RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER PART I

BY: SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Rey Diaz and Sam Gilchrist

POEMIt is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

`By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The bridegroom's doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

Mayst hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,

"There was a ship," quoth he.

`Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'

Eftsoons his hand dropped he.

He holds him with his glittering eye -

The Wedding-Guest stood still,

And listens like a three years' child:

The Mariner hath his will.

The ancient mariner is an old sailor and he has captured one of three boys on their way to a wedding. The wedding is about to start and everything is ready. The wedding guest tells the mariner to let go of him and he does. The wedding guest did not move though because he began to stare at his glittering eye. The wedding guest stayed there and began to listen to his story.

POEMThe Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:

He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

The sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right

Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon -"

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,

For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes

The merry minstrelsy.

The wedding guest sat down on a stone and payed close attention to the mariners story. The mariner told his story about how he left his native harbor and went out to sea. The mariner explained how great the sea was. The wedding guest could hear the music in the backround fade, he knows the bride went into the hall. He cant stop listening to the story.

POEMThe Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,

Yet he cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

"And now the storm-blast came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,

And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,

As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe,

And foward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,

As green as emerald.

The wedding guest decides to stay and listen. The mariner begins to tell the wedding guest about a terrible storm that pushes his ship south. The ship ends up on an icy island.

POEMAnd through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen:

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken -

The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,

Thorough the fog it came;

As it had been a Christian soul,

We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,

And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!

There was ice all over the place and it was cracking and making loud noises. Then came an albatross and it flew around the ship. The men on the ship saw it as a sign of god. Then after a while the ship cut loose from the ice and sailed away.

POEM

And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,

Glimmered the white moonshine."

`God save thee, ancient Mariner,

From the fiends that plague thee thus! -

Why look'st thou so?' -"With my crossbow

I shot the Albatross

Then the wind from the south pushed them away. The albatross followed them everyday, no matter what the conditions were like. Then the mariner stops and the wedding guest asks whats wrong. He then tells the wedding guest that he shot the bird.

DICTION OF THE POEM

The language in the poem is colloquial and vivid.

He does a good job describing the situation using simple words, he gave a vivid picture

TONE AND MOOD OF POEM

Throughout the poem there are emotions of happiness, sadness, and misery. Mostly misery though because the mariner is telling the wedding guest about this terrible storm he was in and the mistake he made of killing the albatross.There is no irony in the poem.The poem puts me in kind of a gloomy depressing mood because that’s the kind of mood the mariners in.

RHETOR ICAL S ITUATIO N OF THE POEM

The situation of the poem is the mariner taking a random wedding guest and telling him about the things he went through with his crew while he was at sea.The speaker which is the mariner ignores the audience. His main listener in the story is the wedding guest who couldn’t help but listen to his story.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

There is a lot of figurative language used in this poem. For example,“The Wedding-Guest stood still, and listens like a three years' child” is a simile used to show how well the wedding guest listened to the mariners story.There is also use of personification in the poem. The mariner says this to describe the sound of the ice. “The ice was all around:it cracked and growled, and roared and howled, like noises in a swound”

IMAGERYThe mariner does a good job of describing what happened to him at the sea. He uses sight and hearing to describe what it was like to be stuck on this ice island he was on.The best symbolism in this story is the albatross. The crew thought that the albatross was a sign from god to help them on their voyage.

There is a rhyme in every stanzaAlliteration and onomatapia are used in situations to describe the sounds the ice was making

HO W SO UND CO N TR IBUTES THE EFFECT OF PO EM

The poem is a narrative poem and it is made up of several stanzas.The poems rhyme scheme contains one rhyme in each stanza.The meter alternates between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter.

And a good south wind sprung up behind;The Albatross did follow,And every day, for food or play,Came to the mariner's hollo!In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,It perched for vespers nine;Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,Glimmered the white moonshine."

HOW THE POEM IS STRUCTURED