THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I PART

pag 184-187

1) a - The setting changes in the first part of the story: indeed the story takes place in a wedding-feast, where the mariner begin to tell his story describing the first part of his voyage (the departure from the harbour, the first sunny days while sailing), which are all merry places. But the setting abruptly changes after passed the Equator Line, when a frightening strong storm makes the mariner lose control on his ship, driving his ship to a land made of ice; those places are something mysterious and dangerous, that are very different from the first merry settings of the story.

b - I can identify two main storylines: in the first there is described how the mariner manage to get one of the wedding-guests' attention and some parts of the wedding-feast, and in the second part the mariner tells the first part of his story.

2) 1 - His portrait isn't very detailed. In fact the author only says that the sailor is old, and describes the man's beard (which is long and grey), the eye (which is glittering) and the hand (which is skinny). No other details are given.

2 - The old man doesn't strikes me as a real, true to life figure. It appears to me as a unreal man, because described as a spirit with almost demoniac and mysterious characteristics.

3) 1 - The first landscape is the merry departure from the port, when the ship "drop merrily below the church, below the hill, below the lighthouse top". The second seascape is the voyage till the Equator Line, which was characterized by a sunny weather. The third landscape is the part of the voyage where the ship had to face the strong storm; it is described with many hearing feelings, like "loud roared the blast" or "yell", as we can find in the fourth seascape, where there's described the ice land with words like "Cracked and growled, and roared and howled, like noises in a swound".

2 - The storm and the ice all around are personified.

3 - Both, because some of the elements of the nature are simply described as they are, others are described using personification too.

4) 1 - First of all, the wedding guest who cannot do anything other but hear, caught by the glittering eye of the ancient mariner. Then the storm, described with "overtaking wings" which "chased us south along" while "roaring".

2 - In my view the contrast between reality and the supernatural is most striking in the first part, where the mariner meet the wedding-guest, and in the last part, where the Albatros is described as a good omen.

IV PART

pag 188-190

1) In part IV the mariner assures the wedding guest of his bodily life and describes him his horribly penance: he had to live for seven days on his ship, with all his mates dead. He was almost forced to live and to see that horrible scene and the curse in his mates' eyes, and he couldn't pray. In the end of his voyage, the mariner met some water-snakes, which were to him as a bless from a saint because they were living things. Then he could pray and the Albatross finally fell off his neck and sank into the sea.

2) 1 - The mariner's traits that are emphasized are the skinny hands and the long lank arms, and especially the dark colour of his skin.

2 -

3 -

3) - The stanzas aren't always quatrains, but 5-line stanzas and a 6-line stanza too. The rhyme scheme isn't always abab, but changes in every part of the text.

- "The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away" (4343)

- from line 34 to line 39

- from line 1 to line 6

- In the I part there are used both narration and dialogue; in the IV part it is used only the dialogue.

- The themes treated are universal themes like death, and supernatural themes like saints and omens influence in our life.

- The language isn't simple in all the text (for example: "Her beams bemocked the sultry main like April's hoar-frost spread"). The repetition is not used.