The Rime of the Ancient Mariner a salvation story. The poem's structure is multi-layered text based on Coleridge's interest in Higher Criticism. "Like the Iliad or Paradise Lost or any great historical product, the "Rime" is a work of transhistorical rather than so-called universal significance. This verbal distinction is important because it calls attention to a real one. Like The Divine Comedy or any other poem, the "Rime" is not valued or used always or everywhere or by everyone in the same way or for the same reasons." George Whalley, in his 1946–47 essay, "The Mariner and the Albatross", suggests that the Ancient Mariner is an
Samuel Taylor Coleridge have him as a neighbour in Shropshire. From 16 September 1798, Coleridge and the Wordsworths left for a stay in Germany; Coleridge soon went his own way and spent much of his time in university towns. In February 1799 he enrolled at the University of Göttingen where he attended lectures by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. During this period, he became interested in German philosophy, especially the transcendental idealism and critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and in the literary criticism of the 18th century dramatist Gotthold Lessing. Coleridge studied German and, after his return to England, translated the