EXPLANATORY NOTES

1. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" was Coleridge's chief contribution to a small volume of poems, called Lyrical Ballads, which he and Wordsworth published in 1798. Both poets, who were great friends, believed that poetry should be simple in language, sincere in expression, free from conventional words and phrases, and drawn from the experience and feelings of ordinary men. They were fond of talking with peasants and using their language. They were also passionately devoted to Nature, and loved to write poetry about flowers, animals, natural scenery, and the lives of men and women who lived in the country, not the city. They saw the beauty in Nature, and they liked tales of wonder and magic. In these respects they were much like Burns, whom they greatly admired. The Lyrical Ballads were illustrations of these beliefs about poetry. Not all the poems were ballads in the strict sense; they used the word to apply to any simple, song-like poem. The new poems were attacked by the critics, who preferred the poetry of city life, full of classical allusions and written in a rather stilted, conventional style that had been popular for more than a century.

2. Some idea of the book may be gained from the fact that in it Wordsworth set himself to contribute poems in which the natural, as he put it, should seem supernatural, while Coleridge was to write poems in which the supernatural should seem natural. That is,

Wordsworth was to show the magic and mystery in common things, such as flowers and the simple aspects of Nature; while his friend was to show how a poem containing supernatural elements, like "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," might be so treated as to make these things seem real.

3. Coleridge, while one of the greatest English poets, left very few completed poems. He was a man of marvelous genius, who could do so many things that he was continually turning from one kind of activity to another. His whole life was a succession of brilliant experiments. He was a journalist, a scholar, a philosopher, a great critic, a lecturer, and a poet. When a mere boy at Christ's Hospital School, he translated from Greek poetry, read everything he could get hold of, and astonished his teachers and fellow pupils by the brilliance of his mind. He was a great dreamer, often imagining that he was living the life of some old hero or undergoing marvelous adventures. Once he was walking along a street, completely forgetful of his surroundings, when he happened to run against a gentleman who promptly had him arrested as a pickpocket. Coleridge explained that he was not conscious of what he was doing, since he thought he was Leander, an old Greek hero who swam across the Hellespont to visit his sweetheart Hero, and he not only convinced the gentleman who had complained of him, but got from him a ticket of admission to a subscription library. Coleridge tells us that he went to this library and read every book in it. He acquired a taste for

medicine, and committed to memory a Latin medical dictionary. He was a great student of philosophy, even as a boy, and read books that few older men are acquainted with now. He became interested in a shoemaker, and came near entering that trade.

4. At Cambridge, where Coleridge went for his university training, he excelled in the classics but did not complete his course. At one time he ran away and joined the army under the name of Silas Tomkyn Cumberback. He was a wretched horseman, but got on well with the men because he helped them with their love letters. By accident it was found out that he was a classical scholar, and from this his officers found that he had run away from Cambridge, so he was discharged from the army and returned to college. He was greatly interested in human liberty and wrote about the French Revolution. With several friends he planned to go to America and set up an ideal community on the banks of the Susquehanna. There was to be no private property; each member of the colony was to work for two hours a day in the garden or on the farm; the rest of the time was to be spent in conversation and study. This plan was never carried out, partly because Coleridge became intimate with Lamb and Wordsworth, and wrote a number of poems, which included, besides the "Ancient Mariner," "Christabel" and "Kubla Khan." His fondness for dreaming, his out-of-the-way learning, his love of romance, and his wonderful genius combined to make these three poems unique in English literature.

5. The facts brought out in the preceding paragraphs will help you to understand the "Ancient Mariner"; its mystery, its marvelous verse, its seeming reality in spite of the supernatural elements that it contains. The suggestion of the poem came from a dream of a skeleton ship which he learned from a friend. To this Wordsworth contributed a story about an albatross that he had read in a book of travels. A few lines of the poem were written by Wordsworth, and at first the two friends planned to write the entire poem together. This plan was soon given up, however, and the poem expresses Coleridge's own brilliant imagination uncolored by any considerable influence of his friend.

