How old is the ancient mariner

Coleridge would have been aware of the rumours that Christian had faked his own death and returned to England — therefore the old man of the poem could well have been inspired by Christian.

Visit Us. Search Want to search our collection? Search here. This is a terrible idea! Tilda Swinton, recorded in the Scottish Highlands, gives a typically modulated performance for Reading No. Coiled, languid, pure Swinton. Listening to the poem, taking the trip, we shift and flicker. Now we are the wedding guest, rearing back in horror from the possessed storyteller; now we are the storyteller himself, the mariner, in the spine of his vision.

The ship drives on, crewed by dead men. The sea is alive. Dreams and terrors await, and then a turn for home. How can you not listen? Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest.

I thought that could be Woodstock, so I went to Oxfordshire and, sure enough, I found the birth of Simon Hatley in the local register for Hatley sailed to the Pacific on two of the most dangerous voyages of the early 18th century.

But perhaps the most amazing fact uncovered by Fowke is that, at one point, he was on a ship not only with Alexander Selkirk, the marooned sailor whose story inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe , but also with William Dampier, an adventurer and writer on whose work Jonathan Swift drew for Gulliver's Travels. Hatley was on the crew of the Duke, which set out for South America on a voyage proposed by Dampier accompanied by a sister ship, the Duchess.

At one point on this voyage of , while Selkirk and Dampier were both together on board the Duchess, Hatley joined them.