Samuel Taylor Coleridge 17721834

1
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834)

• English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher,
  whose Lyrical Ballads, written with Wordsworth,
  started the English Romantic movement.
• Although Coleridge's poetic achievement was small
  in quantity, his metaphysical anxiety,
  anticipating modern existentialism, has gained
  him reputation as an authentic visionary.
• In Cambridge Coleridge met the radical, future
  poet laureate Robert Southey (1774-1843) in 1794.
  Coleridge moved with him to Bristol to establish
  a community, but the plan failed.
• In 1795 he married the sister of Southey's
  fiancée Sara Fricker, whom he did not really
  love.

2
Coleridge and Wordsworth

• Coleridge's collection Poems On Various Subjects
  was published in 1796, and in 1797 appeared
  Poems. In the same year he began the publication
  of a short-lived liberal political periodical The
  Watchman.
• He started a close friendship with Dorothy and
  William Wordsworth, one of the most fruitful
  creative relationships in English literature.
• From it resulted Lyrical Ballads, which opened
  with Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'
  and ended with Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey.'
• These poems set a new style by using everyday
  language and fresh ways of looking at nature.

3
Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• This 625-line ballad is among his essential
  works. It tells of a sailor who kills an
  albatross and for that crime against nature
  endures terrible punishments.
• The ship upon which the Mariner serves is trapped
  in a frozen sea. An albatross comes to the aid of
  the ship, it saves everyone, and stays with the
  ship until the Mariner shoots it with his
  crossbow.

4
Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• The motiveless malignity leads to punishment
• And now there came both mist and show,
• And it grew wondrous cold
• And ice, mast high, came floating by,
• As green as emerald.
• After a ghost ship passes the crew begin to die
  but the mariner is eventually rescued. He knows
  his penance will continue and he is only a
  machine for dictating always the one story.

5
Coleridge and Kant

• Disenchanted with the political developments in
  France, he visited Germany in 1798-99 with the
  Wordsworths, and became interested in the works
  of Immanuel Kant. He studied philosophy at
  Göttingen University and mastered German.
• In 1799 Coleridge fell in love with Sara
  Hutchinson, the sister of Wordsworth's future
  wife, to whom he devoted his work Dejection An
  Ode (1802). During these years Coleridge also
  began to compile his Notebooks, daily meditations
  of his life.
• Suffering from neuralgic and rheumatic pains,
  Coleridge had became addicted to opium, freely
  prescribed by physicians. In 1804 he sailed to
  Malta in search of better health. He worked two
  years as secretary to the governor of Malta, and
  later traveled through Sicily and Italy,
  returning then to England.

6
Kubla Khan Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment.

• From 1808 to 1818 he he gave several lectures,
  chiefly in London, and was considered the
  greatest of Shakespearean critics.
• Kubla Khan was inspired by a dream. In the
  summer of 1797 the author had retired to a lonely
  farm-house between Porlock and Linton.
• He had taken anodyne and after three hours sleep
  he woke up with a clear image of the poem.
  Disturbed by a visitor, he lost the vision, with
  the exception of some eight or ten scattered
  lines and images.
• Modern scholarship is skeptical of this story,
  but it reflects Coleridge's problems to manage
  practical life and finish his ideas.

7
Coleridge's note
Coleridges farm-house

• The following fragment is here published at the
  request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity
  Lord Byron, and, as far as the Author's own
  opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological
  curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed
  poetic merits.
• In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then
  in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house
  between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor
  confines of Somerset and Devonshire.
• In consequence of a slight indisposition, an
  anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of
  which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment
  that he was reading the following sentence, or
  words of the same substance, in Purchas's
  Pilgrimage Here the Khan Kubla commanded a
  palace to be built, and a stately garden
  thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground
  were inclosed with a wall.''