6. The theme of the poem is the well-known superstition that a sacred bird or animal, if slain, will bring a curse upon the slayer. Therefore the "moral" expressed near the end is in a sense not applicable. It was not because the sailor wantonly slew a bird that the dreadful sufferings came upon him and his fellows, but because the bird was sacred, the representative of the spirit that brooded over the vast waters

of the southern ocean. This story of sailors' superstition has just the right setting: it is put into the mouth of an old sailor, and is told like a ballad. Coleridge's "Gloss," or explanatory matter, printed in small type at the side of the text of the poem, is an imitation of something often found in medieval manuscripts, where authors or their readers wrote similar explanations or abstracts of what they were reading. The skeleton ship, the awful figures of Life-in-Death and Death, the watersnakes, the curse in the eyes of the dead sailors -these are all ballad elements that add to the wonder and terror of the tale. The balladstanza, the use of refrain and repetition, the peculiar rimes, are also examples of the way in which the poet has hit upon just the right form for telling such a tale. In your study of the poem, therefore, you should take note of these things, comparing the poem with a genuine ballad of the supernatural such as “The Wife of Usher's Well."

7. The poem is much more than a marvelous imitation of the old ballads. You have already learned that one difference between the folk ballad and other forms of literature is that in the old ballads you are not conscious of the presence of the author; they seem to be telling themselves. But the "Ancient Mariner" is not "a tale telling itself in song." On the contrary, you will easily find illustrations of the fact that you are in the presence of literary art of extraordinary delicacy and beauty. The careful planning of the effects; the author's comments; the detailed descriptions of Nature; the way in which the horror and mystery are dwelt on so that you are certain to feel their effects; and the deeper meaning of the poem as a whole these supply all the proof you need of the difference between a ballad of the supernatural like "The Wife of Usher's Well" and the "Ancient Mariner."

8. The sailors, who have merely surrendered to the superstition that the albatross is a bird of ill omen, are punished with death. Their crime was less than that of the Ancient Mariner himself; therefore his is the greater punishment. The Mariner is condemned to a life that is far more terrible than death. His suffering is not merely physical, but spiritual. He cannot pray until the hate that is in his heart has turned to love. This love springs from Nature: the sight of the moon, a revelation of beauty he had not known before, and the unearthly beauty of the light that rests upon the sea. As soon as Nature has taught him this lesson of love, the spell is broken. From that moment, he can pray, and the angelic spirits guide the ship back to the haven. The idea of Nature as a teacher, not

merely something external to man and independent of his life, is one that Wordsworth as well as Coleridge taught in verse. You will find other illustrations of the meaning of this idea in your later reading; you will never find it more beautifully expressed than here.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. Note imitations of the ballad in the first five stanzas. Is the speaker clearly indicated in each case? Is there any formal introduction to the story or are you left to work out the situation for yourself? Is there anything corresponding to ballad repetition? Are stanza and rime like those of the ballad?

2. Explain the meaning of the statement that the Mariner holds the Wedding-Guest "with his glittering eye." Why does the Mariner stop the Wedding-Guest? Do you imagine he has stopped other men at other times? Why?

3. What is the effect of the interruption in stanzas VIII-X? Why is stanza Ix effective? What do you see as you read it?

4. Into what parts of the world does the ship go? Follow its course through the remainder of the poem? Where do the marvelous adventures take place? Would the tale be as convincing if the scene were laid in the English channel or in the Mediterranean? Why? 5. Why is stanza xx effective? What do you see?

6. Beginning with stanza XXI, where is the ship and in what direction is it moving? What share in the guilt have the sailors? What is the beginning of the curse? In what ways are you made aware that the experience these men were passing through was not the ordinary experience of men becalmed at sea?

7. Study the approach of the strange ship. What effect had it at first on the Mariner? On the men? What vivid line is in stanza XXIX? In stanza XLI? What is the effect of questions rather than direct statements in stanzas XLIII and XLIV? Could you understand the meaning of XLVI without the gloss? Of XLVII? Why is XLVII effective? The last line of LI?

