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Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Study Questions

Written by C. Webb for Webb/Mellenbruch’sEng I Pre-AP

You are reading this narrative poem because Mary Shelley, Frankenstein's nineteen-year-old author, loved it and alluded to it in her novel.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Created and Compiled by K. Mellenbruch

  • Born in Ottery St. Mary on October 21, 1772, the youngest of ten children
  • Sent to live with his maternal uncle and attend London charity school for children of the clergy after the death of his father
  • Devoured books, earned first place spot in his class and often called a prodigy
  • Inspired to write “Monody” after the death of his brother Luke in 1790 and his only sister Anne in 1791
  • Fell ill and began taking laudanum for the illness, thus beginning his lifelong opium addiction
  • Attended Cambridge in 1791 on scholarship, but fell deeply into debt with opium, alcohol and women
  • Joined the army in 1793, desperate and in debt
  • Escaped fighting in France by using the fake identify of Silas TomkynComberbache
  • Discharged from service for reasons of insanity
  • Returned to Cambridge
  • Befriended Robert Southey and planned Pantisocracy, their own socio-political movement.
  • Married Sara Fricker in 1795
  • Befriended William Wordsworth
  • Published his Poems in 1797
  • Created the Romantic movement in collaboration with Wordsworth with the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798
  • Suffered loss of his son Berkeley
  • Granted legal separation from his wife in 1806
  • Incapable of sustained work due to paranoia and mood swings stemming from his opium addiction
  • Supported himself by writing newspaper articles, a play, or two and offering lecture courses
  • Died July 25, 1834

What Inspired Coleridge to Write The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?

Coleridge drew his work from many sources. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is part of Coleridge’s group of poems, which also includes Christabel and Kubla Khan. The central theme of the poem was suggested by William Wordsworth, who had been reading Shelvocke’s A Voyage round the World by the Way of the Great South Sea (1726). The selection included one of the crewmembers shooting an albatross, which had followed the ship in bad weather. According to a friend of Wordsworth, the Rev. Alexander Dyce, the poem was sparked by a dream experienced by one of Coleridge’s friends, John Cruikshank, whose dream included a skeleton ship with figures in it.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the story of the Romantic archetype, the Wanderer, the man with the mark of Cain, doomed to walk the earth alone and alienated from all others. The theme of guilt and remorse is juxtaposed to the background of a wedding feast. The audience is unwilling, but is forced to hear the tale. The Mariner is compelled to tell his story as a form of penance for what he has done.

JEOPARDY WORTHY FACTS

TITLE QUESTIONS

  1. What does “rime” in the title mean?
  2. What is a mariner?
  1. Why is this poem’s title underlined/placed in italics?

PART I

  1. List 5 DESCRIPTORS for the Ancient Mariner:
  1. How is the Mariner’s reply to the Wedding Guest’s question a NON-SEQUITUR (definition? ______)
  1. What characteristic of the Mariner has the strongest EFFECT on his listeners?
  1. How does the Mariner force the Wedding Guest to listen to his story?
  1. How do the Wedding Guest’s responses and gestures INDIRECTLY CHARACTERIZE the Mariner?
  1. Describe the change in SETTING after the ship leaves the equator:
  1. What is the significance of this quotation? Also, draw lines from the LITERARY TERMS to line(s) of text

“The ice was here, the ice was there,onomatopoeia

The ice was all around:parallelism

It cracked and growled, and roared and howledpersonification

Like voices in a swound!”simile

What is “swound”? ______

  1. How do the sailors greet the Albatross?
  1. The sailors regard the Albatross as ______luck. Why?
  1. According to LITERARY CRITIC Harold Bloom, “An albatross, with its wingspan of 11 feet and length of some 31 ½ feet and its white color, is a startling phenomenon in itself, and its great power of flight can easily betoken the generosity of nature.”

Explain what the size and color of the bird could SYMBOLIZE.

PART II

  1. “The Sun now rose upon the right.” What can one INFER here about the ship’s direction?
  1. How do the Mariner’s shipmates first react to his shooting the bird?
  1. Why did the shipmates change their minds?
  1. A curse fell upon the ship. What was it?
  1. When did the men make themselves accomplices of the crime?
  1. What parts of this QUOTATION are famous? (2)

“Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.”

