Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s poem is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (/ˈkoʊlərɪdʒ/ KOH-lə-rij;[1] 21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834), an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd.

He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking cultures. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including "suspension of disbelief".[2] He had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emersonand American transcendentalism.

—Bio via Wikipedia

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
0:04.0	I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, October 20th, 2003.
0:09.5	Tomorrow, the 21st would be the birthday of the great romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
0:17.2	And in his honor, the poem for today is a selection from his longer poem, his masterwork, the rhyme of the ancient mariner.
0:28.0	I'll read the selection once, offer a few comments, and then read it again.
0:33.3	This comes from the very end of part four of the poem in my version, its lines 257 to 285.
0:42.4	The moving moon went up the sky and nowhere did abide.
0:46.4	Softly she was going up and a star were two beside.
0:50.1	Her beams bemocked the sultry mane like April hoar frost spread.
0:54.9	Where the ship's huge shadow lay, the charmed water burnt all way a still and awful red.
1:01.0	Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water snakes.
1:05.6	They moved in tracks of shining white, and when they reared the elfish light fell off in hoary flakes.
1:13.1	Within the shadow of the ship, I watched their rich attire, blue, glossy green and velvet black,
1:18.8	they coiled and swam, and every track with a flash of golden fire.
1:24.5	Oh, happy living things, and no tongue their beauty might declare,
1:28.5	A spring of love gushed from my heart, and I blessed them unaware.
1:32.5	Sure, my kind saint took pity on me, and I blessed them unaware.
1:37.0	The self-same moment I could pray, and from my neck so free, the albatross fell off and sank like lead into the sea.
1:50.8	Samuel Taylor Coleridge, along with his sometime friend and partner William Wordsworth,
1:58.2	the founders of the English literary movement known as Romanticism.
2:05.4	There were other romantics before them, but they were German and we don't talk about them.
2:14.3	They caused a bit of a stir in the literary world with the publication of their collection
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Goldberry Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Goldberry Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.