The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Book Description

Doré's engravings for The Rime are considered by many to be his greatest work. The terrifying space of the open sea, the storms and whirlpools of an unknown ocean, the hot equatorial seas swarming with monsters, the ice of Antarctica, more — are all rendered in a powerful manner. Full text and 38 plates.

Customer Reviews:

Very Nice........2007-04-28

This is a great version of this classic poem at a reasonable price. Very lovely illustrations and just the right amount of annotation of antiquated phrases. A great book for adults who have not read the story, or to get children interested in poetry.

Relic113

Cheap and well done.......2007-01-14

Dover puts out quite the book. This edition being in the $5 range is no exception. It's the size of a large coloring book with the writing on the left and the pictures on the right. Printed well and bound to last a great number of years with plenty of space to write commentary of your own if you are a student.

There is added text, printed very small, to the left of the actual poem. Some of it is interesting and some of it is superfluous. Very easy to ignore if you're not a 'footnote' reading person.

The plates run to the full edge of the paper and there is no white border if you are the 'cut it our of the book and hand it on my wall type'. No bashing here this book is cheap enough to buy one to read and one to be artistic with.

Beautiful Volume.......2006-07-23

If you're familiar with the poem this illustrated volume is well worth having in your library. The drawings by Gustave Dore are beautiful and perfectly complememnt the text. A book that you can enjoy many times over whenever the mood strikes you.

Marginal Notes.......2006-05-10

"It's the structure of the reader's experience rather than any structures available on the page that should be the object of description" , says Stanley Fish in his essay. In parallel with Fish's this claim, Coleridge presents his poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", with marginal notes, each of which actually reifies the perspective of an "intended reader, the reader whose education, opinions, concerns make him capable of having the experience the author wished to provide". Coleridge gives a reading of his poem by creating an ideal reader, thus creating another kind of poet who "restructures" the poem. Therefore, the side notes should be thought to be an organic part of the poem "having meaning" rather than "leading to meaning". And this brings in a new understanding of the poem which is almost imposed on the actual reader by Coleridge's ideal one.
The marginal notes of the poem, at first sight, seem to be the short summaries of the stanzas. However, when they are read closely, the first thing that strikes the eye is that some of them include some details and deductions which are not suggested in the poem. These details and deductions go beyond the borders of a summary and turn into commentaries which express the perspective of a certain individual. And this perspective reflects the tendencies of a reader who is inclined to emphasize certain points of the poem by giving extra details and making deductions. Coleridge's ideal reader makes all the deductions that the poet wants to provide in his lines. Even at the very beginning of the poem he gets the supernatural tone of the lines that Coleridge wants to give. For instance, the fifth stanza of the first part suggests that:
"The wedding-guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but to hear;
Thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner." (Part I, V, 17-20)
And the marginal note gives the explanation of the stanza with these words: "The wedding guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale" (61). The related stanzas of the poem don't include any word directly related to "be spelled". It is true that a reader might come to such a conclusion but there is a possibility that s/he might not. As Fish says, there are different "interpretive communities" that can lead to different interpretations of a literary work. Therefore, a reader can explain the behavior of the wedding-guest in psychological terms while a different reader, for example the owner of the commentaries, can explain it in supernatural elements. The commentator's insistence upon supernatural explanation of the poem almost forces the readers to think in supernatural terms while they may interpret the experiences of the mariner, for instance, as products of hallucination or neurosis. The possible reason of this effect is that the marginal notes give a much more convincing impression as they don't seem to be parts of the poem and this caused them to lose their fictional side in the reader's eye. The reader unconsciously sees the commentator as an authority. For example, when the mariner kills the albatross without any reason, the weather and other conditions get worse. The mariner, an old man who kills a harmless albatross without any sensible reason, definitely believes that the conditions get worse so as to punish him for his crime. However, this approach to the changing conditions becomes more convincing when the commentator points out that, "And the Albatross begins to be avenged" (67). Moreover, the mariner never tells it as directly as the commentator although it is apparent that he believes it to be so. Coleridge, by creating his own ideal reader and giving his commentaries as marginal notes, almost forces the readers of the poem to believe in the "supernatural" experiences of the mariner. And he manages it without using the actual lines of the poem.
In his article, Stanley Fish points out that, "In a sequence where a reader first structures the field he inhabits and then is asked to restructure it by changing an assignment of speaker or realigning attitudes and positions" . In parallel with Fish's suggestion, Coleridge's reader, the commentator, changes the actual lines of the poem by giving extra details just like the end notes of an author. For instance, in the second part of the poem, the following stanza describes the temporary good conditions just after the mariner kills the albatross:
"The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea." (Part II, V, 103-106)

