Homework Assignment #3-- Kubla Khan

“Kubla Khan” is one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s most well known and  riveting poems, and the story in which it came to exist is just as intriguing as the poem itself.  The Romantic era, in which Coleridge wrote this poem highlighted the importance of the imagination.   And “Kubla Khan” exemplifies such a fascination. 

Romantic poets during the Enlightenment emphasized nature, religion, and imagination.  They felt that science was ruining what God had intended for the world, by picking the natural world apart.  A Romanticist poet  for example, dismays scientific theory and reason.  Instead, they live in a world based off emotions and feelings.  

Romantics deemed the imagination highly important, and as a result, should play a role in  one’s daily life.  In “real” life, one may grow discouraged of their dreams or even rational thought.  However, in a dream world anything is possible.  For example, someone can create a world where purple elephants existed, like mentioned in class last Thursday.  That is a perfect example since when one thinks of purple elephants, the first thing that comes to mind; child’s play.  Which brings me to my next point, children who are beings of innocence live with this mindset everyday.  As one enters adulthood, they start trying to answer all of life’s “big questions” and rationalize all thought.  These romantic poets believed that one should never let go of their imagination, in that realm of “make believe” anything can happen.  Oppression, or harm is not in arms reach and life is much more enjoyable.   

To attain such a connection with the imagination, most romantic poets used drugs, such as opium which allowed them to live and think in such creative ways.  Such a phenomena holds true for Coleridge in his work of “Kubla Khan”.  The story says that Coleridge, after taking a drug similar to opium, and reading about how Kubla Khan commanded the creation of the new palace, he fell asleep.  And during his slumber he had an indescribable vision and while sleeping,   created more than two hundred lines of poetry.  As soon as he awoke from his slumber, he began writing furiously, jotting down every line that he could remember, however, a few stanza’s into the poem he was interrupted by a visitor, “a business man from Porlock” and was unable to remember the rest of his imagination’s creation. It is believed that the last stanza of the poem was written after the interruption.  No one has been able to pin point who this man from Porlock was, however, he stands as a prominent figure in many of Coleridge’s works as a collective whole.       

The first three stanzas of “Kubla Khan” are products of pure imagination. “...And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills-Where blossom’d many an incense-bearing tree; and here were forests ancient as the hills, enfolding sunny spots of greenery” (8-11).   Here, he is building a totally imaginative location, which sounds absolutely beautiful.  This creation could be a metaphor for the building of one’s imagination itself as well.  

In  stanza two, we see elements of a war prophecies, “Abs’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far-Ancestral voices prophesying war!” (29-30). Thus, following an even of “eruption”, “As if his earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced; Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst-Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,” (18-21).  Coleridge is saying that following a natural disaster, a man made one is bound to happen. In lines  thirty five and thirty six, contrasting images of  beauty with elements of darkness, “It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!”.  In lines thirty seven and forty one, the speaker recalls a vision of a beautiful damsel, “A damsel with a dulcimer, In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she play’d, Singing of Mount Abora.  The speaker is impressed with the the damsel’s voice and tries to revive the image within himself, “Could I revive within me, Her symphony and song, to such a deep delight ‘twould win me, that with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, that sunny dome! Those caves of ice!”  considering some say that the last stanza was written after Coleridge had been interrupted of jotting down his dream, which is symbolic of his attempt to recreate her voice.  Within the last few lines, the speaker invites the audience to use their imagination to those who are willing, “And all who heard should see them there, An all should cry, Beware! Beware!...And close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise” (49-54).  Here the speakers thesis comes together: one should never deny their imagination.

        Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” is one of the most well known poems written during the Romantic Period.  And like other romanticists, Coleridge believed that the use of ones imagination is very important and “Kubla Khan’s” message directly represents this belief.   

Assignment #2- William Blake

Sigmund Freud believed that humans are undeniably evil, but, to live peacefully amongst one another, one must suppress their animalistic behaviors.  A Romanticist such as William Blake, for example, may have agreed with Freud’s assumption based on is works of Innocence and Experience.

