While the brewing revolutions which influenced Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake differed from the political radicalism experienced by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the social restrictions enforced in Jane Austen’s time provoked her critical writings. In ‘Kubla Khan’ and ‘Frost at Midnight’, Coleridge champions the natural world and the human imagination as a vehicle with the capacity to metaphysically transport the individual to a new world, while in ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’, Shelley reveres the individual’s potential imaginings when exposing the futility of the imagination. Blake in ‘’The Tiger’ and ‘London’ explores the inherent binary between good and evil, while condemning man-made institutions, while in Northanger Abbey, Austen critiques the power of untutored imagination in transforming one’s reality by satirising the Gothic heroine. The Romantics believed that the human imagination transcends physical boundaries, allowing access to the elusive ‘sublime’. As a Romantic, Coleridge perceives the human mind as a powerful contributor to the creative process, and a vehicle capable of transporting man to a transcendent realm. In ‘Kubla Khan’, the paradoxically imagined “stately pleasure dome” immediately highlights the embellished reality, as the man-made physically constructed dome ironically contains a natural and organic thriving paradise. The “fertile ground”, by evoking connotations of creation, metaphorically serves as the landscape of the poetic mind, enacting Coleridge’s theory described in Biographia Literaria of the primary imagination as an impulse of creativity. Thus, Coleridge elucidates the poet’s transcendence above the mortal and the finite, mirroring Burke’s theory of the sublime, as a “mixture of horror ... ... middle of paper ... ...istocratic hierarchies in oppressing the individual. Texts through time are influenced by one’s context and the ways of thinking inherent in differing social milieus. Hence, when composers voice the concerns of their time, while engaging audiences through universal concerns, texts can ensure an enduring relevance. While Coleridge celebrates the natural world and the elusive sublime, as well as the imagination as a unique instrument in enabling transcendence, Shelley explores the potential of the individual’s human mind, and the fleeting nature of the imagination. By examining the corruption in man-made institutions and the binary between good and evil, Blake communicates to the individual despite contextual shifts. In contrast, Austen critiques the excessive imagination and its creation of a fictitious world in proposing a balance between reason and imagination.
It has been often noted that the Romantic writers of English literature were rebelling against the established positions and views of society. Most of the Romantic artists were indigenes of the well-established middle class and they were swiftly tiring of the self-serving political depredation perpetrated by the hands of the upper class. The Romantics were flouting convention, thumbing their noses and calling for radical and widespread reform not only in governmental politics, but within the politics of their own trade--creativity and art. Their myriad of works are clear evidence of this. Contumely against established society was found mostly in the poetical works of the day. However, much social commentary found its way into seemingly unlikely novels. Two such novels are Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Both of these novels are clever repositories for social commentary and judgment.
Jane Austen’s Emma and the Romantic Imagination "To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour." —William Blake, ‘Auguries of Innocence’ Imagination, to the people of the eighteenth century of whom William Blake and Jane Austen are but two, involves the twisting of the relationship between fantasy and reality to arrive at a fantastical point at which a world can be extrapolated from a single grain of sand, and all the time that has been and ever will be can be compressed into the space of an hour. What is proposed by Blake is clearly ludicrous—it runs against the very tide of reason and sense—and yet the picture that the imagination paints of his verse inspires awe. The human imagination supplies the emotional undercurrents that allows us to see the next wild flower we pass on the side of the road in an entirely different and amazing light. In Austen’s Emma, the imagination is less strenuously taxed because her story of sensibility is more easily enhanced by the imagination, more easily given life than Blake’s abstract vision of the great in the small because Emma is more aesthetically realistic. However, both rely on the fact that "[t]he correspondence of world and subject is at the center of any sensibility story, yet that correspondence is often twisted in unusual and terrifying shapes," (Edward Young, 1741). The heroine of Austen’s novel, Emma Woodhouse, a girl of immense imagination, maintains it by keeping up with her reading and art because, as Young contends, these are the mediums through which imagination is chiefly expressed by manipulating the relationships between the world and the subject at hand. However, even in this, Emma’s imagination falls short. "The soul might have the capacity to take in the ‘world’ or the ‘atom’ if it weren’t for the body’s limitations getting in the way," (Joseph Addison, 1712). As Addison supposes, the limitations of Emma’s body keeps her from seeing the truths that her soul, if let free, would show her. One of these is that Frank Churchill, a handsome and well-bred man, is insincere and fake, while Mr. Knightley truly loves her like no other. In Emma’s love theme, Austen shows us how emotions and imagination can augment each other. "[I]t was…sensibility which originally aroused imagination;…on the other hand…imagination increases and prolongs…sensibility," (Dugald Stewart, 1792).
