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| | TEXT OF "Kubla Khan, A fragment of a vision in a dream" BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: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 here 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!
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!
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 't would win me
That with music loud and long,
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.ANALYSIS OF "A fragment of a vision in a dream(Kubla Khan)" BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE:He is a visionary poet. This poem is symbolic and he proposes a lot of symbols, that create an ideal world. This is a fragment of a vision in a dream: in fact, he was writing when someone rang door’s bell and when he returned he had no more inspiration. Kubla Khan represents the poet, especially the romantic poet who writes always on himself. Romantic poetry is chaotic. There are symbols about his mind, his soul and his poetry qualities. Kubla Khan orders the construction of a palace in Xanadu, the ancient capital town of China. Maybe this palace represents his ideal rich world, full of contrasting things: it has caverns, roots, rills and it mirrors the life, that isn’t simple as Romantics wanted to suggest us. He is an omnivore reader, he gives vision of his inner reality, which is extremely vary and contradictory. He wants chaos, something more complex, there is no one regularity. Coleridge describes the palace as “stately pleasure dome”: it comes from the word “state”, and so it is connected with politics(politic life, public function, social life). “Pleasure” belongs to another sphere: the hedonism. “Dome” came from the Latin word “domus”, which means “house” and now it is referred to religion, art and architecture. Coleridge describes the river Alph, that represents the fertility of his mind and his inner struggle. It ran through caverns and it is an underground river. Alpheous is his creativity and the water is symbol of life, purification, his cultural roots, the fertility of his mind and his subconscious wealth. He refuses simplification of the rationalism. There are different levels of investigation of the soul(psyche): sinuous rills, the river Alph and the sunless sea. The poet is not only shadow, but all, not only anguish, but spring and sun. In the 2nd stanza there’s a sinister atmosphere: there are a lot of romantic’s terms, such as “deep”, “cedarn cover”(cedarn is a very precious wood, 50 metres tall), “savage”, “holy and enchanted”(an antithesis), “waning moon”, “haunted” and “demon”. There’s also a reference to a woman, who is a personification of romantic poetry: it’s gothic, disquieting. Poetry is a demon lover. Demoniac passion between poetry and poem. When poetry calls, Alph emerges from underground. Alph has its mouth in Sicily and its spring was in Ionian Sea(Greece). It emerges from the chasm and it ran through wood. The river didn’t go straight because it is complex and it follows natural irregularities of the background. His inspiration goes back in the depth of his soul. “Ancestral voices” prophesying war: it reminds war between rationality and romantic forces, social wars, his poetry provokes war, it’s part of his poetry, it was torn by an inner war. In the last stanza he mentions a “damsel”, who plays a dulcimer(while the other woman was possessed by demon). Women are both muses and they are the personification of poetry’s inspiration. Myth says that in Mount Abora there was the spring of the river Nile. In the last lines, poet describes an act of exorcism(“Weave a circle round him thrice), to isolate a demon(Satan or Lucifer). The poetry has an irregular method: romantic writers are mixture between measure and rejection(discard) of measure. Fonte: Pavi92 https://myenglish.blogfree.net/
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