Relation of Descriptions to Nature in Coleridge's Poetry
Coleridge, like many other romantic writers of his time such as Wordsworth, demonstrated through his works a great interest in nature. Instead of following the philosophy of the eighteenth century which drew the line between man and nature, Coleridge developed a passionate view of the idea that there is just ''one''. He believed that nature was ""the eternal language which God utters"", therefore conecting men, nature and the spiritual together. In his poetry, Coleridge used his philosophy to to explore wider issues through the close observation of images and themes relating to the natural world.
Coleridge makes use of paradoxes to demonstrate the equilibrium
found in the ever-conflicting natural world. For example, in the ''Rime of the Ancient Mariner", the statement : ''water, water every where,/ nor any drop to drink'' is demontrative of this paradoxical irony. Such as the ''beauty and the happiness'' of the ''slimy things'' which the mariner notices whilst at sea. There is also a double meaning in the description of the mariner's soul, which includes the ambiguous word agony, as it can mean mental pain and pleasure. The reason for this double meaning is to symbolise the fact that the balance in nature is at the heart of the natural world, just as the soul of the mariner is to him. Both in imagery and style, these contrasts are equally balanced.
Furthermore, Coleridge has used his techinque to explore the timelessness, or eternity, found in nature. In the poem Kubla Khan, he hints it with adjectives like ''measureless'', in reference
to he caverns, and ''ancient'', referring to the forests, purposely present in the first stanza to show the importance they hold. The mysterious names he employs, like Kubla Khan and Xanadu, he is suggesting that what is man-made is evanescent, unlike the ternity of nature. To enforce this feeling and underline eternity, he chose to keep the natural subjects in the poem undefinite : "green hills", "caves of ice''.
Moreover, Kubla Khan possess a sort of hypnotizing beat, particularly noticed in the first stanza. The poem is given a hard but regular rhythm
with the alliteration of the frst five lines : "Kubla Khan'', ''dome decree'', and ''sunless sea''. Coleridge interlaces short exclamations (''but oh!'', ''a savage place!'') and exageratedly long exclamations (''as holy and enchanted as e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted by a woman wailing for her demon lover!'') reinforces the feeling of flowing which is related to the time ''ticking'' irregularly away, creating a sense of timelessness.
John Muir and William Wordsworth use diction and tone to define nature as doing a necessary extensile of life. Throughout Muir’s and William’s works of literature they both describe nature as being a necessary element in life that brings happiness, joy, and peace. Both authors use certain writing techniques within their poems and essays to show their love and appreciation of nature. This shows the audience how fond both authors are about nature. That is why Wordsworth and Muir express their codependent relationship with nature using diction and tone.
When Kubla Khan was first published in 1816, contemporary reviewers noted the poem’s fragmentary nature and spoke of its nonsensical style, imagery, and content. The poem was, in a sense, viewed as not a “wholly meaningful poem, but only meaningless music.” More recent studies by scholar E. S. Shaffer asserted that Coleridge intended for Kubla Khan to be a part of his project to create “a new kind of epic poem” that was to be called The Fall of Jerusalem. Shaffer believes that Coleridge was unable to complete this epic project, and consequently, left Kubla Khan as “an epic fragment” that has bred a myth of fragmentation that has followed the poem since its initial publi...
The whole cycle begins with the mariner’s crime against nature: the shooting of the albatross. In the story, the mariner betrays nature by shooting the Albatross. This action against nature is rather extreme, for he takes this thought of death lightly. The Albatross, as a representative of nature, means nothing to the Mariner. These thoughts are quickly changed, though, as Nature begins to start the punishment for his crimes commence when there is, "Water, water, everywhere nor any drop to drink." He is punished harshly for killing the symbol of nature that everyone reveres. He is beaten down by the sun with its rays and is taunted by the endless sight of water that he cannot drink. Nature is the force in this poem that has power to decide what is right or wrong and how to deal with the actions.
