The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a long poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 in Lyrical Ballads. An old sailor stops a guest on his way to a wedding and tells him how he shot an albatross, bringing a curse on his ship. The poem is one of the great works of English Romanticism.
The story
The ship is driven by storms to the South Pole, where an albatross appears and guides it out of the ice. The Mariner shoots the bird for no reason.
The ship is becalmed, the crew die of thirst, and the Mariner is left alone among the dead. Only when he blesses the sea creatures does the curse begin to lift.
A ballad
Coleridge imitates the old ballads, with short stanzas and archaic language, but fills them with powerful supernatural images.
In the version of 1817, in Sibylline Leaves, he added marginal glosses in prose that comment on the story.
Lyrical Ballads
The poem opened Lyrical Ballads, the joint collection by Coleridge and Wordsworth published anonymously in 1798.
The book is often seen as the starting point of the Romantic movement in England.
Anecdotes
Wordsworth's idea
Wordsworth suggested the shooting of the albatross, an idea he had found in a book of voyages by the privateer George Shelvocke.
An albatross around the neck
After the killing, the crew hang the dead albatross around the Mariner's neck. The image has become an English expression for a burden of guilt.
Frequently asked questions
When was the poem first published?
In 1798, in Lyrical Ballads.
What does the Mariner kill?
An albatross.
Whom does the Mariner stop to tell his story?
A guest on his way to a wedding.