New Mexico School for the
Blind and Visually Impaired

Teen Reader

 “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1834)

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Text Version

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Audio Version”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (born October 21, 1772, Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, England—died July 25, 1834, Highgate, near London) was an English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher. His Lyrical Ballads, written with William Wordsworth, heralded the English Romantic movement, and his Biographia Literaria (1817) is the most significant work of general literary criticism produced in the English Romantic period. (Britannica.com)

Discussion Questions

1. Who or what is responsible for the curse against the Mariner?
2. Why does the Mariner get to survive to voyage when all the sailors die? After all, he was the one who shot the albatross?
3. What does "Life-in-Death" represent, and what is the result of her winning the dice match with Death?
4. What does the albatross symbolize, and why does the Mariner decide to kill it?
5. Does this seem like a religious or specifically Christian poem? Does it change your perspective at all to learn that Coleridge was considered by many to have radical, free-thinking tendencies?
6. Why do you think this poem has become so famous and influential? Does the poem seem ahead of its time, or does it seem quaint and old-fashioned?

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