Advertisements
Advertisements
Question
Which are the lines that refer to magical elements?
Solution
In Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, imagination is controlled by thought and study through refined, sustained, psychological techniques of mystery, fear, and awe.
- The atmosphere of supernatural mystery is created through the description of the pleasure dome and its surrounding environment. The poetic inspiration has something supernatural in it as is depicted in the words- “And all should cry, Beware!/ Beware!/ His flashing eyes, his floating hair!/ weave a circle round him thrice/ and/ Close eyes with holy dread for/ him on/ Honey- drew hath fed and/ drunk the/ Milk of Paradise.” These lines set a mysterious yet fearful note in the poem.
- Kubla Khan is a poem that transforms the general, monotonous world into a world of awe and enchantment: “Through caverns measureless to man/ Down to a sunless sea.” Again the lines, “Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree” create an intense magical world.
- “But oh! That deep romantic chasm which/ slanted”- uphold the image of a world which is in some sort of trance or spell cast by some unknown power.
- The description of the dome is innately beautiful and captivates the reader with its magnificent charm- “It was a miracle of rare device,/ A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice.”
- Further, the fascinating hold in the mariner’s gaze and the sudden revival of the mysterious skeleton, woman and the mate, the abrupt sinking of the ship, and the conversation of the polar spirits between themselves- all impose upon the reader a magical experience.
APPEARS IN
RELATED QUESTIONS
Find out where the river Alph is.
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?
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"?
