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Question
Pick out
images that strike the eye and images that strike the ear, both positive and negative.
Solution
In Kubla Khan, we have images that strike the eyes. They are-
- Most importantly, the imagery of the name “Kubla Khan”, negates the mysterious, trance-like effect that Coleridge is actually seeking.
- The visual descriptions- “gardens bright and sinuous rills”, “incense-bearing tree”, “sunny spots of greenery” and “forests ancient as the hills” provide an effect of some dreamy recollection. These stimulate the vision of Xanadu, which is again an imaginative world of the poet.
Some auditory images presented in the poem are-
- The halting assonance in “As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing”, provides with the effect of breathing.
- The poem comes with alliteration in the introductory lines with each line closing with the words- “Kubla Khan”, “pleasure-dome decree”, “river, ran”, “measureless to man” and “sunless sea”.
- The juxtaposition of the images- “waning” and “wailing woman”, imparts the effect of a wailing sound.
- In the line- “Five miles meandering with a mazy motion”, there is an alliteration of the “m” sound and produces a kind of motion sound as it describes.
- The repetition of the “h” and “d” sounds in the lines- “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 if Paradise”, create a haunting and doomed image of the narrator.
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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"?
