Analysis of Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Essay

Analysis of Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge reveals the power of the imaginative poetry. This poetry has the ability to create kingdoms and paradise. In this poem Coleridge is expressing heaven and hell through his own eyes just as the aplostles did in the ?Bible? and Milton did in Paradise Lost. The poem begins with a mythical tone, ?In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure dome decree.? The poem does not give specifics to the construction of the palace. It just states that Khan decreed the palace be built and then begins describing the palace. The poem?s method of creating a vision of the ?pleasure dome? is similar to the biblical tale of the creation of the†¦show more content†¦The wonderful kingdom of the ancient Kubla Khan and the setting that surrounds it is described with heavenly, dreamlike vividness. The kingdom that Kubla Khan creates is described as ?stately pleasure dome.? The image of a dome is like the hemisphere of the sky or a world. By describing the dome as a ?pleasure dome? the poet presents Khan?s kingdom as paradise-like. This paradise-kingdom consists of ten miles of ?fertile ground? surrounded securely by walls that are ?girdled? around. Its gardens are bright, and ?blossoming with many an incense bearing tree? and are watered by wand ering streams. The river, the thing that gives life to Khan?s creation runs ?through caverns measureless to man/down to a sunless sea?. The destination of the sacred river of the pleasure dome is ?measureless? to man. The river metaphorically represents nature as the source of life of al creation. In the second stanza the poem shifts focus from the perfect ?pleasure dome? created by ?Kubla Khan? to the confused landscape that surrounds it. The ?sunny spots of greenery? in Khan?s realm in the first stanza are interrupted with a vision of a ?deep romantic chasm?. This landscape is described with contrasting adjectives. The chasm below the paradise of Kubla?s ?pleasure dome? is plagued with ?ceaseless turmoil? or chaos. The chasm of chaos is referring to hell. He states that ?all should cry, Beware, Beware!/ His flashing eyes his floatingShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge s Kubla Khan 1778 Words   |  8 PagesExperts widely regard Samuel Taylor Coleridge as one of the few major leaders of British Romanticism. His poems, both individual works and collaborations with another Romantic leader, William Wordsworth, are proof of this. His works incorporated ideas that are often found in Romantic poetry, such as a reverence for nature, emphasis on emotion and i magination over reason and logic, and other themes that contradicted thinkers of the Age of Reason. 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