Porlock Bay
Coleridges farm-house
8
Coleridge's note

• The Author continued for about three hours in a
  profound sleep, at least of the external senses,
  during which time he has the most vivid
  confidence, that he could not have composed less
  than from two to three hundred lines
• if that indeed can be called composition in which
  all the images rose up before him as things, with
  a parallel production of the correspondent
  expressions, without any sensation or
  consciousness of effort.
• On awakening he appeared to himself to have a
  distinct recollection of the whole, and taking
  his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly
  wrote down the lines that are here preserved.

9

• At this moment he was unfortunately called out by
  a person on business from Porlock, and detained
  by him above an hour, and on his return to his
  room, found, to his no small surprise and
  mortification, that though he still retained some
  vague and dim recollection of the general purport
  of the vision, yet, with the exception of some
  eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the
  rest had passed away like the images on the
  surface of a stream into which a stone has been
  cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of
  the latter!

10
Kubla Khan

• Kublai Khan (1215-1294) was the fifth of the
  Mongol great khans and the founder of the Yüan
  Dynasty in China (1279-1368).
• He is best known in the West as the Cublai Kaan
  of Marco Polo.
• Kublai founded what was intended to be his
  brother's new capital but became in effect his
  own summer residence, the town of Kaiping. It
  later was named Shang-tu or 'Upper Capital' and
  was immortalised as the Xanadu of Coleridge's
  poem.

11
The Form of Kubla Khan

• The chant-like, musical incantations of "Kubla
  Khan" result from Coleridge's masterful use of
  iambic tetrameter and alternating rhyme schemes.
• The first stanza is written in tetrameter with a
  rhyme scheme of ABAABCCDEDE, alternating between
  staggered rhymes and couplets.
• The second stanza expands into tetrameter and
  follows roughly the same rhyming pattern, also
  expanded-- ABAABCCDDFFGGHIIHJJ.
• The third stanza tightens into tetrameter and
  rhymes ABABCC.
• The fourth stanza continues the tetrameter of the
  third and rhymes ABCCBDEDEFGFFFGHHG.

12
Stanza 1
an introduction - the ruler, the place, the
decree

• In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome
  decree Where Alph, the sacred river,
  ranThrough caverns measureless to manDown to a
  sunless sea.

Alpheus the classical underground river
The Latin origin of the word sacred has 2
meanings sacer 'holy' or 'connected with a god
of the underworld' the surroundings of the river
perhaps suit the second meaning best at least a
considerable stretch of the river runs
underground.
caverns (caves etc.) of measureless, "superhuman"
dimensions, i.e. of expanses which man (human
skill or the powers of the human mind) is not
able to "fathom" both in a literal and figurative
sense.
The rivers final destination is a place of
extreme darkness and indefinite depth (down to a
sunless sea).
http//englishromantics.com/kublakhan/index.htm
13
Stanza 1 (conti.)
fulfilment of the decree

• So twice five miles of fertile groundWith 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.

Amidst ancient hills, shelter is offered by
ancient forests which encompass sunny spots, i.e.
clearings lighted and warmed by the sun (appeal
to visual and tactile perception) which can serve
as spaces for sport, play etc. A spectrum of
colours can be associated with the words bright,
blossomed (various colours eternal spring?),
sunny and greenery (implicitly in contrast to the
darker green of the surrounding trees).
A vivid picture of the landscape is given here
twice five miles of ground are reserved for the
"project". The area is girdled (surrounded,
confined) by walls and towers.
Natural conditions and the results of artificial
shaping seem to connect to an ideal kind of
environment fertile ground provides an ideal
basis for cultivation of various kinds, e.g. of a
park-like area here were gardens bright with
sinuous rills the appeal to the eye is matched
by fragrancy dispersed by many an incense-bearing
tree.
14

• In "Kubla Khan," Samuel Taylor Coleridge employs
  a superficially loose and disjointed construction
  which is actually carefully designed to trigger
  associations of imagery that produce mental
  echoes of juxtaposed impressions.
• The lack of a consistent rhyme scheme, the uneven
  division of stanzas, and the use of iambic meter
  with a varying number of feet all contribute to a
  sense of disorientation, which in turn
  facilitates the process of mental echoing. The
  most important element of this effect, however,
  are the images themselves

15
Stanza 2

• But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which
  slantedDown the green hill athwart a cedarn
  cover !A savage place ! as holy and enchantedAs
  e'er beneath a waning moon was hauntedBy woman
  wailing for her demon-lover !

