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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What color is the ice?

2. What hangs around the Mariner's neck?

3. What initially changes the sailors' minds about the Albatross, to think negatively of it, after it dies?

4. Why do his shipmates cry out against the Mariner?

5. What is the name of the learned Jew?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is meant by "Life-in-Death begins her work on the Mariner?" What is her work?

2. Why do you think there is such a strong emphasis placed on the Mariner's eye in Part I?

3. Why are the notes important to the poem?

4. Describe Thomas Burnet's overall attitude towards the invisible Nature.

5. Where and why is the Ship stranded?

6. Why might it be significant that the crew cannot speak as part of their punishment?

7. In your own words, briefly describe the polar region. Be sure to include important descriptive details.

8. Why is the human mind "always circled around a knowledge of these things" but never attains such knowledge?

9. Why does the Albatross hang around the neck of the Mariner?

10. Why are the Sun and Storm-blast personified and how is their personification signified?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze the literal and allegorical significance of the Albatross within the story. Include a well-formed explication of what allegory is before demonstrating how the Albatross fulfills this explanation. Feel free to use external sources to fully show how the Albatross is an example of an allegorical object. Also be sure to relate its importance to the events of the poem.

Essay Topic 2

Present an analysis of the poem's reversal. How does the Mariner move from despair to hope? Is it primarily a change in his external conditions, or his internal disposition? What impact do the natural and/or supernatural world have on the change in the Mariner?

Essay Topic 3

Explicate the characters of Death and Life-in-Death. What kind of characters are they? How do they change the story? How do their descriptions relate to their actions? Although they only appear in Part III of the poem, they are nonetheless important throughout. Be sure to demonstrate how this is so.

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