And the marginal note of this stanza suggests that, "The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even till reaches the Line" (67). It is apparent that the related lines of the poem don't include any information about the exact location or direction of the sail. However, the ideal reader of the poem is capable of locating the ship exactly on the Pacific Ocean and of giving its exact direction to the north. The commentator, as Fish suggests, "restructures" the lines of Coleridge by "realigning" the suggested directions of the wind which provide only ambiguous information about the location. And through his own experience, he himself creates the exact location of the sail as "the reader's experience is itself the product of a set of interpretive assumptions". Another example that shows the commentator's restructuring the lines of the poem is related to bad omens after the mariner's killing of Albatross. The related stanza in the second part of the poem says:
"And some in dreams assured were
Of the spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow." (Part II, XII, 131-134)

And the commentary of the stanza gives a detailed information about the features and origins of the spirit: "One of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus...may be consulted. They are very numerous,...."(69). As it is apparently seen, the commentator makes the interpretation of the stanza by using his own experience and education. He presents his background, imagination and his own point of view to other readers; therefore he offers his own interpretation and understanding of the poem. He changes or "realigns" the apparent meaning of the poem by bringing in a new perspective just like a painter's use of light on his/her painting from different angles. Thus, the commentator, like a gleam of light, illuminates the poem from a certain angle and creates a new appearance of it.
While creating a specific perspective in the understanding of the poem, some of the commentaries have their own poetical tone although they just seem to be small summaries of the stanzas. The owner of the commentaries prefers to use a literary language with phrases in a melodious harmony with each other and with a perfect choice of words. For example, in the fifth part of the poem, the mariner describes the resurrection of the crew not with their own souls but spelled by the spirits. And he describes it with the following lines:
"...`T was not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest." (Part V, XIII, 347-349)

When the commentary of these lines is read, almost a new poem with harmonious phrases and with a poetical tone comes out. When the commentary is turned into the lines of a poem, the poetic side of it becomes much more obvious:
"But not by the souls of the men,
Nor by demons of earth or middle air,
But by a blessed troop of angelic spirits,
Sent by the invocation of the guardian saint." (81)

As it is clearly seen, the commentary owns a structure easily convertible into a stanza. Moreover, the phrases have a perfect parallelism with each other and there is a regular repetition of "by" in each line. And this tone and poetical structure of the commentary convincingly shows that Coleridge's ideal reader manages more than just understanding the poem and making comments on it. He becomes an indispensable part of the poem by getting closer and closer to the poet and by adopting his creative tone. He internalizes the poetical world of the poem and starts to read it with the energy of a poet which eventually leads to a harmonious language and rhetorical structure. He starts to ask rhetorical questions which encourage other readers of the poem to think on the poem, to question it and to deduce some conclusions. When the mariner describes the ship approaching "without a breeze, without a tide" (Part III, VI, 169), the ideal reader of Coleridge asks, "Can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide?" (71) so as to make other readers realize the strangeness of the situation and conclude that there must be a spiritual intervention. Therefore, the commentator emerges as a guide who tries to shape the reader's opinions and deductions.
In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Coleridge creates his ideal reader in the small summaries of the poem in order to clarify the meaning he wants to provide by means of his ideal reader's experience, education and perspective. Coleridge, through his commentator, imposes the certain understanding of the poem on other readers who can have completely different interpretations and deductions. The commentator clarifies, interprets and "restructures" certain lines, asks questions and directs other readers in a way which his creator, Coleridge, wants them to follow. He almost forces the readers to look at the poem from one perspective and he manages it by using his position as an ideal reader and commentator endowed with authority by Coleridge himself. And throughout the poem, he ends up with being one of the poets of the poem by using his rights to interpret and "restructure" the actual lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Sorry - The other reviews listed are from another edition........2006-05-08

