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Question
Pick out
contrasting images that are juxtaposed throughout the poem.
Solution
- The poem is replete with contradictory images. As such, the noisy, active, and a little sinister river Alph is contrasted with the calm, quiet and peaceful garden of the poem.
- The ocean in the poem appears gloomy and mysterious in contrast to the sunny, warm forest.
- The dome feels warm whereas the caves are cold, freezing, and icy.
- The caverns described in the poem are gigantic, frightening, and cold and contradict the warm, peaceful and cozy environment of the palace.
- The image of the “wailing woman” is contrasted with her lover, whom Coleridge describes as a “demon”.
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| 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"?