Jane Austen’s novels have always played a large part in my life. My love for this nineteenth-century female author began with movie adaptations of her books; my interest quickly spiraled into the richness of her texts. I know that Jane Austen was not the norm for her time period. She was a female trying to live independently in a male dominated society, but she did not let the difficulty of her situation impede her success. When she was told that her stories would get her nowhere and that she would do best to abandon her career, she persevered. Jane Austen wrote many novels, and most of them became extremely popular. Jane Austen wrote her novels to support herself, and I believe that she used them to reveal truths about humanity, happiness, and perfection. All the characters that Austen created have one common theme: they desperately seek out their place in the world. This struggle plagued people from
The literature output in Jane Austen’s creation is full of realism and irony. Janet Todd once asserted that "Austen creates an illusion of realism in her texts, partly through readably identification with the characters and partly through rounded characters, which have a history and a memory.” (Todd, The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen, 28.) Her works are deeply influenced between by late eighteenth-century Britain rationalism phenomenon and early nineteenth-century of romanticism.
Kubla Khan’s description of his stately pleasure-dome contains many picturesque elements which appear to be incorporating all the perfect components of nature as a whole. The contrasting images of the described landscape portray and further accentuate the awe-striking male figure against the mysterious and sensual oriental women. The characteristic mystery of these oriental women remains uncovered as Coleridge objectifies them with his stereotype, and identifies them as part of the mystical and enchanting Utopia he imagines. Contrarily, Coleridge bestows the male figure with such a dominating and awe-inducing character that, he places the coercive male figure superior to the women he describes. As he plunges deeper into his definition of paradise, Coleridge creates parallelism between nature and the human characters he depicts. In “A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment”, Coleridge uses the powerful imagery of nature to encapsulate both the underlying politics of Kubla Khan’s time and the objectification of oriental women to create a compelling piece of work.
Romanticism. An era in which the margins of art seethed into the imaginations of the individual. Which captured each artist’s ornamented perception of one’s mental and physical world. In a completely chaotic whirlwind of obscure natural concoctions and a bizarre stylistic approach, Samuel Taylor Coleridge immaculately models the broader spectrum of Romantic literature in his infamous poem, “Kubla Khan.” Through his obscure structural foundation and recurring syntactical elements, Coleridge guides us in a dreamlike trance through the “pleasure-dome” of Xanadu, a portal into the fascinating mind of one of the world’s greatest Romanticists.
“Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is said to be “one of the best remembered works of the Romantic period,” (Gray) and though this poem may seem speak deeply about the world, its conception was fairly simple: Coleridge had been reading a book about Kubla Khan in Xanadu (by a man named Samuel Purchas) before falling into a deep sleep induced by an opium mixture to which he had long since had an addiction. When he awoke from this drug induced stupor, he had apparently 200 to 300 lines of poetry in his head, but after writing the first three stanzas, was interrupted (and thus, we observe a shift in the poem at that point) by “a person from Porlock” (Brett 46-8) and could only remember one final bit of lines – the final stanza in “Kubla Khan.” (This interruption apparently making the poem: “what is perhaps the definitive statement on the obstruction and thwarting of the visionary genius.” [“Sparknotes”]) The poem itself is set in a fantastical place called Xanadu, where Kubla Khan’s beautiful palace is surrounded by lush greenery, and one fast-flowing river (its focus on nature being consistent with the Romantic poetry of the time.) Xanadu was a real place, but Coleridge’s poem mostly over exaggerates its beauty and depth. Other places mentioned in the poem, Mount Abora and Abyssinia may be references to other works, such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost, in which Abyssinian kings guarded their children at Mount Amara, a false paradise. (Stevenson 605-30) Another possible explanation of Coleridge’s choice of the setting is that he was creating the paradise in which he wanted to reside; (Coleridge was somewhat of a radical in politics; he, along with Robert Southey, was part of a movement called ‘Pantisocracy,’ which called fo...
