Kubla Khan and Its Relation to Romanticism - 2675 Words

Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is one of the most enigmatic and ambiguous pieces of literature ever written. Allegedly written after a laudanum (an opiate) induced dream, the author claims to have been planning a two hundred to three hundred line poem before he got interrupted by a man from Porlock, after which he had forgotten nearly all of his dream. This may have been merely an excuse, and the poem was scorned at the time for having no poetic value, one critic even going so far as to call it more a musical composition than a poem. This is partly true, as the language seems to strive for an aural beauty more than a literary beauty, although it accomplishes both. Like many great artists, Coleridge has been most appreciated†¦show more content†¦Simultaneously, the dome is mocking Heaven, a synonym for paradise, as the dome is a common symbol representing the heavens. This angers nature, and it attacks the dome with the river and the fountain from the chasm. The rive r Alph is directly related to the Greek god Alpheus, who was the river god. According to Greek mythology, a pagan belief, the god Alpheus had fallen in love with Arethusa, the daughter of Nereus and a Hesperides. The Hesperides are a type of nymph whom tend to a beautiful garden, or paradise, of unknown location. Alpheus took the nymph to Sicily, where Artemis, the god of childbirth and chastity, turned Arethusa into a fountain, so that the two could make love by mingling their waters. The mingling of their waters is occurring in this chasm, where the mighty fountain of Arethusa is located. To further this image of sex in nature, which Coleridge loved so much and was a large part of the romantic and pagan idea, the chasm is very much likened to a vagina, with its cedarn cover like pubic hair, and its romantic nature, which could mean either relating to romanticism or romance, both of which could have sexual implications. With fast thick pants, the fountain bursts up and the chasm sp ews out dancing rocks like chaffy grain beneath the threshers flail. Coleridge uses syntax to emphasize the excitement of the climax by not using a comma between the words fast andShow MoreRelatedDifference Between Romanticism And Transendinlalism In American And British Writers1584 Words   |  7 PagesWhich characterized Transendinlalism very differently from that of Romanticism. The difference of Transendinlalism was that it was a literary and philosophical movement, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition. 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