Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Snipes
Author
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (/ˈkoʊləˌrɪdʒ/; 21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence on Emerson and American transcendentalism.
Characters
Themes
Plot
Historical context: the industrial era was beggining
- spiritual world
- Physical world
Mariner
Wedding guest
He is unnaturally old, with skinny, deeply-tanned limbs and a "glittering eye." He sets sail from his native country with two hundred other men who are all saved from a strange, icy patch of ocean when they are kind to an Albatross that lives there
The Sailor
Death
Pilot
One of three people on their way to a wedding reception; he is next of kin to the bridegroom
Two hundred seamen who set sail with the Ancient Mariner one clear, sunny day and find themselves in the icy world of the "rime" after a storm, from which the Albatross frees them
Embodied in a hulking form on the ghost ship. He loses at dice to Life-in-Death, who gets to claim the Ancient Mariner's soul; instead, Death wins the two hundred sailors.
The captain of the small boat that rows out to the Ancient Mariner's ship. He loses his mind when the Ancient Mariner abruptly comes to life and begins to row his boat.
The Ancient Mariner drifted on the ocean in this company, unable to pray. One night he noticed some beautiful water-snakes frolicking at the ship's prow in the icy moonlight
The Ancient Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that he wanders from country to country, and has a special instinct that tells him to whom he must tell his story
An Ancient Mariner, unnaturally old and skinny, with deeply-tanned skin and a "glittering eye", stops a Wedding Guest who is on his way to a wedding reception with two companions
- religion
part I
Part II
he has magic in his eye to make you stop and listen
ship sails from england to antartica and becomes stranded till an albatross comes along
old man stops wedding guest to tell of cursed ship
although the bird is friendly the mariner shoots it down
ship is stuck in the duldrums
st. elmos fire and bioluminoesance prvoke superstition in the sailors
the sailors blame the mariner for shooting the bird
the sailors blame their fate on the mariner
Ship is returning north
Part III
part IV
•The speaker finally realizes what it is, and he wants to shout, but his mouth is too dry
Fortunately, he has a solution that would make the guy from the Survivor Man TV show proud. He bites his arm to wet his lips with his own blood, just enough so that he can shout
•He can't decide whether the thing is a small "speck" or a more spread-out "mist." The shape starts to come into focus and he became aware ("wist") of what looked like
He shouts that he sees a sail.
They have spent a long time drifting on the ocean with no wind or water, and everyone is sick of it
But the Mariner reassures him that he's no ghost. He was the only one on the ship who didn't die. He doesn't exactly give the Wedding Guest a lot of comfort, but just goes on with his story
So now he's by himself on this ship with a lot of dead people, all of whom have just cursed him. He wishes that the spirit of some dead saint would take pity on him
After the Mariner tells this ghost story, the Wedding Guest notices that the Mariner looks a bit like a ghost himself: skinny, bony, with eerily bright eyes. Yup, all ghost-like features. Putting two and two together, the Wedding Guest freaks out
At least the slimy creatures are still there. He thinks what a shame it is that all these nice men have died, and he and the slimy things are still living.
OK, so Coleridge isn't super-obvious about it, but at this point the Wedding Guest interrupts the story to make another futile attempt at escape.
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
wedding guest burst in and is afraid of tge zombie sailors, when the sun comes they all lay down
spirits flying around the boat making sweet sounds, ship moves but not from breeze, spirit moves boat
the dead sailors rise up and start to work the ropes as if they were alive
Ship takes off in a hurry and the mariner falls down and faints and hears 2 voices talking above his head they say that hes the one that shot the bird. hes paid for his crime but will continue
He falls asleep, because the curse is lifted he sleeps and when he wakes up its rainingthen the wind is moving and the clouds are flying by
breezes start to blow and the mariner cheered
he realizes that the ship reached home.the angels stand on the dead bodies and wave
mariner wakes up and sees dead bodies standing around him
the mariner is excited because a holy hermit comes in a row boat
angels are watching the ship and wondering how its moving
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non human
slimy sea creatures
bird spirit
Albatross
angels