Samuel Coleridge's Kubla Khan and the Unconscious
Samuel Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan is a metaphorical journey through a complex labyrinth of symbols and images that represent the unconscious and seemingly troubled mind. It is a voyage that continually spirals downward toward uncharted depths, while illustrating the unpredictable battle between the conscious and the unconscious that exists inside every individual. Moreover, the poem appears to follow a dreamlike sequence past numerous, vivid images that are mainly artificial recreations of the narrator’s (most likely Coleridge’s) previous thoughts and experiences.
Kubla Khan, however, is predominantly a mosaic of fragments of thoughts and incomplete themes. Most likely, the reader observes that poetic material perpetually escapes Coleridge’s full attention, while the poem simultaneously contains profound gushes of documented creativity. One is led to believe that this continual tension between recorded and unrecorded poetic thought creates the unique narrative sequence and the mysterious, disturbing quality that embodies Coleridge’s story of Kubla Khan.
Moreover, these various fragments all combine to instill a sense of ambiguity throughout the poem. In a sense, as the poem progresses, the audience discovers further and more troublesome questions regarding its message and its implications. The audience, perhaps, even begins to wonder if there are indeed absolute answers or whether Coleridge consciously intended to create an unresolved poem. Amid this unsettling tumult of questions, one is left to dedicatedly follow Coleridge’s journey in a sequential manner in an attempt to consider and ponder these ambiguities as they arise. Inevitably, however, lingering questions will ...
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...urmoil that boils within every man’s unconscious as a result of this Original Sin?
Kubla Khan, however, offers no firm conclusion to the many universal questions that its narrator plants and cultivates within his audience. The audience is left to turn away from the poem frightened – frightened by the poem’s promise that man can control neither the progression of the “sacred river” that is his own mind nor the horrific explosions of his own ‘icy caves’ of unconscious being. The symbolic images of Kubla Khan, therefore, appear truthful and relevant and frightening. Moreover, the audience is never truly able to escape these images and symbols, for the poem itself provides no firm or reassuring conclusion. Perhaps the ambiguous ending of Kubla Khan will serve as a firm beginning for another poet’s unconscious journey, much as Purchas’s Pilgrimage did so for Coleridge.
Many people were puzzled on why the young man decided to go on such an expedition without being properly prepared. His death has led to a controversy between whether he should be idolized for having the courage to follow his dream or repulsed for his grand stupidity. Although Krakauer never met McCandless, he provides his readers with personal examples that explain why the young man went on this journey. Expecting his readers to comprehend McCandless, Krakauer’s primary purpose is to help his readers understand the importance of embracing one's personal dreams. In order to achieve his purpose, he uses a variation of literary and rhetorical techniques. Some of these techniques include epigrams and ethos. These devices are essential to Krakauer’s purpose because they illustrate and explain the reasons why McCandless went into the inhospitable landscape of Alaska.
The most important part in writing a novel is to enable the audience to understand what is being communicated. Krakauer did so by clearly communicating his message to his audience. He wanted to share the story of McCandless, a young man who dreamt of conquering the wilderness alone. This conquest ultimately ended in failure and cast a feeling of sorrow upon his family and friends. With the exception of a slight difficulty to understand the story during certain chapters, Krakauer’s novel was full of thrill of emotion and life-lessons.
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..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a meaningless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The “Dirge” which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The “Dirge” the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearing’s poem have eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite effectively established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence and not the presence of meaning in life.
To fully understand this poem, the reader would find it helpful to know what led Coleridge to write it. Coleridge grew up with English essayist Charles Lamb in school and the two were close friends (Merriman.) In their later years, however, the two rarely saw each other as Coleridge lived in the country side and Lamb lived in the city, where he cared for his mentally ill sister (Merriman.) On one of the rare days Lamb went to visit him, Coleridge planed to go on a walk through the scenic area surrounding his house with Lamb and some other friends, but before they left, Coleridge’s wife accidentally dropped boiling milk on his foot and he was unable to participate in the walk (Benzon.) While the others gallivanted across the countryside, Coleridge sat in his garden and wrote this poem.
We live in the era of technology and telehealth is becoming a part of our lives. According to Guido (2014), telehealth Is a removal of time and distance barriers for the delivery of health care services and related health care activities. Internet and other communication technologies are the means for health care professionals to practice across state lines.
Men are more likely to pursue college majors and advanced degrees in fields that lead to higher-paying careers.
These factors cannot be ignored because they account for a large part of the discrepancy in wages between men and women. For example, when considering education, it is interesting to note that 14 percent of all master’s degrees earned by women were in business management. In contrast, white men earn 44 percent of the degrees. Furthermore, only 14 percent of women in business actually aspire to be a CEO, compared to 45 percent of men. 3
Throughout the beginning of the poem there are religious undertones Coleridge uses words like bended knee and reverential to highlight a religious belief and perhaps a plea to God to cure the “Pains of Sleep” this is interesting as he seems to feel “humbled” by the spirit presence. He mentions being weak but realises he is blest by this power. The religious undertone suggests to me a feeling of utter helplessness.
or the poet himself, he said. He chooses no casual settings or circumstances. for these two poems. For Coleridge the mind cannot take its feelings from nature and cannot imbue nature with its own feelings, as in the Nightingale poem. Coleridge shows us that human feelings and the forms of nature are mainly separate from the.
Mileur, J. 1982. Coleridge and the Art of Immanence. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Although both “Kubla Khan,” by Samuel Coleridge and “Ode on Grecian Urn,” by John Keats are poems originating from the poets’ inspiration from historical figure, the two poems convey different messages through their respective metaphors. While Coleridge emphasizes on the process of creating a Romantic poem, Keats expresses his opinion about art by carefully examining the details of the Grecian urn.
It is believed that “Kubla Khan” was created by Coleridge when he was in a deep sleep that was induced by the use of opiates which were prescribed for dysentery. He fell asleep while reading Purcha’s Pilgrimage about building of Kubla Khan’s palace and garden. When he woke up from experiencing the dream in which he created the poem he began writing it down. He was part way through writing the poem and was interrupted by a person from the nearby town of Porlock. After this interruption he was unable to complete the poem because his access to the dream was lost. The unfinished work was not published for three decades. Much mystery has enshrouded “Kubla Khan” and it’s meaning due to the circumstances of it’s creation. The poem itself is as mystical and interesting as the story behind its creation.
Through alliteration and imagery, Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that become unfixed to the reader. Coleridge uses alliteration throughout the poem, in which the reader “hovers” between imagination and reality. As the reader moves through the poem, they feel as if they are traveling along a river, “five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (25). The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene that the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the r...
It is this moment of recollection that he wonders about the contrast between the world of shadows and the world of the Ideal. It is in this moment of wonder that man struggles to reach the world of Forms through the use of reason. Anything that does not serve reason is the enemy of man. Given this, it is only logical that poetry should be eradicated from society. Poetry shifts man’s focus away from reason by presenting man with imitations of objects from the concrete world.