Hello, ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to Chronicles, where this week we're going to be talking all about the rhyme of the ancient mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Very, very famous poem, of course, and I happen to have quite a nice edition of it myself on this occasion.

I think I bought it at some second-hand bookstore in Tewksbury, but it's actually a folio edition, so I've got some

wonderful sketchings in it anyway. The point is, this is a very, very famous poem, and

deservedly so, because not only was it a part of the lyric ballads, a joint effort from Coleridge

and his lifelong friend William Wordsworth in 1798.

But it was also in lyric ballads that most people attribute to the very beginning of the romantic period as well,

the romantic movement, moving away from the older forms of Augustine and neoclassical poetry by the likes of Alexander Pope and

Dryden and moving away here to something that's trying to evoke something very very

different and very powerful. I would also be remiss not to just mention the fact that

there is an absolutely stellar Iron Maiden

song based on this. So if you're a metal head, then definitely go and check that out. But let's talk a

little bit before all of this about Coleridge. In fact, before we even do that, I'll just explain to you

how I'm going to format this particular episode of Chronicles.

So I'm going to split this into two parts.

I've made this decision not only because I've had quite a lot of things on at the moment,

but also as well, you know, when I do sit down to record these chronicles,

I really like to go into them in great detail.

And so it was really the question of basically doing a night's worth of sprucing up and research beforehand

or giving myself the real dedicated time to sit with it, to ponder it,

and ultimately do it the justice that both I think the poem and you who are giving me your time and attention of course deserve.

And so how we're going to do it is in this first part of Chronicles, I'm going to talk to you

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