1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge relies on rich multisensory imagery to achieve poetic goals in “Kubla Khan.” The sensory imagery Coleridge uses anchors the poem within the genre of Romanticism, as the poet evokes an idealized past based on the descriptions of the mythic Xanadu. Phrases like “stately pleasure-dome” (Stanza 1, line 2) also add evocative sexual imagery that coincides well with the imagery of the splendor of the natural world, with lines like “deep romantic chasm,” (Stanza 2, line 1). In “Kubla Khan,” Coleridge uses multisensory imagery to juxtapose light and darkness, femininity and masculinity, civilization and savagery, to induce a dreamlike effect.In keeping with the Romantic era tropes, Coleridge relies heavily on nature imagery. Each stanza is filled with references to nature, such as the “incense-bearing tree,” and the “sunless sea,” in Stanza 1. Stanza 2 continues to evolve the imagery of the natural world, only now Coleridge takes the reader on a journey to what seems to be more like an underworld. The dark chasm beneath the earth is evocative also for its female imagery, as well as its connection to ancient Greco-Roman myth. For instance, the underwater river Coleridge describes is reminiscent of Hades.
The entire poem evolves as a dreamscape, also a common element in Romantic literature. The poet even admits to the entire “vision,” romanticizing the “damsel with a dulcimer” in the third and final stanza. Juxtaposing fire and ice, Coleridge refers to the “milk of Paradise,” again using imagery that is filled with binaries and duality as well as sexuality.
2. The poetic imagination is what makes Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” timeless and evocative. The poet takes a historical figure, the Kubla Khan, and transforms him into a mythical creature who created a timeless fantasy world available for poets to contemplate. Using the poetic imagination, Coleridge fuses reality and fantasy.
In addition to using the real-life figure...
They brought a new sense of "free experimentation" to composition, while advancing realistic techniques that emphasized the use of "local color" in literature. This style in the literary world helps to define the Romantic Era and has shaped writing to this day. Science: Of equal importance to literary pursuits during the Romantic era were achievements in science. By the 1830's, activity in science and technology was rapidly increasing and becoming a source
Romantic era began in the late eighteenth century as a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment and was a period of great change and emancipation. The movement started as an artistic and intellectual reaction against aristocratic social and political norms of the Enlightenment and against the scientific rationalization of nature. During the Enlightenment literature and art were primarily created for the elite, upper classes and educated, and the language
Romantic Era The years in which the Romantic Era had its great impact -- roughly 1789 through 1832 -- were years in which there were "intense political, social, and cultural upheavals," according to Professor Shannon Heath at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (Heath, 2009). The beginning of the Romantic Era actually is traced to the French Revolution, and though that tumultuous event was not in England, William Wordsworth and
The work expresses with clear honesty the need to express, reality and pain, in Wordworthian values. The expression of the work is poignant and clear, as the washerwoman goes through the process of noticing nature, as a guide for time rather than as something she is able to explore at leisure. The woman and the poet explored leisure, in only those available times when she was not otherwise needed
Nature is the vehicle that leads him to awareness on a physical and emotional plane, expressed when he realizes that "each faculty of sense... keep[s] the heart/Awake to Love and Beauty" (62-3). Here we see that the poet is open to whatever his experience with nature will teach him. Another poet that demonstrates the mood and tone of the Romantic era is Percy Shelley. In "Ode to the West Wind,"
Romantic era poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth both relied heavily on nature imagery to convey core themes, and often nature became a theme unto itself. In "To William Wordsworth," Coleridge writes accolades for his friend using many of the tropes of Romanticism, including the liberal use of nature metaphors to commend Wordsworth's creativity. The metaphors are mainly encapsulated by the spirit of springtime and the ebbing of energy that seasonal
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