
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798)
Here, ladies and gentlemen, is a poem that schoolchildren once loved, and that has given us the idea of the “albatross around the neck,” the punishment that attends to the Ancient Mariner in our ballad today, because without any motivation, he had so little regard for the beautiful creature of God that he shot it, for no reason but that he could. The Mariner endures a terrible penance, and he is forgiven, but on condition — that he never leave off, but he must wander round the world, and when he meets some man whom he knows must hear his tale, he must tell it, so that the man may avert the same kind of sin and its dreadful punishment.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Argument How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical …
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Word & Song by Anthony Esolen to listen to this episode and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.