Has anyone seen the Simpsons episode, which ALLUDES to this?

  1. Why do the men place the dead Albatross around the Mariner’s neck?
  1. What sin has the Mariner committed?
  1. What is suggested in these two lines?

“Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.”

  1. One of the major PATTERNS OF MEANING in this work has to do with the Mariner’s alienation from and subsequent reconciliation with the natural world. How does the Mariner’s shooting of the Albatross suggest his alienation from the natural world?

PART III

  1. The thirsting crew watches hopefully as a ship comes into sight and is hailed by the Mariner, who wets his lips with ______, a detail with definite gothic

overtones!

  1. What is the SYMBOLISM of this act?
  1. Provide DETAILS of the approaching ship’s appearance:
  1. The crew of the ship was led by ______and

______who were throwing dice!

  1. What does their presence suggest about the significance of the Mariner’s offense?
  1. ______wins the Ancient Mariner while

______wins the remainder of the crew, which was

______in number.

  1. How does the sound of the departing spirits echo an earlier part of the poem?
  1. What was the Mariner’s MOTIVE for shooting the Albatross?
  1. Why is the Mariner allowed to live?
  1. Why is the Mariner’s inability to die a greater punishment than that given the sailors, who simply die?

PART IV

  1. What SHIFT occurs here in the NARRATION?
  1. Why does the Wedding Guest interrupt the Mariner’s story?
  1. What is implied by the answer the Wedding Guest receives from the Ancient Mariner:

“Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding Guest!

This body dropt not down!”

  1. Although the Mariner is punished for his contempt of living things, which lines in this part show that the Mariner continued to despise living creatures? (I want LINES, not line numbers here!)
  1. Why cannot the Mariner pray; what does this SYMBOLIZE?
  1. Why do the bodies of the dead men not rot?
  1. What PLOT INCIDENT restored the Mariner’s ability to pray and began the process of his recovery from his alienation from nature?
  1. As the spell is broken, the Albatross “fell off and sank like lead.”

What might the SIMILE “like lead” suggest about the Mariner’s sin?

PART V

  1. After the Mariner has been restored to the community of living things, how is his suffering eased?
  1. What is Coleridge suggesting by the above?
  1. What mysterious event takes place?
  1. Do you see any water SYMBOLISM here?
  1. Who assisted the Mariner in working the ropes of the ship?
  1. How does Coleridge describe the sounds that accompanied the ship’s movements?
  2. What does the fact that spirits are moving the ship IMPLY?
  1. The two voices argue about what?
  1. Although the Mariner’s suffering was relieved, what will follow?

PART VI

  1. What happens when the Mariner awakens?
  1. The curse is finally expiated. What does the Mariner see?
  1. What do the “dead men” do?
  1. How is the returning to his homeport a return to a state of grace for the Mariner?

PART VII

  1. What does the Mariner like about the Hermit’s CHARACTER?
  1. What REACTION do the Pilot and his son have when the Mariner moved his lips?
  1. At what SPECIFIC point does the Mariner begin the “penance of life”?
  1. Why does the Mariner tell his tale wherever he goes?
  1. Can the Mariner ever have a hope of returning to a complete state of grace again?
  1. What LESSON has the Wedding Guest learned from the Mariner’s tale?
  1. Copy the lines that sum up the THEME of the poem in this part:

THE POEM AS A WHOLE

  1. What is the contemporary (used today) meaning of the IDIOMATIC EXPRESSION “an albatross around one’s neck”?
  1. Why does Coleridge use the FRAMEWORK of the Wedding Guest who hears the Mariner’s story?
  1. Why effect does Coleridge’s use of ARCHAIC forms of words in the poem produce?
  1. Be prepared to explain how the poem’s meaning PARALLELS part of that in Frankenstein, which you will read next.

**Make sure you understand how the poem has alternate lines of 4 strong beats and then 3.

“Water, water, every where = 4 strong beats

And all the boards did shrink;= 3 strong beats

Water, water, everywhere,= 4 strong beats

Nor any drop to drink.”= 3 strong beats