PREFACE

Our purpose in this book is to offer a practical method for an interesting classroom study of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, one in keeping with the aim proposed for the teaching of the English poets in the Second Year of High Schoo!. The aim of this year should be to arouse and to develop in the students an appreciation of the beauty and attractiveness which exists in familiar scenes and objects, "to awaken their attention to the lovliness and the wonders of the world before us."

It is evident that this aim cannot be attained either by the mere reading of the poem, or by a general understanding of it: the professor must analyze the poem and endeavor to discover with the class the various means which the poet has used to make his subject attractive. However, great care should be exercised lest the students attend too much to the individual details, rather than to the entire poem. Consequently the professor should try to join analysis with the literary study in such a manner that the class will carry away with them a deep appreciation of the beautiful.

The ingenuity of the professor will help him to devise many varied schemes for winning the students' interest, for "by the force of his imagination he should try to allure the class out of the classroom into the vivid presence of the scene described." His effort should be to vivify the poem for them, he should vividly re-present the scene.

ALOYSIUS J. HOGAN, S. J.