Samuel Taylor Coleridge once said that his dreams became the substance of his life. Nowhere is this more evident than in his poem “Kubla Khan.” Written just before the dawn of the 19th century, “Kubla Khan” was originally considered to be the simple ramblings of automatic and nonsensical writing, it is now viewed as one of the most famous poems from the Romantic Period of Literature (Hill). One of the most widely accepted opinions of the poem defines it as a comparison between two forms of paradise; a comparison that is achieved through the incredibly vivid language and the surrealistic ambiance that is created via the tone and form. Coleridge fabricates a fantastic world that eerily dances in a hypnagogic manner just like the visionary dream to which Coleridge accredits the poem.
Before understanding a created piece, one must understand its creator. Therefore, in order for the reader to fully appreciate and comprehend “Kubla Khan,” he or she must first be aware of Coleridge’s lifestyle and philosophy at the time that he wrote the poem. Although Coleridge attended college at the University of Cambridge in England, he did not graduate. Before receiving his degree, Coleridge dropped out of school to help found a utopian society in the Pennsylvanian wilderness with fellow poet, Robert Southey ("Samuel Taylor Coleridge- Biography."). The utopian society was intended to be a “Pantisocracy.” Pantisocracy is the idea of an equal government by and for all people. Although the utopian project fails to become a reality, Coleridge maintains a friendship with Robert Southey and is left with an appreciation of nature and a desire for a perfect paradise ("Samuel Taylor Coleridge- Biography."). This philosophical mindset lays the foundation...
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...of his works and the power with which he imbued both his poems and his prose, he would surely qualify as a profound philosopher as well.
Works Cited
Brett, R. L. "Samuel Taylor Coleridge." British Writers IV. Ed. Ian Scott-Kilvert. New York City: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981. 46-8. Print.
"Explanation: 'Kubla Khan.'" Gale - Free Resources. Cengage Learning, 1997. Web. 26 Feb. 2012. .
Hill, John Spencer. "A Coleridge Companion." Rev. of Kuble Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A Coleridge Companion. University of Georgia, 5 May 1996. Web. 26 Feb. 2012. .
“Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Biography.” The EGS Library. The European Graduate School, 1997. Web. 26 Feb. 2012. .
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Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets. London : George Bell and Sons, 1904. p. 342-368. http://ds.dial.pipex.com/thomas_larque/ham1-col.htm
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets. London : George Bell and Sons, 1904. p. 342-368. http://ds.dial.pipex.com/thomas_larque/ham1-col.htm
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets. London : George Bell and Sons, 1904. p. 342-368. http://ds.dial.pipex.com/thomas_larque/ham1-col.htm
"Coleridge’s Imaginative Journey: This Lime Tree Bower, My Prison." Book Rags. BookRags, Inc., 2012. Web. 26 Feb 2012. .
Throughout life, we have all experienced the loneliness of being excluded at some point or another. In “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge shows how his experience with this resentful jealousy matured into a selfless brotherly love and the acceptance of the beneficial effects some amount of denial can have. Each of the poem’s three stanzas demonstrates a separate step in this transition, showing Coleridge’s gradual progression from envy to appreciation. The pervading theme of Nature and the fluctuating diction are used to convey these, while the colloquial tone parallels the message’s universal applications. The poem culminates to show the reader that being deprived of something in life is not always to be regretted, but rather to be welcomed as an opportunity to “smell the roses,” so to speak, and appreciate the blessings we often take for granted.
Magnuson, Paul. "The Gang: Coleridge, the Hutchinsons & The Wordsworths in 1802." Criticism 4(2001):451. eLibrary. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Mileur, J. 1982. Coleridge and the Art of Immanence. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Kubla Khan.” The Norton Anthology: English Literature. Ninth Edition. Stephen Greenblatt, eds. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 459-462. Print.
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.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets. London : George Bell and Sons, 1904. p. 342-368. http://ds.dial.pipex.com/thomas_larque/ham1-col.htm
Coleridge successfully illustrates the qualities of imagination in his poem, Kubla Khan, through the sound of words, the creative content and his ability to create and recreate. Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that are suspended in the reader’s mind. Coleridge uses creative powers to establish the infinite I AM, a quality of the primary imagination. Coleridge mirrors his primary and secondary imagination in the poem by taking apart and recreating images. The qualities of imagination discussed in the poem exist independently but also work together to create an imaginative world. It is important to understand how the poem works to achieve these qualities, but also how the poem works to bring the reader back to reality. The powers and qualities of imagination are present in Kubla Khan and it is through Coleridge’s extraordinary writing that the reader is able to experience an imaginative world, in which we alternate between reality and imagination.
In his epic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge critiques the Gothic convention of the explained supernatural (in particular explanation in the form of divine intervention) through his portrayal of the tension between Christian themes and the sublimity of the archaic both within the poem itself as well as in the external preface and marginal glosses accompanying the poem. I intend to argue that despite the seemingly inherent Christian morality present on the surface of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge subtly draws attention to a pre-Christian subtext, which holds the insignificance of humanity and the unknowability of the universe in high regard. Through his characterization of the Ancient Mariner and his
“Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge reveals the awesome power of the imaginative poetic mind. This poetic mind has the ability to create kingdoms, paradise, immortality, and the sacred. This poem reveals the terrifying magnificence of the visions of imagination and the impact of these visions amongst humanity.
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.