The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has been given a trigger warning by academics at the university of Greenwich for depicting the death of an albatross. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 masterpiece, detailing the adventures of a sailor, who shot an albatross with a crossbow, bringing death and disaster to his ship and crew, has been deemed potentially upsetting for students at the University of Greenwich. The poem now requires a content warning for depicting “animal death”, according to academics at the London university’s English department.
It’s an old maritime superstition is that it’s very bad luck to kill an albatross. Sailors used to believe these birds were supernatural because the albatross can fly long distances, without flapping its wings, gliding in the strong westerly prevailing winds of the southern hemisphere. They also thought the albatross held the souls of lost sailors, so they held the sea birds in high respect. To kill one would bring bad luck to the crew and the ship.
A free copy of the poem may be read over a coffee: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (text of 1834) by… | Poetry Foundation
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