1. Coleridge
and
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 1772-1834
 Youngest of 10
 Father died when he was 9, sent
to school in London
 Attended Cambridge
University, became a public
speaker
 Involved in politics, wanted to
create Utopian settlement
 Friends with William Wordsworth
(“London, 1802”)

3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 In his writing he…
 wanted to discover the truths of the human soul
 celebrated the strange and exotic
 mixes elements of a fantasy world with reality
 Creativity dulled by use of painkillers treating his
asthma and rheumatism
 Moved to warmer climates to improve health, but this
doesn’t work  marriage collapses, loses friends
 Kept writing during darkest days, huge influence on
other Romantic authors

4. Poetic Sound Devices
 Alliteration: repetition of consonant sound at
beginnings of words
 “The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew…”
 Consonance: repetition of final consonant sounds
 “a frightful fiend / Doth close behind…”
 Assonance: repetition of vowel sound
 “The western wave was all aflame.”
 Internal rhyme: use of rhymes within one line
 “With heavy thump, a lifeless lump…”

5. Language of Fantasy
 Exotic-sounding
place names
 “Xanadu”
 Archaic words: terms no
longer in common use
 “eftsoons” =
immediately

6. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
 An old Mariner (sailor)
meets some men on their
way to a wedding
 The Mariner stops one of
the men to tell him a story
 Recounts a tale of his crime
against life (killing an
Albatross
albatross) and the physical
and emotional punishments
that resulted