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Course Hero Literature Instructor Russell Jaffe provides an in-depth summary and analysis of Part 1 of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
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In the narrative poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a sailor kills an innocent albatross that has been following his ship.
Taking this life has serious consequences for the sailor and his crew, whose journey grows difficult. The sailor’s life is seemingly derailed by just one instance of overconfidence.
While the poem chronicles an ostensibly pragmatic voyage to the Antarctic, its narrator shares profound observations of his environment and his own resulting mental state.
Ghastly figures gamble for the life of the crew and sea serpents writhe in the freezing waters surrounding the boat. Because the narrator of the poem is the only survivor, his subjective experiences become the only record of the ill-fated venture.
Filled with savage natural imagery and human emotion, it also contains references to the supernatural.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is considered one of the founders of the Romantic Movement of the 18th century. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was first published in 1798 and epitomizes the Romantic form, a rejection of the cold rationality of the Enlightenment. The Romantics valued natural speech, simple themes, the beauty of nature, emotion, and abstract thought.
The narrative poem contains many important symbols, including the albatross, representing good luck or a bad omen in maritime lore; the gaze, symbolizing the supernatural and communication without speech; and the sun and moon, representing the opposing forces of the Mariner’s journey.
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