Analysis of 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'

What is the poem’s meter?

Ballad measure

What is ballad measure?

Quatrains with an abcb rhyme scheme and iambic tetrameter in the first and third lines and trimeter in the second and fourth lines

What is iambic tetrameter?

Four syllables of metric feet, with an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable

What are sestinas?

Six-line stanzas

When does Coleridge use sestinas?

To emphasize the significance or intensity of a scene

Why does Coleridge use short stanzas?

To produce a sense of shock and suddeness

What does Coleridge occasionally switch to from iambic patterns?

Spondaic feet

What is spondaic feet?

Two unstressed syllables

Why does Coleridge use spondaic feet?

To create a longer, slower feeling

Who made an engraving for the 1876 edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?

Gustave Dore

Who wrote that Coleridge demonstrated an “undaunted determination to try to understand things in terms of absolute philosophical questions of origins and ultimate destination”?

Kelvin Everest