Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who lived from 1772 to 1834, was an English poet, critic and philosopher, and one of the founders of the Romantic movement in English literature. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner appeared in 1798 in Lyrical Ballads, the collection he published with his friend William Wordsworth. That volume is often regarded as a turning point, because its poems deliberately used simpler language and unusual subjects, and Coleridge's contribution was the supernatural one.

The poem is a long ballad, written in verses that imitate the older folk tradition, with an archaic spelling of the title that signals its literary ancestry. A mariner who has survived a terrible voyage stops a stranger and compels him to listen. The tale he tells has been read as an allegory of crime and punishment, as a study of isolation, and as a meditation on the relationship between human beings and the natural world. Its final lesson, often quoted, speaks of love for all creatures, great and small. Readers have long argued over the exact meaning, and that openness is part of the poem's lasting power.

This recording is a single chapter of about half an hour, read by a LibriVox volunteer. Because the poem was made to be spoken, listening to it is a very natural way to meet it. The long lines, the refrains and the sudden shifts of tone become much clearer when they are heard, and the mariner's strange, exhausted voice comes alive. It is a good companion for a quiet evening. Readers have loved it for more than two centuries, and listening is perhaps the best way to understand why it has stayed so vivid, so strange and so quotable.