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   amy-lepore Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

   eNotes Editor

   The Frame Story used by Coleridge in this poem is that of a wedding and a guest at the wedding being detained by the supernatural force of the Mariner who must tell his story.  Throughout the poem, the wedding guest expresses his fear of the Mariner and the effect the Mariner has on him, but the wedding guest is told not to fear, only to listen.  At the end of the Mariner's tale, the wedding guest is allowed to leave, having missed the entire wedding, but leaving a wiser man than the Mariner was when he made his first mistakes of disregarding nature and the Higher Power who created "all things great and small".

   The effect is to create a more ancient feel, a mysterious mood and atmosphere, giving some truth to the tale.  The supernatural way the Mariner holds his "prey," forcing him to listen to the tale and to learn from the Mariner's own mistakes.  Giving the reader and the wedding guest a little taste of the magical events to come later in the story...the deaths of all the sailors, the albatross falling from his neck the minute he blesses the sea snakes, the craps game between the two ladies--death and life in death--the faster than normal "flight" of the boat back to his hometown.  Without the frame story and this magical hold the Mariner has on the wedding guest, the rest is more unbelieveable than ever.  Altogether, the spelling of "rime", the archaic language, the sing-songy hypnotic rhythm of the piece, and the magical events make the story ring true in the age of the story and the ancient quality of the Mariner himself.

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   http://www.enotes.com/rime-ancient-qn/setting

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   Posted by amy-lepore on Saturday January 3, 2009 at 6:35 AM