Romantic Era Poems and Literature Essay

Tags: kubla khan literature music nature poems romanticism stanza william blake

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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 of the warrior Kubla Khan, Coleridge also blends imagery of the natural world with the unreal universe he describes as part of Xanadu.

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For instance, the poet uses descriptors of the caverns, trees, and sunlight to describe an “enchanted” place beneath the earth (Stanza 2, line 3). By blending imagery of the real and unreal, Coleridge takes the reader along on the journey to Xanadu. The reader perceives the “pleasure dome” as if it were a real place, because Coleridge has so effectively employed the poetic imagination to describe it. The rhythm, meter, and rhyming in “Kubla Khan” also corresponds with the imagery the poem contans.



Coleridge also uses the poetic imagination to uplift and inspire the reader. The mundane world offers few of the pleasures that one experiences in Xanadu, and yet Coleridge wants the reader to pay closer attention to how the real world does offer sublimity. For example, the musicality of the third stanza reminds the reader to appreciate the sonic delights on the real world. Long after the poem’s verses linger in the reader’s consciousness, the poetic imagination persists.



3. Although the literature and visual art of Romanticism, along with European classical music, receive the bulk of attention in the analysis of the era’s aesthetic, the revival of interest in folk music is also integral to Romantic ideals. Romanticism was about a return to the past, and a veneration of all things simple and natural. Largely a reaction against modernism, technological progress, capitalism, and urbanization, Romanticism eventually did fuel interest in returning to a simpler, peaceful past—or at least an imagined one. Therefore, returning to folk music made sense from within the Romantic worldview.



Appreciation of all types of folk music flourished during the Romantic era, which is why classical composers often weaved into their compositions folk music elements. In addition to the European folk music….....

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Works Cited

Blake, William. Songs of Innocence. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1934/1934-h/1934-h.htm

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Kubla Khan.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan

Dame, Frederick William. “Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Spirit of Romanticism in American Colonial (Folk) Music: Immanence and Influence.” Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture 46. Jahrg. (2001), pp. 71-116

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