Things to Consider:

• Elements of the Gothic (see video ):
• Atmosphere of mystery and suspense (indeterminacy of time)
• Religion, esp. Catholic church, as oppressive force
  
• Setting in old/decayed castle
• Omens, portents, visions
• Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events
• High, even overwrought emotion
• Metonymy of gloom and horror
• Theological Belief Systems
• Relationship with Nature
• Divine Justice
• Historical Contexts
• French Revolution
• Slave Trade and Abolition Movement
• Literary Techniques, including:
• Personification
• Parable
• Simile/Metaphor
• Rhyme

• Describe the original plan for the division of labor for Lyrical Ballads.

• What characteristics of the ballad format does this poem exemplify? What characteristics of the lyric?
  
• What characteristics of the Gothic does this poem exemplify?
  

• Why does the Ancient Mariner (AM) stop the Wedding Guest?

• Why does the AM shoot the albatross?
• Has the bird been a good or a bad omen? Explain.

• Why is the albatross compared to "the cross" (141)?

• Why can't the AM pray (244-47)?

• Why does the AM bless the water creatures "unaware" (287)?  How does doing so help him pray again?

• What is the final moral to the poem? (See also footnote 8).

• Describe the Pantisocracy scheme.
• Explain the significance of the annuity granted to Coleridge by the Wedgwoods.

• Explain: "[C]ulture,  the nation's artistic and spiritual heritage, represents a force with the power to combat the fragmentation of a modern, market-driven society and to restore a common, collective life" (443).
  

• Why is the Bride "Red as a rose" (34)? What literary technique is being employed here?
  

• What literary technique(s) is (are) being employed in lines 60-62?  Explain.
• Why is the crew happy to see the albatross (65-66)?
• Why does the sun rise upon the right (83) instead of on the left as it has before (25)?

451:

• Why is the sun "bloody" (112)?
• Why do the boards shrink (120)?

• What literary technique is being employed in lines 179-80?
• What is a "Night-Mare" (193)?
• Why are Life and Life-in-Death playing dice?

• Why does the AM compare the souls of the crew to his cross-bow?
• Why is the AM's brown and skinny hand so fearful to the Wedding Guest?

• Why would "an orphan's curse . . . drag to Hell / A spirit from on High" (257-58)?
• Explain the Gloss to lines 263-66.

• Why would the resurrection of the dead bodies be more troubling than their being inhabited by angelic spirits?

• Who is the Polar Spirit?
• Explain:  "He loved the bird that loved the man / Who shot him with his bow" (404-5).

• Explain the relationship between the Moon and the Ocean (414-21).

• Explain lines 446-51.

• How do the images in lines 464-66 compare with those in lines 25-28?

• Explain: "The silence sank / Like music on my heart" (498-99).

• Why/How does the boat sink?

463:

• Explain lines 578-81.
• Why has the Wedding Guest been selected?