The Nautical Quest

Despite crossing genres and continents, strong literary connections exist between Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Poe's novella The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and Melville's novel Moby Dick or the Whale. The works are similar in terms of plot, symbolism, and other artistic devices. Ties between any two of the works have been mentioned in literary scholarship over the last century, yet I have located none involving all three. None of the present criticism has revealed that each work utilizes several important literary devices, such as a quality of incorporation of source material (including travel accounts, science, and religious motifs), the presence of a central spiritual entity driving the plot, and a complex pattern of symbolism pointing towards apocalypse. Additionally, romantic theory, such as Coleridge's theory of the imagination, works to further elucidate the end goals of the quest. This evidence, when considered holistically, seems to indicate a particular literary mode, which I call the "Nautical Quest." Each work also holds strong evidence of the respective authors drawing on the previous pieces for inspiration and idea.