The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Lore & Background

The poem begins with an old grey-bearded mariner stopping a guest on his way to a wedding ceremony to tell his story. The mariner's tale describes a ship driven south by a storm to Antarctic ice, where an albatross appears and leads the ship out of the ice jam. The mariner shoots the albatross, angering the crew, who later change their minds when the weather warms. The ship becomes becalmed near the equator, and the crew forces the mariner to wear the dead albatross around his neck. A ghostly hulk appears with Death and the Night-mare Life-in-Death playing dice for the souls of the crew; Death wins the crew, Life-in-Death wins the mariner. All the crew die, but the mariner lives on, seeing the curse in their eyes for seven days and nights. His curse lifts when he blesses the sea creatures, and the albatross falls from his neck. The ship sinks in a whirlpool, and the mariner is rescued by a hermit, a pilot, and the pilot's boy. He is compelled to wander the earth, telling his story as penance.

Reader's Guide

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a foundational work of British Romantic literature, noted for its use of supernatural elements and narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create moods of danger, the supernatural, or serenity. The poem received mixed reviews from critics; Coleridge was once told by the publisher that most sales of the book were to sailors who thought it was a naval songbook. The poem's inspiration may have come from James Cook's second voyage, Thomas James's Arctic voyage, a book about a privateering voyage where Simon Hatley shot a black albatross, the life of John Newton, or legends of the Wandering Jew and the Flying Dutchman. Coleridge himself wrote that his aim was to create a supernatural poem that would transfer from inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth, procuring a willing suspension of disbelief.

Did You Know?

• The poem was originally titled The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.
• Coleridge's tutor, William Wales, was the astronomer on James Cook's second voyage of exploration.
• The poem may have been inspired by a dream about a skeleton ship crewed by spectral sailors related by John Cruikshank.