8. What do you see, as you look at the Mariner in reading LII? Who is the speaker? Would a description of the Mariner's face be as effective as the words of the Wedding-Guest? Why is stanza LIV effective? Read the first line aloud.

9. Why is the Mariner unable to pray? Several stanzas (LVIII, LX, LXII) have more than four lines each; what effect is gained? Compare LVIII and LXI-LXII. What brings

about the change in the Mariner? Compare stanza LXV with LV.

10. Stanzas LXVII-LXX express the wonderful peace given by sleep after a great nervous strain or after the crisis of a disease. What changes in Nature take place after the curse is lightened? Is there any wind? Does it move the ship? Why? Does the Mariner pause again in his tale? Why? How do you know?

11. Compare the sounds and sights in stanzas LXXXII-LXXXIV with those in LXXILXXV. Explain the difference.

12. Why does the ship stop? Where? What causes it to proceed? Study carefully stanzas LXXXVI-XCII for the answers.

13. Give in your own words the conversation between the two spirits. What do they represent? In what way does the curse return? What is the effect on the Mariner? Explain stanza CII. What breaks the spell? Study CVII and tell what the stanza suggests to you. What happens to the bodies of the sailors? Why is the Mariner glad to see the Hermit?

14. By what details are you made aware of the effect of the terrible journey on the ship itself? What is the value of your knowing this? Once more, observe that you are given this information indirectly, this time through the comments of the Pilot and the Hermit. 15. Why does the ship sink? What is the effect on the Pilot, the Hermit, the Pilot's boy, the Mariner?

16. What is the penance that the Mariner must pay? Does the Hermit impose it? What does? Does this seem reasonable to you? How does the Mariner know whom to stop?

17. Tell in your own words the meaning of stanzas CXXXVI-CXXXVIII. Of stanzas cXXXIXCXL. What is the effect of the story on the Wedding-Guest? On you?

18. Pick out the old and obsolete words in the poem; the words and phrases conveying sound and color; the Nature-pictures.

19. Make a study of the Gloss, now that you have become familiar with the story. Does it help you to understand the poem? Does it add anything? What parts of the Gloss are not necessary to fuller understanding of the story? Do these parts add anything to the value of the poem? Why, or why not?

20. Compare the poem, as a story of adventure at sea, with Treasure Island. What differences do you recall in the description of the ships, of life at sea, etc. Do you think Coleridge could have written a good pirate story?

21. What illustrations would you suggest for an edition of this poem? Describe in detail one or two of the most vivid of these subjects as if you were telling an artist what to put in his picture.

And "What's all this?" he growls at us! With dignity we chanted, "Forty singing seamen, sir, as won't be put upon!"

"What? Englishmen?" he cries, "Well, if ye don't mind being haunted, 35 Faith, you're welcome to my palace; I'm the famous Prester John! Will ye walk into my palace? I don't bear 'ee any malice! One and all ye shall be welcome in the halls of Prester John! Cho. So we walked into the palace and the halls of Prester John!

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Now the door was one great diamond and the hall a hollow ruby

Big as Beachy Head, my lads, nay, bigger by a half!

And I sees the mate wi' mouth agape, a-staring like a booby,

And the skipper close behind him, with his tongue out like a calf!

Now the way to take it rightly 45
Was to walk along politely,

36. Prester John, a fabulous Christian monarch said to have reigned in Asia in the twelfth century. 42. Beachy Head, a chalk cliff 575 feet high, projecting into the English Channel on the coast of Sussex.

Cho.-It shall call to singing seamen till the fount o' song is dry!

So we thought we'd up and seek it, but that forest fair defied us

First a crimson leopard laughs at us most horrible to see,

Then a sea-green lion came and sniffed and licked his chops and eyed us, 75 While a red and yellow unicorn was dancing round a tree!

We was trying to look thinner,

Which was hard, because our dinner

Must ha' made us very tempting to a cat o' high degree!

Cho.-Must ha' made us very tempting to the whole menarjeree!

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