Comparison (as ... as) of the place with a
haunted place, here with a place visited
frequently by a woman, or a woman's spirit,
"qualifies" it as a cursed place and makes it an
ideal setting for a scene of "forbidden longing
or mourning" (wailing), and forbidden love
between humans and demonic powers (the woman
demon-lover). Classically, such a scene is set
beneath a waning moon (atmosphere!).
In a mere five lines, Coleridge evokes a rush of
impressions encompassing such disparate subjects
as sex, nature, and religion. Unable to integrate
this apposition of imagery rationally, the
conscious mind gives way to the subconscious
process of association, thus leaving the reader
with a series of fantastic and mysterious
impressions that are felt rather than understood.
First, a climactically arranged sequence of
adjectives casts a mysterious or sinister light
on the place the chasm is deep (enhancing the
meaning of the word chasm proper s.a.) ,
romantic (associations connected with beautiful,
and wild, landscape, adventure, danger, mystery,
love etc. cf. following words) and savage
(naturally wild, untamed, i.e. hard to keep in
check etc.).
On one peculiar green hill a chasm , i.e., a deep
crack, crevice etc., runs downward through, or
across, a thicket of cedar trees (slanted /
down ... athwart ... " across, especially in a
sloping direction" note multiple meaning and
connotations of cover thicket roof, shelter
etc., hiding place concealing something from
sight).
16

• And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil
  seething,As if this earth in fast thick pants
  were breathing,A mighty fountain momently was
  forcedAmid whose swift half-intermitted
  burstHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding
  hail,Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's
  flailAnd 'mid these dancing rocks at once and
  everIt flung up momently the sacred river.

With the help of illustrative comparisons, a
graphic description of an eruption is given From
this chasm ... A mighty fountain is forced,
i.e. driven out of the ground by geological or
supernatural forces, momently, i.e. at that
moment, or at intervals. The gigantic and
powerful ejection of water is seething with
endless turmoil, displaying the visual and
auditory properties of a liquid reaching its
boiling point.
Perhaps, Alph is the source of this eruption. A
complex simile illustrates the phenomenon this
earth shows traits of a suffering human or
god(dess), breathing ... in fast thick pants,
i.e. fighting for breath etc., and, finally,
bringing up the cause of the trouble (cf. phlegm
in supernatural terms the evil).
Comparisons with familiar phenomena serve to
create a graphic picture The rocks are likened
to rebounding hail, the grains of which hit the
ground, bounce off, and fall again Chaffy grain
behaves in a similar way when, in order to
separate the chaff from the usable grain, wheat
etc. is beaten beneath the thresher's flail, a
stick with a club attached to it formerly used
for this purpose.
The sacred river throws itself up violently
(flung up) amidst these dancing rocks. Its
eruption takes place at once, i.e. either
simultaneously, or suddenly the 1st meaning
would rather suggest that Alph is identical with
the fountain, assuming a new form and quality,
and is continuing to erupt the 2nd meaning would
imply that this eruption is additional to that of
the fountain, and that Alph does not begin to
mingle with it until this point (cf. back-
ground).
The magma etc. breaks forth with very great
speed, at short intervals, or continuously, with
increasing and decreasing intensity (swift
half-intermitted burst) among this matter huge
fragments, i.e. enormous boulders of rock, or
lumps of magma, are hurled into the air (vault
"jump" connotation the trajectories of the
falling fragments arch like a vault).
17
Stanza 2 (conti.)
Running in bends, changing its direction as if
moving through a labyrinth.

