The texts
The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (1798)
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834)
Origins and intention
The Objects originally proposed / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
An Earlier attempt at collaboration / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Horrible and the preternatural / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Planning the poem / WIlliam Wordsworth
Great Defects and delicate touches / William Wordsworth
A Reply to Wordsworth / Charles Lamb
A Dutch attempt at German sublimity / Robert Southey
Structure
The Warp, the Shuttle, and the pattern / John Livingston Lowes
Theme
On original sin / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Reply to Mrs. Barbauld / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Moral / John Livingston Lowes
A Sham moral / Irving Babbitt
The Doctrine of association / Dorothy Waples
Guilt and isolation / D.W. Harding
The Albatross and the creative imagination / George Whalley
Coleridge and the supernatural / Kathleen Coburn
Symbolism
Allegoric writing / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Symbols / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Allegory / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Sun and the moon / George Herbert Clarke
The Rebirth archetype / Maud Bodkin
The Ancient Mariner and Purgatorio / G.W. Knight
Primary and secondary themes / Robert Penn Warren
Symbol hunting / Elmer Edgar Stoll
The Ship and the sea as symbols / W.H. Auden.
Diction, versification, and gloss
Metre and diction / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Diction / John Livingston Lowes
The Influence of the popular ballad / Charles Wharton Stork
The Ballad stanza / Tristram P. Coffin
The Gloss / B.R. McElderry, Jr.
Conclusion
The Ancient Mariner / Humphry House
Appendix
Chronology
Suggestions for study
A Checklist of works for further study.