I was suprised when I received The Modern Critical Interpretations edition of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

There are no woodcuts or any other pictures, there are no silver pages, there is no poem at all!

This book is only modern critical interpretations - nothing more. Buy it if you are a scholar - and refer to a separate copy of the poem.

I should have known from the edition but the editorial reviews were from a different book that was an edition of the actual poem.

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Enitharmon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1904634141

Annotated Ancient Mariner: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

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Exhaustive "Rime"

Annotated Ancient Mariner: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1591021251

Book Description

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's greatest work, THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, is utterly unique, unlike any other ballad. No narrative poem has rivaled it in combining scenes of terror with scenes of incomparable beauty. Although enormously popular in the nineteenth century, it is seldom read or studied today. This annotated version by Martin Gardner will help to renew our appreciation for and deepen our understanding of Coleridge's neglected masterpiece.

Customer Reviews:

Exhaustive "Rime".......2003-10-10

This is a very exhaustive presentation of the Rime. One heads up, though . . . this edition is not uniform in appearance and size with the other books in the "Annotated" series (i.e. The Annotated Alice, the Annotated Huckleberry Finn). It is larger and has a glossy cover.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems

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Other Books
Wherefore thou stoppest thou me?
Blehh...
Coleridge Expresses Some Surprisingly Modern Viewpoints
Timeless Classics

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486272664

Book Description

Great title poem plus "Kubla Khan," "Christabel," 20 other sonnets, lyrics, odes: "Sonnet: To a Friend who asked how I felt when the Nurse first presented my Infant to me," "Frost at Midnight," "The Nightingale," "The Pains of Sleep," "To William Wordsworth," "Youth and Age," many more. Alphabetical lists of titles and first lines.

Customer Reviews:

Other Books.......2007-09-03

A good cheap trippy collection from Dover, is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems, and that is how we
like our poetry, cheap. This includes quite a few, and has Kubla Khan,
if it didn't, I certainly would not have purchased it. So if you are
after the title track and that so to speak, this one will do you.

Wherefore thou stoppest thou me? .......2004-10-28

'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is a haunting and strange poem. The great memorable lines of the opening , ' It is an ancient mariner / and he stoppeth one of three/ by the long grey beard and thy glittering eye / wherefore thou stoppest thou me?/ lead us to a kind of enchanted and impossible world. The tale itself of the slaying of the albatross of the cosmic coordination in response to the evil of Man has a certain Biblical flavor which connects the story with Jonah . The work as a whole I have always found perplexing in its ultimate meaning, but strong in its great poetic lines. (Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink)
In another great poem in this collection ' In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree ' Coleridge 's great musical power and mystical sense is again felt .This scattered man of ideas this long- suffering lonely genius the incredible master of the mind's digression, this supreme talker and goer- on- and -on did in his youth also write great poetry .
There is much much beauty here amid the musings and meanderings of this great wandering and wondering mind.

Blehh..........2004-08-17

This is BORING. You have to practically stagger through it, and the poetry makes it even harder. The albatross was a curse, or whatever, but I wouldn't recommend this.

Coleridge Expresses Some Surprisingly Modern Viewpoints.......2004-02-09

Samuel Taylor Coleridge produced nearly all of his best poetry in a two year period, 1797-1798, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. After writing Ode to Dejection (1802), his farewell to the Muse of Poetry, he wrote few poems and concentrated almost exclusively on literary criticism and political, philosophical, and theological essays.

