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Question
The poem is a fragment. What do you think has made it a lasting literary piece?
Solution
Kubla Khan is considered as one of the greatest masterpieces of the romantic era as it happened “in a sort of Reverie”, under the impact of opium. The poem dwells in binaries. The dark, gloomy, violent river is juxtaposed with the calm, serene surrounding and we get to hear the wailing of the damsel for her “demon lover”. Critics have deconstructed the poem a modern arena where darkness and corruption coexist with apparent innocence and simplicity.
The poem also combines Christian, Hinduism, and Islamic traits in its symbolic descriptions. The cross positioned on the palace of Xanadu is a reference to Jesus’ cross and the entire poem is based on the hopes of Kubla Khan, who is again from an Islamic background. The romantics believed in the Hindu view of Pantheism rather than Monotheism, and the poem hints at the presence of such facts as well. Thus, this poem has emerged as a universal piece of poetry by drawing on broad, universal, and all-encompassing themes.
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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"?
