iron Maiden has transferred the Mariner’s tale to a larger audience.

                An important difference exists between the two texts, however: Coleridge’s narrator simply relates the events of the wedding night and the Mariner’s tale to the audience, while Iron Maiden commands the audience to listen. Compare Coleridge’s above introduction of the Mariner’s story to Iron Maiden’s: “Hear the rime of the Ancient Mariner / See his eye as he stops one of three / Mesmerises one of the wedding guests / Stay here and listen to the nightmares / of the Sea”.  In Coleridge’s introduction, he does not command the audience to listen. He simply notes that the wedding guest “cannot choose but hear”. The narrator relates the Mariner’s story to the audience, but he does not directly comment upon it. Iron Maiden, on the other hand, implores the audience to listen. They command the audience to “Hear the rime of the Ancient Mariner” and to “Stay here and listen to the nightmares of the Sea”. Iron Maiden wishes to educate the audience; Coleridge simply wishes to relate a story.

                This difference between the two texts also appears at the end of the Mariner’s tale. Coleridge ends his poem by having the narrator comment thusly on the wedding guest’s fate after hearing the mariner’s tale: “He went like one that hath been stunned, / And is of sense forlorn: / A sadder and a wiser man / He rose the morrow morn”.  Iron Maiden similarly notes that the wedding guest has become wiser, writing, “And the wedding guest's a sad and wiser man,” but concludes by saying, “And the tale goes on and on and on”. Coleridge’s narrator simply relates the story of the wedding guest being affected by the mariner’s tale. Iron Maiden’s ending creates the implication that the Mariner’s story has and will continue to affect more listeners than just the wedding guest. By saying that the “tale goes on and on and on”, Iron Maiden creates the implication that this story will be repeated continuously. The Mariner in Coleridge’s version mentions that he has been forced to walk the Earth and tell his tale, but the poem ends with the reaction of a singular individual. The Iron Maiden song, conversely, ends with the idea of the tale being retold.

            Having established the difference in narration between the two works, one can begin to explore what effect that difference creates. Coleridge’s version puts a heavier emphasis on the Mariner’s tale itself, while Iron Maiden places greater importance on the act of telling the tale. Unlike Iron Maiden’s version, Coleridge does not begin by imploring the audience to listen or end by reinforcing the repetition of narrative. Instead, he focuses completely on establishing the Mariner as a narrator and the effects of the narrative he tells on the wedding guest. Though the Mariner establishes that it has been fate to roam the world and tell his story, Coleridge’s version focuses only on the telling of that story to an individual. To this end, Coleridge presents the entirety of the Mariner’s narrative. By then establishing the wedding guest as having become “sadder and wiser” by hearing the story, Coleridge implicates that the Mariner’s story has great import. The text of the Mariner’s story becomes preeminent, rather than the manner by which it is told. This could help to explain why, as Dr. T points out, Coleridge writes the majority of the poem in first person (despite the fact it is not actually a typical first-person narrative): he wants the audience to identify with the Mariner’s story. Coleridge wants the audience to focus on the Mariners narrative and to identify with it. As such, it is not much of a stretch to assume that Coleridge saw the poem as applicable to readers of the day. What the lesson was that Coleridge tried to impart is immaterial to this argument, but one cannot escape the fact that Coleridge very much saw the Mariner’s narrative and lessons as being applicable to a wider audience.

            Iron Maiden, on the other hand, wants to focus on the importance of the act of telling the story, rather than the story itself. By commanding the audience to listen to the story, they are implying that the act of telling is in and of itself important. If one commands another to listen to the story (“Hear the rime of the Ancient Mariner..”), then it follows that the act of telling that story is itself important. By placing import on the receiving of the story, Iron Maiden has also place import on the telling of the story. Iron Maiden reinforces this notion by concluding that the “tale goes on and on and on”. According to Iron Maiden, the tale will continue to be told long after it being related to the wedding guest. By drawing attention to the fact that the story being related in the song has and will continue to be told, Iron Maiden references the fact that the song itself is a retelling of Coleridge’s original narrative – a point reinforced by the band directly quoting the poem in the song. Though the band finds the content of the tale important, they find the simple retelling of the tale in a different form as important itself. Iron Maiden seems to be indicating that it is important to reiterate the works of the “masters” – even if that reiteration comes in the form of a heavy metal song.

            Though, on the surface, Iron Maiden and Samuel Coleridge’s different versions of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” appear to be told from different narrative perspectives, that position is only partly true. Iron Maiden explicitly breaks from the narrative perspective of Coleridge, but the band does so to reinforce the importance of retelling classic narratives – in this case, the retelling of Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. 

The Albatross and the Mariner