Rime of the Ancient Mariner

As romantic poem.

Coleridge's "Rim0e of the Ancient Mariner," was first published in the year 1798 in the "Lyrical Ballads."  The "Lyrical Ballads" was a result of the combined efforts of Wordsworth and Coleridge to completely break with the poetic tradition of the Neo Classical age.

In his Biographia Literaria Chapter XIV, Coleridge informs us of the origin of his masterpiece:

it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least Romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. ... With this view I wrote the 'Ancient Mariner'.

The three important features of the Romantic Age as seen in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner are:

1. The Supernatural Element: The poets of the neo classical age gave more importance to realistic descriptions of day to day life. The romantic poets like Coleridge however, concentrated on describing the supernatural world. The whole poem describes the supernatural and mystical experience of the "ancient mariner" in a mysterious manner:

This seraph band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light:

2. Love for Nature: The romantic poets like Coleridge unlike the poets of the neo classical age who confined themselves to urban settings were lovers of Nature. They delighted in describing Nature in all its glory:

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

For the desperate  and terrified "ancient mariner" alone and adrift on the ocean it is the natural sounds of the birds which offer him some hope and comfort.

3. Poetic form: The poets of the neo classical age used only one verse form in all their poems - the heroic couplet. Needless to say it resulted in artistic sterility and monotony. Coleridge uses a quatrain which rhymes a b c b for the most part of the poem  but varies the number of the lines in some of the stanzas and also the rhyme scheme:

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere, (repetition)

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink. (rhyme)

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,    (6 lines)
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.