Romantic literature explores the mystery that lies at the heart of nature and the human connection and imagination that occurs within it. In his poem “Kubla Khan,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, does just this through an internal exploration of his own emotional and intuitive depths while attempting to recreate poetry that came to him in an opium-induced dream after reading a work on Xanadu, the summer palace of Kubla Khan, the Mongol ruler, and Emperor of China. Once awake he wrote down the poem of his dreams but was sadly left with what he calls a fragment, since he was interrupted before finishing. In the poem, he describes the Kubla Khan’s empire within the walls of his palace and the vast unknown nature outside of them and through his tone and word use exemplifies just how mysterious the natural world seems compared to human civilization.
In the first stanza, …show more content…
27) and finally to the "lifeless ocean" (l. 28). The change from "sunless" to "lifeless" from the first stanza to the second symbolizes how the ocean marked the end of the river 's force, or life, which had so enthralled him. Towards the end of the second stanza, Coleridge juxtaposes the natural world to the human-made to show how it is all in harmony. From the waves of the Alph reflecting the image of the palace to the combined sounds of the river itself, the picture of Xanadu cannot live without it all. "A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!" (l. 36) further exemplifies this as the preposition "with" forever unites the safety of the palace to the mystic of the natural world around it. This harmony between human and nature Coleridge finds so melodious that he again uses a woman to help visualize the sound. He uses "a damsel with a dulcimer" (l. 37) and his reliving of the experience she offered through her music to bring the musical sound of harmony to the
In the first stanza, …show more content…
27) and finally to the "lifeless ocean" (l. 28). The change from "sunless" to "lifeless" from the first stanza to the second symbolizes how the ocean marked the end of the river 's force, or life, which had so enthralled him. Towards the end of the second stanza, Coleridge juxtaposes the natural world to the human-made to show how it is all in harmony. From the waves of the Alph reflecting the image of the palace to the combined sounds of the river itself, the picture of Xanadu cannot live without it all. "A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!" (l. 36) further exemplifies this as the preposition "with" forever unites the safety of the palace to the mystic of the natural world around it. This harmony between human and nature Coleridge finds so melodious that he again uses a woman to help visualize the sound. He uses "a damsel with a dulcimer" (l. 37) and his reliving of the experience she offered through her music to bring the musical sound of harmony to the