• Five miles meandering with a mazy motionThrough
  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 farAncestral voices prophesying
  war !

Amid this tumult, Kubla perceives Ancestral
voices, i.e. the voices of (wise) forefathers, or
those of religious prophets etc. They come from
far (figurative meaning from heaven etc.),
announcing the event of war, which implies the
destruction of the pleasure-dome etc. and loss of
human life.
18
Stanza 3
Repeating the contrasting images of the sunny
pleasure-dome (connotations warmth, brightness
etc.) and the caves of ice ( caverns, s.a.
connotations cold, darkness etc.) the speaker
gives his evaluation of the phenomenon depicted
in the preceding lines he terms it as a miracle,
i.e. an unexpected event of a super- natural
kind, and, at the same time, as based upon a very
peculiar kind of design or plan (of rare device).

• The shadow of the dome of pleasureFloated midway
  on the waves Where was heard the mingled
  measureFrom the fountain and the caves.It was a
  miracle of rare device,A sunny pleasure-dome
  with caves of ice !

Here one finds oneself on the "dark" side of the
pleasure-dome which casts its shadow on the
surface of the flowing lava and/or water where it
is reflected and appears to be moving on the
flow. In this way the material manifestation of
too great human ambition or aspiration as the
potential source of catastrophe, is associated
with the disaster. Auditory impressions blend
with the visual ones at the same location, the
mingled measure (mixed acoustic quality) of the
noises originating from the fountain and the
caves is audible.
19
Stanza 4

• It is thought that the final stanza of the poem,
  thematizing the idea of the lost vision through
  the figure of the "damsel with a dulcimer" and
  the milk of Paradise, was written
  post-interruption.
• The mysterious person from Porlock is one of the
  most notorious and enigmatic figures in
  Coleridge's biography no one knows who he was or
  why he disturbed the poet or what he wanted or,
  indeed, whether any of Coleridge's story is
  actually true.
• But the person from Porlock has become a metaphor
  for the malicious interruptions the world throws
  in the way of inspiration and genius, and "Kubla
  Khan," strange and ambiguous as it is, has become
  what is perhaps the definitive statement on the
  obstruction and thwarting of the visionary
  genius.

20
Stanza 4
Deeply impressed, the speaker voices a complex
wish, the first part of which explicitly refers
to the vision itself which he would like to
reproduce and re-experience in his mind.
The imagination of this scene would give him, or
gain him, very intensive, profound pleasure. The
speaker is not only conscious of the emotional
impact of the vision (the delight) but also of
the potential inspirational powers connected with
this delight as an "imaginative potential" it is
the essential prerequisite to the fulfilment of
another part of his wish - his own building or
designing of a paradise-like place.

• A damsel with a dulcimerIn a vision once I saw
  It was an Abyssinian maid,And on her dulcimer
  she played,Singing of Mount Abora.Could I
  revive within meHer 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 !

