Coleridge was born on October 21, 1772, in Devonshire, England. The thirteenth child of a minister and school master, Coleridge entered Christ’s Hospital to study in London at the age of 10 (Tucker 324). It was here that Coleridge met his lifelong friend Charles Lamb. Lamb reflected on this friendship in the essay he wrote, “Christ’s Hospital at Five-and-Thirty Years Ago,” which is clearly written about his companion Coleridge (Magill 623). Coleridge quickly gained recognition for his scholarship at Christ’s Hospital, but gained even more recognition at Cambridge University, where he began studies in 1791 (Tucker 324). He never completed the work required to get his degree and fled the university in 1793, overwhelmed by debt . Shortly thereafter, he met Robert Southey and began making plans for a utop

By this time, Coleridge’s fame was growing, although his most creative days were behind him (Jack 4). The proceeds from Lyrical Ballads allowed Coleridge the chance to spend the winter in Germany studying metaphysics at the University of Gottingen. Upon returning to England, Coleridge met a lady by the name of Sara Hutchinson. Hutchinson was a friend of Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy (Magill 623). Hutchinson later became Wordsworth’s sister-in-law when he married Sarah’s sister, Mary (Tucker 324). Coleridge and Hutchinson quickly fell for each other despite the fact that Coleridge was married. This even furthered the distance between Coleridge and his estranged wife (Magill 623). Coleridge had now fallen for two different people in his lifetime, and they were both sisters of his best friend’s wife. This exemplifies his constant dependency on others for approval and support.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a wild, mystical, and picturesque narrative that in many ways is a splendid dream (Moulton 218). Coleridge tells a story of an old seaman who is forced to randomly tell his tale of brutal suffering to people he meets in town. In this case, the mariner stops a man on his way to a wedding to tell his chilling story. The wedding guest is so entranced by the story, that he completely misses the wedding that he was to attend. The mariner tells the man of how he and his crew were roughing through a storm when, suddenly, a seagull appeared and led them to safety beyond the storms reaches. The bird was seen as sign of good fortune. One day, however, the mariner shot the bird with his crossbow. Although he did this without thinking, he still suffered much ill fate as his punishment. All his crew members died and he was stranded with no food or water, and no wind to push him to shore. When he looks down and appreciates the beauty of the lowly sea snake, the curse is broken and he is rescued. This tale is mainly a story of crime and punishment, the mariner shoots the bird and suffers many pains. The greatest of these pains are loneliness and spiritual anguish (

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