            William Blake, a well know poet during the controversial time of the Enlightenment, had strong opinions on both humans and their ways of life during this time.  As a result, Blake wrote, “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”.  The content in both selections are similar, yet, have opposing views on the particular situation at hand.  Some may argue that there is unsettled tension between the two lines of work, and others claim there is a direct relation between the two.  When one thinks of the literal and connotative definitions of innocence and experience, it is easy to see that they are relative to each other.  For example, one who is “innocent” is usually a child who has yet to learn right from wrong.  However, to get passed one’s stage of innocence, and be accepted into adulthood, they must gain life experience which rids them of their innocence. 

            A person who represents innocence, like a child, for example, looks at the world with a fresh eye.  Thus meaning, they are unbiased and unaware of any binaries such as, “good and evil”.  Blake was an avid believer in binaries, which others may have dismayed, and his “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience represent such a phenomena. 

                   Blake’s work tended to include aspects of religion and nature, and as a Romanticist poet, he disproved of the Enlightenment and its interest in science and realism.  His poem “The Lamb” has religious undertones, considering Jesus was considered a Sheppard himself.  “The Lamb” is a child’s song, written in the form of question and answer, “Little Lamb who made thee?” (1) “Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee” (11).  Jesus of course represents all that is calm and peaceful, and “The Lamb” expresses the positive side of Christianity.  The poem only discusses the “good” and  “clear” and does not mention the bad and evil that exists in the world, which has a direct correlation to innocence itself.  “Gave thee clothing of delight, softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice…” (5-8). According to the bible, Jesus was a tender and graci9ous figure, and considering this child is blinded by his innocence, he does not pick up on any evil in the world.

            Unlike its light counterpart, “The Tiger”, exposes suffering in the world which the speaker in “The Lamb” is blind sighted too.  Like “The Lamb”, this poem is also in the form of question, but instead, it does not provide any answers to the proposed questions.  “In what distance deeps or skies-Burnt the fire of thine eyes?  On what wings dare he aspire?  What the hand dare seize the fire” (4-8).  The speaker longs to know what type of God would create such a beautiful yet horrid being.  He questions that life and nature is a reflection of it’s creator.  Does that mean that God himself is evil?  Blake writes, “Did he smile His work to see?  Did he who made the lamb make the?” (19-20). In a world that can be both good and evil, how can the same God create a creature as innocent as the lamb, and one so vicious as the tiger?  For an innocent child, finding an answer to his question may prove simple, however, for those who have experienced harm these questions remain unanswered.           

            Like “The Lamb” and “The Tiger”, Blake also wrote two versions of, “The Chimney Sweeper”.  The earlier version can be found in “A Song of Innocence”.  Both versions reject the idea of child labor during the late eighteenth and nineteenth century.  Because of their size, young boys were often sent to become chimney sweepers, and due to the lack of child labor laws, these children were greatly oppressed.  In the earlier work, the speaker, presumably a child, speaks of a dream that one of his fellow chimney sweeps had.  “As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, - that thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, were all of them locked up in a coffins black.  And by came an angel who had a bright key, and he opened the coffins and set them all free…” (12-16).  The boys feel there is hope in a better place, “Then down a green plain leaping, laughing ,they run, and wash in a river, and sine in the sun” (17-18).  The innocent child does not loose sign of hope and optimism, where, the adult who  is not so blind sighted, may not prove so hopeful.  In the last stanza, Blake writes; “And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark, and got with our bags and our brushes to work, with the idea that there is something lying beyond this world.

