Form, Structure And Language

Question 1

What kind of narrative is the ROTAM

Answer 1

Frame narrative

Allows the audience to relate to the message of the poem, and thus brings another dimension to the story as the allegorical significance becomes clear.

At the beginning of the poem, it is uncertain why the Mariner is relaying his tale to an apparent stranger, but the purpose of this is elucidated in the end.

Coleridge employs the Gothic elements of superstition, supernatural, and the sublime, in addition to the narrative frame, to comment on the issues of morality and consequence.

Question 2

What form is the poem in

Answer 2

Ballad form

Traditionally a popular narrative song passed down orally. In the English tradition it usually follows a form of rhymed quatrains alternating four-stress (tetrameter) and three-stress (trimeter) lines.

Folk ballads often recount tragic, comic or heroic stories with emphasis on a central dramatic event.

Question 3

Verisimilitude

Answer 3

The appearance of being real or true

Crime fiction holds a mirror up to society