Albatross the albatrosses by Linnaeus, references the mythical metamorphosis of the companions of the Greek warrior Diomedes into birds. Finally, the name for the order, Procellariiformes, comes from the Latin word "procella" meaning "a violent wind" or "a storm". Albatrosses have been described as "the most legendary of all birds". An albatross is a central emblem in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge; a captive albatross is also a metaphor for the "poète maudit "in a poem by Charles Baudelaire. The albatross metaphor is derived from the Coleridge poem; someone bearing a burden or facing an obstacle
Henry Nelson Coleridge Henry Nelson Coleridge Henry Nelson Coleridge (25 October 1798 – 26 January 1843) was an editor of the works of his uncle Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His father was Colonel James Coleridge, of Ottery St. Mary. He was born on 25 October 1798. He was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. In 1825, he accompanied his uncle, William Hart Coleridge, the bishop of Barbados, to the West Indies, and described his excursion in a bright and lively little book, "Six Months in the West Indies in 1825," published anonymously in the following year.