First Ideas: "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge portrays the events experienced by a mariner who has returned from a long sea voyage. The poem was published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads, and signified the beginning of British Romantic Literature.

The Mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story.

The Mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven south off course by a storm and eventually reaches Antarctica. An albatross (symbolizing the Christian soul) appears and leads them out of the Antarctic, but, despite the crew's praise for the albatross, the Mariner slaughters the bird. The crew is angry with the Mariner, believing the albatross brought the south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears. This crime arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship "from the land of mist and snow"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed.

Here, however, the sailors change their minds again and blame the Mariner for the torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the Mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it. Eventually the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a skeleton) and his mate Life-in-Death (a deathly-pale woman), who are playing Liar's Dice for the souls of the crew. Death wins the lives of the crew members while Life-in-Death wins the life of the Mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the Mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross.

One by one, all of the crew members are killed, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights a curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is lifted when he blesses the water snakes (despite cursing them earlier in the poem); suddenly, as he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. A hermit on the mainland had seen the approaching ship and had come to meet it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a boat. When they pull him from the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The pilot's boy goes crazy and laughs, thinking the Mariner is the devil. As penance for shooting the albatross, the Mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth, tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets.

After relating his tale to the Wedding Guest, the Mariner leaves and the Wedding Guest returns home, waking the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man".