The landscape is described in an interesting fashion with contrasting adjectives. It is described as “savage,” but it is “holy” and “enchanted.” The enchantment is compared to a “woman wailing for her demon lover.” This image of sexuality leaves the impression that the Earth is anxiously mourning for a fulfillment of evil. The chasem below Kubla Kahn’s paradise “pleasure dome” is beset with “ceaseless turmoil” and chaos. It is described as “breathing in fast pants” and there is a powerful eruption, resulting in rock fragments bursting out and being flung from the river. The same river that sustained life for the “pleasure dome” floods the land. Additional to the noises of the chaos are “ancestral voiced prophesying war” and these voices of war are a reminder that the
In the last line of the second stanza, the subject enters dramatically, accompanied by an abrupt change in the rhythm of the poem:
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (text of 1834)." Poetry Foundation. Poetry
The first stanza is quite happy until the last two lines when the "tremulous cadence slows, and brings the eternal note of sadness in. " This phrase causes the poem's tone to change to a more somber one. This shift in tone is continued into the second stanza where Arnold makes an allusion to Sophocles, a Greek dramatist whose plays dwell on tragic ironies and on the role of fate in human existence. The speaker feels connected to Sophocles in that he, too, heard the "eternal note of sadness" on the Aegean (a sea on the east side of Greece). It is suggested that Sophocles was inspired by the sorrowful sounds of the sea to write about human misery in his plays....
In two works by Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, both works regard the imagination as vitally important. In the Ancient Mariner, the imagination (or rather, the lack of it) condemns the Mariner to a kind of hell, with the fiends of sterility, solitude, and loneliness: “’God save thee, Ancient Mariner, from the fiends that plague thee thus! Why look’st thou so?’ ‘With my crossbow I shot the Albatross’”. In Kubla Khan, the imagination of an external being, the narrator that Coleridge created, the ideal critic, can create a masterpiece that far outstrips the meager piece of work that even the emperor of a huge, rich civilization can produce: “I would build that dome in air, a sunny dome! Those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, and all should cry, Beware! Beware!” In Kubla Khan, the imagination can even make people fear an otherwise inconsequential event, sequence, or organism.
Mileur, J. 1982. Coleridge and the Art of Immanence. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
While Coleridge describes the process of creating Romantic poetry and encourages poets to use the combination of nature and imagination in this process, Keats is more focused on reality and is well aware of the limitations of the Grecian urn. With the poets’ admiration of nature present in both poems …… to be completed.
Robert Frost’s nature poetry occupies a significant place in the poetic arts; however, it is likely Frost’s use of nature is the most misunderstood aspect of his poetry. While nature is always present in Frost’s writing, it is primarily used in a “pastoral sense” (Lynen 1). This makes sense as Frost did consider himself to be a shepherd.
Kubla Khan contains an overabundance of descriptive language that creates a vivid, yet simultaneously fragmented picture within the reader’s mind; th...
Through alliteration and imagery, Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that become unfixed to the reader. Coleridge uses alliteration throughout the poem, in which the reader “hovers” between imagination and reality. As the reader moves through the poem, they feel as if they are traveling along a river, “five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (25). The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene that the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the r...
Wordsworth is deeply involved with the complexities of nature and human reaction to it. To Wordsworth nature is the revelation of god through viewing everything that is harmonious or beautiful in nature. Man’s true character is then formed and developed through participation in this balance. Wordsworth had the view that people are at their best when they are closest to nature. Being close creates harmony and order. He thought that the people of his time were getting away from that.
William Wordsworth has respect and has great admiration for nature. This is quite evident in all three of his poems; the Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey and Michael in that, his philosophy on the divinity, immortality and innocence of humans are elucidated in his connection with nature. For Wordsworth, himself, nature has a spirit, a soul of its own, and to know is to experience nature with all of your senses. In all three of his poems there are many references to seeing, hearing and feeling his surroundings. He speaks of hills, the woods, the rivers and streams, and the fields. Wordsworth comprehends, in each of us, that there is a natural resemblance to ourselves and the background of nature.