In contrast to Kubla's palace etc. and particular
features of the landscape of Xanadu, that (sunny)
dome and those caves of ice would be built in
air, i.e. be founded on an immaterial basis
(associations "lofty" sky or heaven as opposed
to "low" earth, the light versus the heavy
element, over-all brightness versus (partial)
darkness the poetic genius' immaterial,
indestructible paradise versus the commanding
genius' doomed paradise of material gigantomania,
etc.).
The process of "building" this paradise-like
place would, according to the speaker's
imagination, be accompanied by music (cf. the
nature and quality of the damsel's music s.a.
celestial music, harmony of the spheres) loud and
long, i.e. of a great intensity and extensive
(eternal?) duration.
The speaker recalls a vision, i.e. a beautiful
sight and/or a dreamlike experience, which,
however, is not restricted to visual impressions
a damsel, or maid, from Abyssinia (location of
"Eden"), sings of Mount Abora (high place,
mountain of the Gods etc. "Mount Amara", the
place where "Abassin", i.e. Abyssinian princes
were reared). She accompanies herself on a
dulcimer.
21
Stanza 4
The speaker's imagination leaves this place open
to all who heard, i.e. everybody who has been
able or willing to perceive the music or the
poem he wishes (should...) or invites them to
use their own imagination and see themselves
there. The reaction he expects of them (... all
should cry, Beware! ...), cries of warning, fear,
awe etc., is directed towards the dominating
figure of the last part of the poem.
The speaker demands of the reader or listener to
perform acts of great reverence or awe etc.
towards this figure the first act, which reminds
of symbolic gestures performed during a religious
or magic conjuration or incantation, is to Weave
a circle round him thrice (Weave a circle here
to describe a circle by symbolic gestures).
The second act is to close your eyes with holy
dread, i.e. with awe towards a superhuman being.
The figure represented by the words his and he is
characterised by flashing eyes which might have a
blinding effect on humans, floating hair, i.e.
hair moving in the wind or storm (cf. pictorial
representations of ancient gods), and finally, by
the assumption that He on honey-dew has fed /
And drunk the milk of Paradise, i.e. has been
entitled to share the privileges of gods (cf. the
ancient gods' consuming ambrosia and nectar).
In contrast to Kubla, the "commanding genius", he
appears to be the legitimate, "absolute genius"
in command of "Paradise regained", i.e. a god or
a figure entitled to the rights of a god, God the
Almighty, etc. The figure could theoretically be
identical with the speaker of the poem, who,
inspired by the muses (the damsel), would have
attained the status of a "poetic genius" in
command of a paradise of imagination, i.e. the
realm of the poet's inspiration in this case,
the last four lines would rather be uttered by
all than by the speaker himself.

• 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.

22
Bitter Life

• In 1810 Coleridge's friendship with Wordsworth
  came to crisis, and the two poets never fully
  returned to the relationship they had earlier.
• During the following years Coleridge lived in
  London, on the verge of suicide. After a physical
  and spiritual crisis at Greyhound Inn, Bath, he
  submitted himself to a series of medical régimes
  to free himself from opium.
• He found a permanent harbor in Highgate in the
  household of Dr. James Gillman, and enjoyed
  almost legendary reputation among the younger
  Romantics. During this time he rarely left the
  house.

23
The End of his Life

• In 1816 the unfinished poems Christabel and
  Kubla Khan were published, and next year
  appeared Sibylline Leaves.
• After 1817 Coleridge devoted himself to
  theological and politico-sociological works - his
  final position was that of a Romantic
  conservative and Christian radical.
• He also contributed to several magazines, among
  them Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
• Coleridge was elected a fellow of the Royal
  Society of Literature in 1824.
• He died in Highgate, near Londonon July 25, 1834.

24
Wordsworth Coleridge

• Wordsworth is clearly more entitled than
  Coleridge to be considered the leader in creating
  and also in expounding a new kind of poetry.
• Until Coleridge met Wordsworth, which was
  probably in 1795, he wrote in the manner which
  had been fashionable since the death of Milton,
  employing without hesitation all those poetic
  licenses which constituted what he later termed
  Gaudyverse,' in contempt.
• If one reads Coleridge's early poems in
  chronological order, one will perceive that
  Gaudyverse persists till about the middle of
  1795, and then quickly yields to the natural
  style which Wordsworth was practicing.

25
Coleridges Conversation Poems

• Coleridge's shorter, meditative "conversation
  poems," proved to be the most influential of his
  work.
• Conversation poems are poems in which the speaker
  addresses his lines to a listener within the
  poem, generally a listener who has little voice
  of his own.
• These include both quiet poems like This
  Lime-Tree Bower My Prison and Frost at Midnight
  and also strongly emotional poems like Dejection
  and The Pains of Sleep.
• Wordsworth immediately adopted the model of these
  poems, and used it to compose several of his
  major poems. Via Wordsworth, the conversation
  poem became a standard vehicle for English poetic
  expression, and perhaps the most common approach
  among modern poets.