Analysis of Kubla Kahn
Quality of poetry is not always measured by skill in rhyme or verse, and the abstract beauty of a poem became appreciable partly thanks to the delirious writing of "Kubla Kahn." Samuel Taylor Coleridge is considered an intellectual center of the English Romantic movement, as he felt that imagination was the "living power and prime agent of all human perception." Although his unusually unorganized and often uncompleted poems were not well-received at the time of his life from 1772-1834, his poems are now praised as a perfect combination of reality and fantasy as in the questionable albatross in his "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and of emotion and thought. "Kubla Kahn" deals more with the emotion and imagination, while it does mix reality and fantasy, but it has been dismissed even by Coleridge himself as "a sort of reverie," and only a "psychological experiment." Coleridge's relatively unhappy life began in Devon, England, and was marked by his father's death at age ten, and subsequent schooling in which he felt desperately lonely. Gambling debt and failed romance pushed him to enlist in the army, later to return to Oxford University only to fail to graduate. Coleridge also had an unsuccessful marriage and a hostile end to a
More importantly, however, are Coleridge's unique word choices. While concrete words such as wall, rocks, tree, and hills create imagery in the reader's mind, there remains ambiguity as concrete things such as the Alph River are given sacred meaning, or the rocks are said to be dancing. Coleridge writes, "Could I revive within me Her symphony and song," which may show his desire to recover this poem that is forever lost to his dreams. " The continuous religious references to something "holy" or "sacred" could show Coleridge's belief that his poetic inspiration came from a divine power, where the "lifeless" and "sunless" ocean represent the uninspired masses of common people who do not think as Coleridge does. While the ending words of the majority of the lines has a rhyming word later in the verse, it is impossible to predict whether the parallel rhyme will appear in the next line or four lines down. Coleridge's poem is not constructed around a set pattern of rhyme in any form such as A-B-B-A, but instead seems to be formed more around its feeling. "Kubla Kahn" has now been praised for its representation of the unconscious and for its portrayal of the effects of a hallucinogen, such as opium, on the mind and imagination. Although Coleridge himself claimed to find little more but delirium in his poem, "Kubla Kahn" may not have any deep-set imagery or metaphorical meaning, but its composition is filled with iambic meter, rhyming schemes, and a musical selection of words for their sense and sound. Examples of words that obstruct the straight-forward imagery of the verse, yet add to the musical quality of the overall poem are "Sinuous rills" to represent streams; "athwart," in place of across; and "mazy" instead of twisting. Often, where other words may have been more appropriate, Coleridge substitutes more melodious words, not for their imagery, but simply for the sound they create. As he goes on to describe the sacred land, his feelings about the tumult within his own mind appear with the "savage place," and "ceaseless turmoil seething. Coleridge's last mention of the "sunny dome," if it is indeed a reference to opium, shows his own dread at his addiction, yet the pleasure and creativity he feels when on the drug. Instead, the word's consonants simply complement those earlier in the line and create a musical feel. great friendship with poet William Woodsworth.
Common topics in this essay:
Kubla Kahn,
Kubla Khan,
Kahn Coleridge,
English Romantic,
Woodsworth Coleridge,
Devon England,
,
Dream Fragment,
Symbolists Surrealists,
Oxford University,
kubla kahn,
coleridge writes,
musical quality,
reality fantasy,
sacred river,
word choices,
iambic meter,
|
Acceptance Essays
