Advertisements
Advertisements
Question
Find out where the river Alph is.
Solution
The river Alph, located in an ice-free region at the west of the Koettliz Glacier, initiates from Trough Lake and flows through Walcott Lake, Howchin Lake, and the Alph Lake. However, in the context of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, the river Alph is introduced to focus on the vigor of the water body and to depict the contrasting images of the calmness and serenity of the natural surrounding and the noisy, active insurgency of the river Alph.
APPEARS IN
RELATED QUESTIONS
Does the poem have a real geographical location? How does the poet mix up the real and the imaginary to give a sense of the surreal?
Pick out
contrasting images that are juxtaposed throughout the poem.
Pick out
images that strike the eye and images that strike the ear, both positive and negative.
Pick out
the words used to describe the movement of water.
What is the discordant note heard at the end of the third stanza? Can we relate this to the grandeur and turmoil that are a part of an emperor’s life?
Which are the lines that refer to magical elements?
What is poetic ecstasy likened to?
The poem is a fragment. What do you think has made it a lasting literary piece?
Write short descriptions of five other rare musical instruments that are used by folk cultures.
The poem is a product of the subconscious fusion of dream images and ideas from Coleridge’s wide reading. Which of the details in the poem do you think are factual, and which imaginary? Surf the internet to get interesting details.
| 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! |
- How is the chasm described in these lines?
- What did Kubla Khan hear from afar?
- Which sacred river is being referred to in the lines above?
- What are bursts of water compared to?
- What does the phrase By woman wailing for demon-lover mean?
- An apt antonym for the word ‘savage’ is ______.
- civilized
- vagabond
- severe
- ferocious
Answer the following question in 120-150 words.
Comment on the significance of the river Alph in "Kubla Khan"?
