1772

1791

1793

1794

1795

1797

1816

1834

a)      - he entered the Cambridge University

b)      - next year Coleridge met the future poet laureate Robert Southey (1774-1843). Coleridge moved with him to Bristol to establish a community, but the plan failed.

c)      - Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, he was the youngest of ten children of the Reverend John Coleridge, and Ann Bowdon. Samuel was adored by his parents. Later he described his childhood as full fantasy.

d) - in beginning of XIXth century only  his unfinished poems 'Christabel' and 'Kubla Khan' were published.  According to Coleridge, he heard the words to his famous 'Kubla Khan' in a dream. He had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton in the summer of 1797. After sleeping three hours, he woke up with a clear image of the poem.

e)     - in 1795 he married Sara Fricker, whom he did not really love.

f) - he died in Highgate, near London

j) - but two years later he had to abandone his studies

i)     - in the late 1790s Coleridge formed a close friendship with William Wordsworth (1770-1850), one of the most fruitful creative relationships in English literature. From this friendship resulted Lyrical Ballads, which opened with Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and ended with Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey'. The poems set a new style by using everyday language and fresh ways of looking at nature.

Part I

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
`By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
……………………………….

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.

The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

………………………………….
"And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And foward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald

…………………………………..

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and                   

                                                             howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine."

`God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus! - 
Why look'st thou so?' -"With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross."

Aye (уст., поэт.) - всегда

bend – склонять, сгибать

blast – сильный порыв ветра

blow – свистеть, гудеть

crossbow – арбалет

dip – погружаться

drop – оставлять, покидать

emerald – изумруд

fiend – демон

foe (поэт.) – враг, противник

glimmer – мерцать, тускло светить

glitter – сверкать

growl – грохотать

hail – приветствовать   

helmsman – рулевой

howl – выть, завывать

kirk (шотл.) – церковь

o'ertake=overtake – застигнуть врасплох

Perch – садиться (о птице)

Plague – мучить

prow – нос корабля

pursue – преследовать   

shroud – ванты (мор.)

soul – душа

split - раскалываться

spring (sprang, sprung) up - возникать

steer - править

stoppeth  = stops

thunder – гром

tread – подавить, уничтожить

vesper (поэт.) - вечер

yell – вопить, кричать