This short, inexpensive Dover publication offers a broad sampling of the poetry of Coleridge - imaginative poems, lyrical ballads, witty poems, and more serious poetry on literary topics and political events. I expected more fantastical poems like Kubla Khan and I was unprepared for his serious, contemplative, and somewhat difficult poetry. Coleridge was more like Keats and Wordsworth than I had realized.

I was surprised by Coleridge in another way. He confronted political and social issues that are just as relevant and controversial today. Fears in Solitude, written in 1798 during the alarm of a possible invasion by France, criticizes the public's naïve willingness to undertake military conflict, while arguing that Coleridge's criticism was neither unpatriotic nor mistimed. "I have told most bitter truth, but without bitterness."

Similarly, in France: An Ode he tells of his unbridled enthusiasm for the revolution in France, followed by his bitter disappointment as the cause of liberty was betrayed by a revolution gone awry. In his short poem The Dungeon Coleridge challenges the practice of incarcerating prisoners in dark, dismal dungeons. He questions whether more humane treatment might be more curative.

His short, witty poem Cologne should earn him honorary membership in the Sierra Club. In observing how the Rhine River washes away the sewage of Cologne, he asks a question not fully answered today: But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine shall henceforth wash the River Rhine?

After reading his better known poetry, I suggest that you skip around to other poems of interest. But do come back to the more challenging poems. They will likely require multiple readings, but the effort will be rewarded.

Timeless Classics.......2003-01-22

This review refers to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge....

Get swept away to a world of dreams in this beautiful collection of Coleridge's best poetry.Open this book to any poem and you will immediatly be transported to fantastick worlds and mysterious voyages.You will find no need to get caught up in trying to anaylze, you'll just be caught up in his words.The reader can identify their own experiences within his works, and make their own interpertations.

Coleridge will stir your imagination with such great works as the adventurous and ghostly voyage of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"(in the entire 7 parts),the dream land of "Kubla Khan", and my personal favorite,the sadly unfinished other worldly fairy tale of "Christabel".

You'll find many others of his classic poetry that emcompasses both worlds of dreams and reality. "The Pain of Sleep", ""The Fruit Plucker" and "Time, Real and Imaginary" are examples of these.Other works included are "If I Had But Two Little Wings","Songs from 'Zapolya'", "Youth and Age", and the beautiful "Frost at Midnight", all stories of love and life.

There are many more wonderful writings to be found here and they are both ageless and to be enjoyed by any age. There are poems to be read aloud almost as songs.There are poems to read to yourself as well.

"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."...
From"The Ancient Marnier"

A great gift for yourself or the poetry lover in your life...enjoy..Laurie

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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GradeSaver(tm) ClassicNotes The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Tania Asnes
Manufacturer: GradeSaver, LLC
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Customer Reviews:

Wow Your Favorite Middle School Inmates.......2006-09-22

Yes, I've learned some fabulous straw tricks from Sam. The one I did today drew some odd looks and some laughs from my school community in our local coffee shop. Sam has taught me many other things, including the joy of twirling a penny balanced on the head of a wire coat hanger. It is really not so hard. Being with Sam infuses me with inspiration to be curious about life. Reading his book is an acceptable substitute. And it will prevent you from ever getting stuck holding an egg inside the crack of a door. Oh, and by the way, listen to his music, especially the Evil Diane CD. And go contra dancing sometime, preferably when Sam is playing. You can compliment him on his great taste.

Stuntology by Sam Bartlett.......2005-06-28

This book is great fun! I actually kept it hidden from my kids for a while so I could awe and amaze them with fun new tricks. It definitely upped my rating as a "cool mom." Since I've pulled the book out of the closet we've spent hours reading it and laughing together at Sam's outrageous ideas for pranks.

Practical jokes made practical.......2003-06-18

Pranks you can use.

Stupid tricks, dumb gags, and funny routines.

Liberate your inner 12-year-old.

Pages and pages of hilarious little gags -- all wonderfully handdrawn.

Guaranteed to remove 20 years from your age.

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