3. Important things to know Type of Work.......The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a narrative poem in which a seaman tells another man a strange and terrifying tale. Sources........When Coleridge wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, accounts of the daring sea voyages of the British explorer Captain James Cook (1728-1779) had caught the public's fancy. Cook had made three exploratory voyages in the Pacific between 1768 and 1779, traveling as far north as the Bering Strait (between Alaska and Russia) and as far south as the ice fields of Antarctica. One of his crewmen, astronomer William Wales, later taught mathematics to Coleridge at Christ's Hospital School in London after Coleridge enrolled upon the death of his father in 1781. Australian Bernard Smith maintains that Coleridge likely used a journal kept by Wales as a source of information for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, according to Bill Whelen, author of Captain Cook's Navigator and Coleridge's Poem: William Wales, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'.......Other sources used by Coleridge include superstitions and folk tales.

4. Important things to know Setting.........The action takes place in the following locales several hundred years ago: (1) a street or byway in a locale with a hall in which a wedding reception is being held; (2) a sailing ship with 201 crew members, including the ancient mariner; (3) the Atlantic Ocean; (4) the South Pole; (5) the Pacific Ocean; (6) the mariner’s native country (undisclosed). The atmosphere is ghostly, preternatural, mysterious. Characters. Ancient Mariner: Old sailor who roams from country to country to tell a strange tale. Wedding Guest: Man on the way to a wedding reception with two other men. The mariner singles out the wedding guest to hear his tale. Two Hundred Crewmen: Ill-fated members of the ship carrying the mariner. Pilot: Boatman who rescues the mariner. (A pilot is an official who guides ships into and out of a harbor.) Pilot’s Boy: Pilot’s assistant. Hermit: Holy man who absolves the mariner and hears his story. Albatross: Large, web-footed sea bird with a hooked bill. Most species of albatrosses wander the southern seas, from tropical regions down to Antarctica, drinking sea water and feeding on squid, cuttlefish, and other small sea creatures. Sometimes, they follow ships to feed on their garbage. Albatrosses have an astonishing ability to glide in the wind, sometimes for hours, but have difficulty staying aloft without a wind. In the latter case, they sit on the water to rest or sleep. When it is time to breed, they go ashore. An old superstition says killing an albatross brings bad luck, although sailors have been known to kill and eat them. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has helped make this superstition common knowledge throughout the world among landlubbers as well as sailors. In modern parlance, a person or an event that brings bad luck is often referred to as an albatross.

5. Important things to know Structure, Rhyme.......Coleridge divides the poem into seven parts. Most of the stanzas in the poem have four lines; several have five or six lines. In the four-line stanzas, the second and fourth lines usually rhyme. In the five- and six-line stanzas, the second or third line usually rhymes with the final line. Meter The meter alternates between iambic tetrameter (with four feet per line) and iambic trimeter (with three feet per line). Following is an example (the first four lines of Part II) of a stanza with this pattern:.......1.................2...............3...............4 "The SUN..|..now ROSE..|..up ON..|..the RIGHT:............(tetrameter).....1..............2...............3 Out OF..|..the SEA..|..came HE,.....................................(trimeter)......1..............2...............3...............4 Still HID..|..in MIST,..|..and ON..|..the LEFT...................(tetrameter).........1................2.............3 Went DOWN..|..in TO..|..the SEA...................................(trimeter)

6. How the meter sounds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jhb5NnADM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBs7-crFAKQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGH4p4z4s5A