| The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | |
|---|---|
| by Samuel Taylor Coleridge | |
 The Mariner up on the mast in a storm. One of the wood-engraved illustrations by Gustave Doré of the poem. | |
| Original title | The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere |
| Written | 1797–98 |
| First published in | Lyrical Ballads |
| Country | Great Britain |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | fate, doom, seafaring, superstition |
| Form | Ballad |
| Meter | iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter |
| Rhyme scheme | abcb |
| Publisher | J. & A. Arch |
| Publication date | 1798 |
| Media type | |
| Lines | 625 |
| Full text | |
 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner at Wikisource | |
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (originally The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere) is the longest major poem by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Some modern editions use a revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss.[1] It is often considered a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature.[2]
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner recounts the experiences of a sailor who has returned from a long sea voyage. The mariner stops a man who is on his way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from amusement to impatience to fear to fascination as the mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the language style; Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create a sense of danger, the supernatural, or serenity, depending on the mood in different parts of the poem.
- ^ "Revised version of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, published in Sibylline Leaves". The British Library. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
- ^ "The characteristics of romanticism found in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". education.seattlepi.com. Retrieved 1 October 2019.