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
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner The Rime of the Ancient Mariner The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (originally The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere) is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of "Lyrical Ballads". Some modern editions use a revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss. Along with other poems in "Lyrical Ballads", it is often considered a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" relates the experiences of a sailor who has returned from a