For Tuesday and Thursday, we are going to continue to post our responses to the blog as opposed to bringing written responses to class. Your responses may be original posts, comments on the posts of others, or (ideally) both. At this point in the semester, you definitely don't have to answer my questions (although you are welcome to). You can combine the prompts, alter them, or just go your own way.
1. "Kubla Khan" is one of the best examples of something we have been discussing about poetry, namely that it is not prose and therefore cannot be paraphrased. Indeed, any extractable "meaning" of "Kubla Khan" is probably much less important than the effect the poem has upon the reader because of its sounds and rhythms. Read the poem out loud a few times. What is your biological response to it? What do you feel? What do you envision? Try, at least the first time you read it, to immerse yourself in its sonic properties instead of analyzing "what it means."
2. In what way(s) could "Kubla Khan" be called a poem about writer's block? Please read the introductory note and reference it as part of your response.
3. Do you believe that "Kubla Khan" could have been written in a drug-induced state? Why or why not?
4. In Biographia Literaria (629-641), Coleridge writes that he and Wordsworth, when planning Lyrical Ballads, decided that Coleridge's part in the volume "should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith" (634). What do you think this means? Does "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" require a "willing suspension of disbelief?"
5. During this period, much of popular literature was gothic in nature. Gothic literature has sometimes been described as a blend of romance and horror. How is "Rime" a gothic poem?
6. In his Lectures on Shakespeare (641-642), Coleridge argues that there is a difference between poetry written in "mechanic form" and that written in "organic form." A poem is "mechanic," according to Coleridge, "when on any given material we impress a pre-determined form, not necessarily arising out of the properties of the material;--as when to a wet mass of clay we give whatever shape we wish it to retain when hardened. The organic form, on the other hand, is innate; it shapes, as it develops itself from within, and the fulness of its development is one and the same with the perfection of its outward form" (642). He goes on to argue that just as Nature is "inexhaustable," so are its forms. I would like for you to look for places in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" or in "Kubla Khan" where the form seems organic, as opposed to predetermined, and to discuss what it is about the poem's material that is causing the form to change. In other words, how is the form of the poem changing to meet the needs of its material?
7. Did you find Coleridge's marginalia/commentary helpful? Why or why not?
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I don't believe Kubla Khan was written in a drug-induced state. I guess it could have been, but I see it merely as one being in touch with nature and enviromental surroundings. When I read this I think of indians, animals, music, and uplifting cheer all about mother nature. I suppose terms like: "sand in tumult to a lifeless ocean" could possibly be about being drugged out of ones mind and falling to the earth or perhaps drowning. I just can't seem to believe that though. I like to keep an open mind for most things I read - I guess I'm giving Kubla Khan the benefit of the doubt. Very good read, I enjoyed it. -nweekes
ReplyDeleteAccording to the introductory note, Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan: A Vision in A Dream” was written after an opium-induced vision. In the dream, he has an incredible vision and he writes a two or three-hundred lines of poetry in his sleep. After waking up three hours later, Coleridge attempts to recall his epic composition from his dream. However, his recollection is interrupted by a “person on business from Porlock,” who proceeds to demand his attention for an hour; afterwards, he can no longer recall the poem or the vision from his dream.
ReplyDeleteThe last stanza of “Kubla Khan” reflects Coleridge’s inability to recall his composition and his vision. There is a noticeable change of direction with the introduction of the “damsel with a dulcimer,” and the “vision once I saw” refers to this vision that he seeks to “revive within [him].” The latter part of the fourth stanza seems like the hypothetical response to his completed vision; crowds would cry and close their eyes, knowing that he [Coleridge] had fed on “honey-dew” and “the milk of Paradise,” which symbolize the supernatural tones of his vision. Thus, the last stanza of Kubla Khan can be seen as a poem about writers block because it tells us how the original composition was incomplete and describes an audience’s hypothetical response.
In “Kubla Khan” I found there to be so much detail. It was interesting to see that the use of imagery. Coleridge pulled me into this poem, and I felt as if I was standing there watching.
ReplyDelete“So twice five mile of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And here were garden bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,” (pg. 615, lines 6-10)
I can say I had a hard time understanding what the deeper meaning of this poem was. But I felt more that Coleridge was telling a story rather than attempting a deep meaning. Whether or not he was in a drug-induced state, like Ryan mentioned Coleridge was drugs due to an illness, however I’m not convinced that the drugs were a huge factor. He was retelling his dream and did so in a way that I felt was easy to visually picture.