Coleridge's Ancient Mariner

This is the firstbook-length study to read the "Ancient Mariner" as"poetry," in Coleridge's own particular sense of the word.Coleridge's complicated relationship with the "Mariner" as anexperimental poem lies in its origin as a joint project with Wordsworth. J. C. C. Maystraces the changes in the several versions published in Coleridge's lifetimeand shows how Wordsworth's troubled reaction to the poem influenced itssubsequent interpretation. This is also the first book to situate the"Mariner" in the context of the entirety of Coleridge's prose andverse, now available in the Bollingen Collected edition and Notebooks; that is,not only in relation to other poems like "The Ballad of the DarkLadiè" and "Alice du Clós," but also to ideas in his literarycriticism (especially BiographiaLiteraria), philosophy, and theology. Using a combination of close readingand broad historical considerations, reception theory, and book history, Mayssurveys the poem's continuing life in illustrated editions and educational textbooks;its passage through the vicissitudes of New Criticism and critical theory; and,in a final chapter, its surprising affinities with some experimental poems ofthe present time. 

J. C. C. Mays is Professor Emeritus of Englishand American Literature at University College Dublin, Ireland.