            In the later version of “The Chimney Sweeper”, the speaker is presumably an adult, who has life experience.  In his experience, the speaker encountered a young chimney sweep in the snow, “A littlr blak thing among the snow, crying “weep! ;Weep!” In notes of woe! “Where are thy father & mother? Say?” “They are both gone up to the church to pray” (1-4). Ironically, these parents are at a church, the house of God, while their child lay miserable and dying.  In the last stanza Blake writes, “And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King, who make up a heaven of our misery.” (11-12).  These lines are incredibly powerful.  The speaker explains that life in this word is struck by oppression, danger, and injustices, and those who have died under such harsh conditions, make up heaven itself.

            William Blake’s attempt to expose oppression during the Enlightenment was effective.  By writing, “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”, Blake allows the reader to see these harsh realities through different eyes and perspectives.       

Blog Assignment #1

The Romantic Era was an interesting time in regards to British Literature.  

Romanticism represented conflict between nature and science during the age of the 

Enlightenment.  Poets like William Blake, helped expose issues among scientific and 

technical advances in regards to the natural world.  

Ultimately, Blake tries to tell the audience that with the growth of science and reason, 

nature and innocence is lost itself.  Blake also attempts to illustrate the importance  and 

connection of innocence in comparison to scientific reasoning. Other romantic poets such as 

William Wordsworth used his literary gift to expose the same beliefs: humans should not try and 

simplify nature thus destroying the beauty and mysterious aspects of it.  The goal of the 

Romantics was to stop the influx of reasoning since it blocked creativity 

and emotion.  Religion was also broken down and frowned upon by rationalists as well.   

In his Auguries of Innocence, Blake attempts to show the the correlation between nature 

and the new world of reasoning.  He begins the poem with religious imagery as we see in lines 

one and two , “To see a world in a grain of sand, and  heaven in  a wild flower” .   Of course we 

can not actually view the world in such a way or see heaven in any type of flower, but, his goal 

here is to force the reader to think creatively without humanizing the beauty of the world.  

Blake illustrates the paradox of humanity throughout the mid section of the poem.  He

places everything in an equal playing field, “The Prince’s robes and beggar’s rags are toadstools

on the miser’s bags” (51,52).  Part of humanity is dealing with the ups and downs of life, and if 

you break down life itself, and analyze every part of it, what you are left with is a very robotic 

and heartless conclusion about the world, as he states in lines fifty six fifty seven and fifty eight, 

“Man was made for joy and woe; and when this we rightfully know, thro' the world we safley go.   

Most poets during the romantic era were in love, and  in this case, Blake was in love with nature 

and life itself.   

Blake’s choice of using paradoxes was very effective in that, it would have gotten the 

radical thinker to see things in a different light.  For example, in lines ten and eleven, ‘ dog 

starv’d at his masters gate predicts the ruin of the state”.  when one reads about a starved dog 

in such context their natural humanistic response is to feel bad for the animal.  However, what 

Blake is actually trying to do is create feeling which new thinkers of the Enlightenment 

suppressed.  When someone thinks of a starved dog they automatically feel sympathy for the 

animal.  Although, here, Blake is not actually talking about a dog, that dog is in fact a person of 

lower class rank and their employer, landlord, etc, is the state refusing to have human empathy 

upon them.  

To Blake everything has a cause an effect, and fate ultimately has  control over human

lives.  His beliefs are  almost similar to Buddha’s Eye for an Eye; “The wanton boy that kills the 

fly shall feel he spider’s enmity” (33, 34).  I do agree with Blake in that there should be some 

things left for the imagination and not everything must have a logical background.  life is all 

about learning, we all have our good days and bad days, and usually we learn an important life 

lesson that a book of reasoning could not have taught us.  This makes more than enough sense in

my contemporary life, for example, one can’t be so serious all the time.  There is time for 

education and reality, but, one must not forget their emotional needs.  One of the biggest 

paradoxes  I have seen when it comes to human life is in regards to love.  love can be either the 

greatest joy in life or the most painful.  We torture ourselves with such pain and sorrow because we are emotional creatures.

In William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, he bring up a lot of valid arguments through his use of imagery.  One can not suppress their  feelings, thus, meaning scientific reason won’t satisfy the human soul.