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.
At first glance at “Kubla Khan,” the disorganized plot and peculiar organization appear indecipherable. It’s vastly abstract storyline is largely, if not entirely, accredited to the prior mental state of Coleridge, who drifted asleep in an opium-induced haze. According to Coleridge, the final phrase he had read before his body submerged into sleep had been extracted from Purchas’s Pilgrimage: “Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were enclosed with a wall.” Afterward, Coleridge dozed into a three-hour sleep, during which he encountered a vivid vision. Upon awakening, the poet’s first thought was to capture his recollection; he composed the lines that could most accurately portray his unique experience, until, quite inconveniently, he was interrupted by a visitor. Upon returning to his work, Coleridge found that his mental snapshot had simply dissipated, and he was left with only the few disoriented lines before him (Knapp).
Coleridge’s complex dream is mirrored by the structural complexity of “Kubla Khan,” evi...
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...ke it is often believed that at the end of life, the all-powerful, altitudinous overseer reveals itself. Perhaps, Coleridge’s dream has served to reveal the actuality of his spiritual inferiority; to emphasize that there is only being who can fathom the mysterious, sacred flow of life; to prove that there is one being who can truly reside in the higher realms of Paradise.
Works Cited
Knapp , James. "Samuel Taylor Coleridge." The Norton Anthology of Poetry. W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. Web. 23 Feb 2012.
"Poets Corner Explanation: "Kubla Khan"." Gale Cengage Learning. N.p., 1997. Web. 26 Feb 2012. .
Schroeder, Jurgen. "Kubla Khan Analysis/Interpretation."Romantic Poems Analysis & Music by JM Schroeder. N.p., 2002. Web. 26 Feb 2012. .
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
cannot help but wonder what meaning the foreign words might carry that is lost in translation. That constant reminder throughout the collection enhances the sense of there being something just beyond perception that is beautiful and mysterious. Many of the poem...
Schoemaker, Jacqueline. “Travel, Homecoming and Wavering Minds in Lyrical Ballads and other Poems.” 'A Natural Delineation of Human Passions': The Historic Moment of Lyrical Ballads. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004.
From a modern experience of Romanticism, nurtured by the sometimes oblique narrative strategies of its major poets, a work that begins atop a massive feature of the landscape and ends immured within it bears a remarkable coherence, the more so
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.
The Romanticism period started in 1789 and lasted till 1830. This time period was a major international movement, shaping modern views of art, literature, music, and other aspects in life. Romanticism was the “reaction against artistic styles of classical antiquity, which was neoclassicism.” Neoclassicists focused on the power of reasoning to discover the truth while Romantics focused on the hope to transform the world through the power of imagination. They had a deep love for nature (Furst 302). The aspects of romanticism are important; they are the beliefs of this period. The first aspect includes nature, which allows them to be free from the artificial aspects of civilization; they were with man’s true setting. Nature was there to reveal and heal individuals. An example of the love for nature in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poetry ‘Frost at Midnight’ is he is describing how happy he is that his baby will be able to see nature instead of living in the city like he did, “But thou, my babe! shalt wander like ...
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (text of 1834)." Poetry Foundation. Poetry
Moreover, Kubla Khan possess a sort of hypnotizing beat, particularly noticed in the first stanza. The poem is given a hard but regular rhythm
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia, eds. An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 21. Print.
Toynton, Evelyn. "A DELICIOUS TORMENT: The friendship of Wordsworth and Coleridge." Harper's. 01 Jun. 2007: 88. eLibrary. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
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
Although both “Kubla Khan,” by Samuel Coleridge and “Ode on Grecian Urn,” by John Keats are poems originating from the poets’ inspiration from historical figure, the two poems convey different messages through their respective metaphors. While Coleridge emphasizes on the process of creating a Romantic poem, Keats expresses his opinion about art by carefully examining the details of the Grecian urn.
...ubla Khan, the imagination is more of a physical, creative force, with more raw power than finesse. With it, works such as a pleasure-dome full of physical paradoxes can be inspired, created, and described, far better than with the words of a critic alone “A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!”. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has it that the imagination is more of an intangible force, subtle yet with as much power as the imagination in Kubla Khan. It connects the huge array of creatures on the Earth together, and without the imagination, they would, die in the end, one by one.
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.