Samuel Taylor Coleridge Union of Opposites

Imagination Understanding Art – Artifact – Artificial Unreal Illogical Lacks reason Understanding Nature Real Logical Reasonable

Images in “Kubla Khan” Imagination Understanding “caverns measureless to man” “sunless sea” “lifeless ocean” “honey dew” “milk of Paradise” Understanding Man’s quantitative abilities, his empirical readings, are insufficient to understand the world

Juxtaposed Images in Poem Wildness Heights Explosive creative force Warmth Holiness Tumult Artifice Momentary present Light Peaceful scene Gentleness Depths Calm obliteration Coldness Demonism Lifelessness Nature Ancestral past Dark Prophecies of war

“Kubla Khan: or, a Vision in a Dream” The poem came to Coleridge “as in a vision” after he took a prescribed anodyne and fell into a deep sleep. What we have is only a fragment of what he dreamed. Figures such as the “pleasure dome” and the “sacred river” take on an allegorical cast and suggest the power that inspires the writing of poetry.

The Air of Magic and Mystery The poem promotes the Romantic ideal of poetry as spontaneous, impulsive and free of narrowly rational thought. WARNING! The poem is highly crafted. Just look at the use of assonance, consonance, alliteration, and internal and end rhymes of just the first five lines

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless see.