‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) wrote the poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner‘ as the first entry in the book he co-authored with his friend, William Wordsworth. This was entitled ‘Lyrical Ballads’ and it marked the start of the Romantic phase of English literature in 1798.

The poem, comprising 143 verses and seven parts, was innovative in that it was a work of imagination, full of descriptions of the sea and sky, and themes of the spiritual and psychological. It can be seen as a parable, in which the ancient mariner’s sinful deed (killing an albatross) has dreadful consequences for him and all his companions. The mariner (the “grey-beard loon”) only survives by appreciating the life of all creatures, “both great and small”. However, he is doomed to a “life-in-death”.

It has given us the expression ‘an albatross round your neck’, meaning the burden of shame and guilt that stays with you when you make a big mistake. Another one is ‘water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink’, which is a slight misquotation from the poem. The hymn ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ (1848) borrows from a verse and the penultimate line is also sometimes used: “a sadder and a wiser man”.

(Image: klimkin at pixabay.com)