The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES. Rime. The derivation (Anglo-Saxon, r?m; Middle English, rime) shows this spelling to be correct rather than the ordinary form, rhyme, which is the resu... more »lt of a confusion beginning about 1550 between rime and rhythm. The gloss did not appear in the earliest editions : it was added in Sibylline Leaves (1817). 1 l. It is an ancient Mariner. A common form of introduction in the ballads. . 1 3. o f By thy long gray beard." Brandl regards this Turkish oath as an indication of the "eclectic tendency" of the Romantic school! 1 8. What is the subject of maysthear? 1 12. Eftsoons, at once. (Anglo-Saxon, aeft and sona.) 1-2 13-19. Notice the mixed tenses. Cf. 11. 57-58, 363-65. Is this the result of carelessness ? 1 15-16. These lines are Wordsworth's. 2 18. He can not choose but hear. o f Doubtless this is a feature taken from life, for such a fascination did Coleridge himself exercise over his hearers." (Brandl.) 2 20. What is gained by putting the story into the mouth of the Ancient Mariner himself ? Is there any advantage in his having the impatient wedding-guest as a listener ? See Introduction, p. xxvi. . 2 23. kirk; a Northern form of church. Explain the presence of dialect words and archaisms in the poem. 2 21-24. What is the point of view—that of the Ancient Mariner on board the ship or that of an observer on. shore ? 2 34. Red as a rose. A very common comparison in the ballads. 2 36. minstrelsy, musicians. 3 47. still, constantly. 2-3 21-50. Do you agree with William Watson (see Introduction, p. xviii) that Coleridge shows o f undignified haste to convey us to the aesthetically necessary region ?" 3 55. clifts, cliffs. 3 56. sheen, brightness. In 1. 314 the word is used as an adjective. 3 57. ken, descry. 3 61. Notice t...« less