The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - A Short Summary and Review

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - A Short Summary and Review

By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review

The consequences of callously killing the albatross.

A short summary:

In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge tells a haunting tale of a sailor who commits a senseless act of violence by killing an albatross, an action that unleashes supernatural punishment, isolation, and unbearable guilt. Stranded amid death and silence, the mariner is forced to confront the moral weight of his choice.

As the voyage turns nightmarish, the poem becomes a meditation on responsibility, reverence for life, and the cost of thoughtlessness. Salvation arrives not through cleverness or strength, but through attention, learning to see the living world as worthy of care.

My favorite quote from the poem:

"The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things lived on, and so did I."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Questions to ponder while reading:

What have you done that has irrevocably altered your life?

What cruelty have you committed simply because you could?

My review:

This poem captures the regret of immature actions with unforgettable force. The mariner’s suffering isn’t arbitrary; it grows directly from a moment of callousness. Coleridge makes the lesson unmistakable without flattening it into a sermon.

What endures is the poem’s insistence that every living being has a purpose, whether or not we understand it at the time. The turning point comes only when the mariner learns to look again, to bless without calculation, and to recognize life as sacred in itself.

There’s also a quiet admonition woven through the verse: you never know what you will hear if you stop and listen. The poem asks for patience from both its protagonist and its reader. And in exchange, it offers something rare: a story where wisdom is earned, painfully, and carried forward as a duty to tell.

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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

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