The Mariner's Progress - Coleridge's debt to Bunyan
It's easy to read a poem like 'The Ancient Mariner' and imagine that it's wholly the product of the poet's imagination. But Coleridge like any other writer was influenced by his own experiences of reading and as the author argues, many features of Coleridge's poem can be traced back directly to 'The Pilgrim's Progress', an earlier allegorical journey about spiritual struggle, guilt and faith.