Coleridge’s use of language and vocabulary helps to convey the extent of his imagination. In the poem Kubla Khan, imagery is also important for Coleridge to convey his imagination to the reader. There are images of paradise throughout the poem that are combined with references to darker, more evil places. An example of this is the ‘demon lover’ that has bewitched the woman. Coleridge’s image of the ‘dome of pleasure’ is mystical, contradicting the restrictions of realism.
In “Kubla Khan,” Coleridge imagines a land where sensuality, sexuality, and fertility abound and share inextricable links. Any threats to the fecundity of the land exist outside of its magnificent walls. Coleridge uses this image of an impenetrable fortress of sexual creativity in considering his own mind, desiring the same productivity in his poetic imagination. By creating this connection, Coleridge finds both a source of inspiration and blurs the lines between the poet and the poem.
... artistically presents Shelley’s idea that revolution arises from stagnation. Shelley saw that there was a repetitiousness to the ideas of society, and sought to change that with his reformist thoughts and radical theories. After his passing, ’Ode to the West Wind’, and many others of Shelley’s works, were carried by the wind he so craved to be united with, and went on to achieve the fame they rightly deserved.
The Romantic Period in literature is known for its glorification of the beauty in nature and how one can find inspiration through the magnificent natural world. Poets like John Keats, in poems such as “To Autumn”, upheld this obvious adoration to the apparent beauty of the countryside by writing about fruit ready to be picked, or a colorful tree. However, while Samuel Taylor Coleridge shared Keats’ love for nature and had a similar approach to its description in some of his poems, he used a different method of description of nature in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” as Coleridge touched upon the “slimy things”(238) and the “rotting sea” (240). He showcased further inspiration through the unpleasant in “Kubla Khan” as he took nature to its
There has been controversy and criticism over the poem “Kubla Khan” for centuries. Originally, critics in Coleridge’s time did not find the poem even worthy of criticism. According to Poetry Criticism Volume 39, “When first published, many contemporary reviewers regarded the apparent poetic fragment as “nonsense” or “below criticism.” (Gale 119). In later years and through current day, the poem “Kubla Khan” has received much criticism which has made it a popular poem to analyze scholastically. This could be due to the fact that Coleridge’s lifestyle may have influenced the people’s reaction to his work. Notably, Coleridge is now considered a leader of the Romantic poetry movement. As it states in the Poetry Criticism Volume 39, “most critics acknowledge that the juxtaposed images, motifs, and ideas explored in the poem are strongly representative of Romantic ...
In a vision once I saw: (.) That with music loud and long. I would build that dome in air (37-46). “Xanadu” is a wonderful “Paradise” of fantasy, but Coleridge draws the reader back to reality with the word “I.” He immediately transitions from describing visionary objects to explaining his own poetic challenge. The “pleasure-dome” mirrors the poem, and Kubla Khan mirrors Coleridge.
The first indentation of “Kubla Khan” is found in lines thirty-one to thirty-four. A reflection of the first thirty lines seems to take place, with a scrambling of all the ideas articulated so far into one body. The word “shadow” is especially critical here, as it is not just the pleasure dome being discussed, but its concept. Coleridge seems to imply that when nature and human organization are blended together, the product of the “mingled measure” is something met “midway”, something with aspects of both chaos and control.
In the poem “Kubla Khan,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in a drug-induced state, writes of a mysterious garden that had been commanded to be built by the Khan. The work was written during the Romantic Era of British literature and is tied nicely to romantic themes of nature and the supernatural. Lines sixteen through twenty-four progress from a natural description of the garden, to a supernatural garden. The literary devices used allow Coleridge to maintain the fantasy throughout. The images presented do not exist; however, they leave the reader longing to see them. These lines are written in such a way that when read aloud they captivate the audience with rhythmic sounds that resonate with the visions described. When translating