Essays on The Rime of The Ancient Mariner

In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge tells the story of a sailor and his perilous adventures. This tale follows the Mariner and his crew as they travel between the equator and the South Pole, and then travel back to England. On...

In Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, a range of interesting narrative techniques are used to explore the fundamental core of man, the relationship between man and nature and how our actions leave an irreversible mark on the universe. Published in 1798 in the...

Introduction Poets in the Romantic period were not preoccupied with reason, unlike most of the intellectuals in the Eighteenth Century. Rather, they were able recognize the importance of non-rational processes in the mind. S.T. Coleridge was particularly interested in the supernatural. As a result, the...

Introduction Anna Barbauld may have believed that The Rime of the Ancient Mariner had no moral, but Coleridge is correct when he insists that “the poem had too much”. The moral of his ballad is to appreciate all forms of life. To develop this theme,...

Renowned French writer and philosopher Francois-Marie Arouet (better known as “Voltaire”) once stated, “One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.” Indeed, his words could not ring truer when used to describe the Romantic Period (1785-1830)....

Samuel Coleridge is viewed as one of the most important poets of the Romantic period. Part of this distinction hinges on Coleridge’s beautiful, nature-themed poetry, but it also rests on his ability to infuse fantastical and haunting elements into his poems. His talent in mixing...

To the same extent that the Ancient Mariner entrances the Wedding-Guest with his ‘glittering eye,’ Samuel Taylor Coleridge sought to draw his audience in to The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (1798). The poem, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is constructed using various elements associated...

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a striking example of how Samuel Taylor Coleridge failed to attain his vision of perfect poetic unity. The work in question leaves the reader with unanswered questions regarding its stated moral, its failure to adequately account for the...

In a revision of his enduring poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge added a pointed Latin epigraph, perhaps to clarify what he hoped the poem would convey upon his readers. The added lines ask us to reevaluate our perceptions of man and nature,...

Amongst the ideas presented in the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples, the theme of isolation is prominent. Although Coleridge’s poem departs from Romantic stylistic tendencies, it exemplifies many of the ideas which defined the era, while...

Two orphaned boys grow up to be politically-concerned authors, one a poet and one a novelist, who use their maritime literature to speak out against the prevailing ills of European society, specifically the wrongful treatment of African people. These are only a few of the...

“It is reasonable to argue that the German cinema is a development of German Romanticism, and that modern technique (cinematography) merely lends a visible form to Romantic fancies”, Lotte Eisner asserts. Both Romanticism (late 18th-19th Century) and Expressionism (early 20th Century) were reactions to a...

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is without a doubt considered to be a lyrical masterpiece and a cornerstone in Coleridge’s writing career. The epic seven part poem was originally published in 1798 as a part of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, with a Few...

Part 7 forms the dramatic climax of the poem in which the Mariner returns to his own “countree”. Coleridge uses the focal character, the eponymous Ancient Mariner, to narrate the aftermath of the journey and his life since and includes dialogue from the pilot, his...

Coleridge, in common with other romantic artists such as Wordsworth and Keats revolted against the artificial eighteenth century philosophy of a dislocation between man and nature. Coleridge developed an extremely analytical, passionate and spiritual interest in nature and the idea of ‘the one life’. His...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a tale in which one simple action leads to a tumbling of catastrophic events. When the Mariner shoots the Albatross, a bird who has brought him and his sailors good fortune, he does so without...

”To account for life is one thing; to explain life another” – Coleridge (Norton p.596) One of the most easily definable of Coleridge’s Mariner’s losses is his loss of a concrete existence. Coleridge’s mariner exists in a liminal space in ‘The Rime of the Ancient...