5.1. Romanticism + Kubla Khan

This presentation was by Wafa & Ibtsam. Romanticism + Kubla Khan.

1. Course Title: Poetry
Course Code & NO.: LANE 447
Course Instructor: Dr. Fatima Elyas
Presented by :
Wafa Al-thibyani
Ibtisam Al-
ahmari

3. Romanticism has very little to do with
things popularly thought of as "romantic,"
although love may occasionally be the
subject of Romantic art. Rather, it is an
international artistic and philosophical
movement that redefined the fundamental
ways in which people in Western cultures
thought about themselves and about their
world.
The early Romantic period thus coincides
with what is often called the "age of
revolutions"--including, of course, the
American (1776) and the French (1789)
revolutions--an age of upheavals in
political, economic, and social traditions, the
age which witnessed the initial
transformations of the Industrial
Revolution.
1785- 1830
Romanticism

4. Characteristics of
Romanticism
- The characteristics of Romantic poetry
are that it emphasizes feeling, and
imagination.
- Others feel that it emphasizes
individualism, freedom from rules,
spontaneity, solitary life rather then
life in society, and the love of beauty
and nature.

5. The main stream of poetry in the eighteenth
century had been orderly and polished,
without much feeling for nature. Heroic
couplets were used for this verse, but various
writers had broken away from the form and
the thought. In spite of this, the publication of
the frits edition of the Lyrical Ballads1 ( 1798 )
came as a shock. The critics considered the
language too simple and the change too
violent. This important book the signal of the
beginning the romantic age -- was the joint
work of William Words Worth and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, often known with Southey,
as the Lake Poets, because they liked the
lake district in the north west of England and
lived in it.
English Romanticism

6. English Romanticism
Wordsworth was a poet of nature, and
had the special ability to throw a charm over
ordinary things. Coleridge, on the other
hand, could make mysterious event
acceptable to a reader's mind.
Neither of them used the old language of
poetry much.
Wordsworth was so filed with the love of
nature that, in later editions of the Lyrical
Ballads, he said that the language of poetry
ought to be the same as the language of a
simple farm-worker. yet he could not keep to
this idea himself; his imagination led him far
beyond the life and thoughts of a
countryman.

7. Coleridge in 1795.

He was born on 21
October 1772, in England.

He died on 25 July 1834 ,
in England.

His occupation was Poet,
critic, philosopher.
His Literary movement was
Romanticism.
His notable work (s) are
The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner, and Kubla Khan.

8. 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 sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
”
Kubla Khan

9. And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this 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,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

10. The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
•

11. I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them
there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise

12. This poem describes Xanadu, the palace of Kubla Khan, a Mongol
emperor and the grandson of Genghis Khan. The poem's
speaker starts by describing the setting of Emperor's palace,
which he calls a "pleasure dome." He tells us about a river
that runs across the land and then flows through some
underground caves and into the sea. He also tells us about the
fertile land that surrounds the palace. The nearby area is
covered in streams, sweet-smelling trees, and beautiful
forests.
Then the speaker gets excited about the river again and tells
us about the canyon through which it flows. He makes it into a
spooky, haunted place, where you might find a "woman
wailing for her demon lover." He describes how the river leaps
and smashes through the canyon, first exploding up into a
noisy fountain and then finally sinking down and flowing
through those underground caves into the ocean far away.
Explains :

13. The speaker then goes on to describe Kubla
Khan himself, who is listening to this noisy
river and thinking about war. All of a sudden,
the speaker moves away from this landscape
and tells us about another vision he had, where
he saw a woman playing an instrument and
singing. The memory of her song fills him with
longing, and he imagines himself singing his
own song, using it to create a vision of Xanadu.
Toward the end, the poem becomes more
personal and mysterious, as the speaker
describes past visions he has had. This brings
him to a final image of a terrifying figure with
flashing eyes. This person, Kubla Khan, is a
powerful being who seems almost godlike:
"For he on honey-dew hath .fed/And drunk the
milk of paradise.

14. Major themes
Theme of Man and the Natural World:
The interaction between man and nature is a
major theme for Coleridge. It's painted all
over "Kubla Khan," as we go from the dome
to the river, and then from the gardens to the
sea. Sometimes he's focused on human
characters, sometimes on natural forces. In
fact, it's difficult to get away from this theme
in this poem. Think of this tension as a tug-of
war between humans and their temporary
constructions (buildings) and the seeming
permanence of nature.

15. Coleridge makes this one easy
for us since the subtitle of the
poem is "a Vision in a Dream."
This poem is meant to make us
feel like we are in an alternate
reality. We recognize all the
objects he describes, but the
images he creates move in
ways we don't expect. People
appear and disappear
strangely, just like in a dream
or a hallucination. Think of it as
a scary Alice in Wonderland.
Theme of Versions of Reality:

16. Figures of Speech :

17. Simile
Huge fragments vaulted like
rebounding hail (line 21)
Comparison of upward thrust of
the fragments to that of
rebounding hail
As if this earth in fast thick pants
were breathing
Comparison of the the earth to a
living, breathing thing
•

18. Resources
http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Colerid
ge
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/coleridge/section
5.rhtml
http://en.Wikipedia. org/wiki/Romanticism
http://www. enotes. com/kubla-khan-criticism/ckubla-
khan- samuel-taylor-coleridge
http://www.online-literature.com/periods/ php