The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (originally The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere), written by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797–98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads, is a poem that recounts the experiences of a sailor who has returned from a long sea voyage. Some modern editions use a revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss.
The poem tells of the mariner stopping a man who is on his way to a wedding ceremony so that the mariner can share his story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from amusement to impatience to fear to fascination as the mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the language style; Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create a sense of danger, the supernatural, or serenity, depending on the mood in different parts of the poem.
The Rime is Coleridge's longest major poem. It is often considered a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature.
Synopsis
left|thumb|[[Book frontispiece|Frontispiece by William Strang for a 1903 edition of Coleridge's poem.]]
The poem begins with an old grey-bearded sailor, the Mariner, stopping a guest at a wedding ceremony to tell him a story of a sailing voyage he took long ago. The Wedding-Guest is at first reluctant to listen, as the ceremony is about to begin, but the mariner's glittering eye captivates him.
The mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven south by a storm and eventually reaches the icy waters of the Antarctic. An albatross appears and leads the ship out of the ice jam where it is stuck, but even as the albatross is fed and praised and played with by the ship's crew, the mariner shoots the bird:
The crew is angry with the mariner, believing the albatross brought the south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears:
Critics have also suggested that the poem may have been inspired by the voyage of Thomas James into the Arctic.
According to Wordsworth, the poem was inspired while Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Wordsworth's sister Dorothy were on a walking tour through the Quantock Hills in Somerset. The discussion had turned to a book that Wordsworth was reading, that described a privateering voyage in 1719 during which a melancholy sailor, Simon Hatley, shot a black albatross.