Kubla Khan Samuel Taylor Coleridge Liem re 1. What do you know about Kubla Khan from your study of history? a bs 2. What kind of image does the name generate in your mind? “4 About the poet G Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1778-1834), one of the major Romantic poets of English literature, was a brilliant student, and went up to Jesus College, Cambridge. He won a college medal in his first year for a long poem in Greek, while going through adolescent crises of opium addiction and alcoholism. He also trapped himself into an uncongenial marriage. Later, he planned to write serious poetry, became close friends with William Wordsworth, and together they planned The Lyrical Ballads, which formed the so-called Romantic manifesto. His contributions to this collection are prime examples of his creative faculty. He conceived of many grand projects, and had difficulty carrying them through to completion. Although he berated himself for his ‘indolence’, it is unclear whether his growing use of opium was a symptom or a cause of his mounting depression. However, he wrote this visionary poem, Kubla Khan, inspired by an opium-induced dream. The poem could not be completed according to its original 200-300 line plan as an interruption caused him to forget the lines. The poem became fabled as a metaphor for opulence and splendour. + What do you think the poet might have written about Kubla Khan in the poem? Read the first stanza of the poem and check your predictions. The text In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. 5 So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round:, a nd here were gardens bright with sinuous rills \Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; \nd here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedar 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! ‘The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves: Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, ‘A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! ‘A damsel with a dulcimer Ina vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, ‘And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, s To such a deep delight ’t would win me ‘That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice!178 Vistas and Visions And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! in His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Bs Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, d And drunk the milk of Paradise oe "Section 1: lines 1-11 | + What does the poem say about Kubla Khan? | + How has Xanadu been described in stanza one? (clue: a m metaphor for magnificence and opulence) | « How does stanza 1 serve as the introduction to the poem? (dl emperor, his decree, the fulfilment of the decree) ag 7A spectrum of colours pervades stanza 1. Find out how _ worked out. 3 * Discuss the combination and interplay of the earthly ; mysterious elements of stanza 1. * What role do extreme darkness and indefinite depth play i two sections of the poem? + The natural conditions of Xanadu and the results of structures band together to form a romantic environmen poem. Would you agree? Why or why not? Section 2: lines 12-30 + A contrast to the first section is presented in this section. elements of contrast. (clue: wailing, demon-lover, ‘prophes “a lifeless ocean’, etc.) + How does the poet achieve the effect of power’? + Make a list of the dark images indicated and fashioned in ‘What effect do these images construct? (clue: mystery; of a waning paradise + The sinister images in this section interplay with a romantic images. eee how he interplay bul pe effect with the help of the images.10 Miracles Walt Whitman About the poet ‘Walt Whitman, the quintessential American poet, essayist and journalist, his craft of writing poetry from the age of twelve, when he began to learn the and fell in love with the written word, Largely self-taught, he read i acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, and the Bible. are boldly American in spirit, style and substance, and they idealised American lec workmen alike, commending nineteenth-century technology. ‘Whitman's first edition of Leaves of Grass in many ways exploded on the Ar he chronicled all facets of Ar ci the significant to the mundane. He boldly celebrated the body and the soul of America, and his own. Ignoring traditional rhyme and metre, Whitman spoke the reader in the manner of the Civil War leaders and political orators of his omnipresent ‘I’, he identified himself with the people and the republic itself. He served as a war correspondent during the Civil War, and spent a lot of his t the sick and wounded. He must have come across several young men coming back battlefields without limbs or losing sight from shrapnel and gunpowder burns, «Consider the notion of ‘miracles’ that Whitman would have used in this b a the poem. The text Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me, know of nothing else but miracles, ‘Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water, Or stand under trees in the woods, Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in the bed at night with any ¢Miracles 189 sit at table at dinner with my mother, ook at strangers Opposite me riding in the car, 10 watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon, animals feeding in the fields, » birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, \: the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of stars shining so quiet and bright, 15 or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring; Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best— mechanics, boatmen, farmers, Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to the opera, Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery, 20 Or behold children at their sports, ‘Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman, Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial, Or my own eyes and figure in the glass; These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, ‘The whole referring—yet each distinct, and in its place. To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, yaa Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same. Every foot of the interior swarms with the same; Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, of men and ‘women, and all that concerns them, Alll these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles, To me the sea is a continual miracle; pee chee The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships, with men in them, Whaat stranger miracles are there?13 Another Woman Imtiaz Dharker ‘The expression ‘another woman’ can have two meanings: a different person (woman) or she is one more woman. Which meaning would you predict the poet uses in this poem? the poet muaz Dharker (b. 1954) is a poet, artist and documentary film-maker. Awarded the Queen’s old Medal for Poetry in 2014, reci ipient of the Cholmondley Award and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, her collections include Purdah (Oxford University Press), Postcards ‘rom god, I speak for the devil and The terrorist at my table (all published by Penguin India and Bloodaxe Books UK), Leaving Fingerprints and Over the Moon (Bloodaxe Books UK). Her poems Hon he British GCSE and A Level English syllabus, and she reads with other poets at Poetry Ne events all over the country to more than 25,000 students a year. She has been Poet in Residence at Cambridge University Library, for Thresholds, and has recently completed a ‘cries of poems based on the Archives of St Paul's Cathedral, She has had ten solo exhibitions of drawings in India, London, Ne A combination of cultural distinctions characterises her poetry, art and the documentary Sims she makes. Her poetry has travelled an interesting path touching multiple cultures ang i ma of cultural exile and alienation and moves to a celebration of being unsettled even inside the security of the UK and India. Dhatker’s poems explore the themes of freedom, journeys, gender politics as well as the tensions between seeulee and religious cultures in a world of terror and emergent fundamentalism, Her poetry also deals with the warious aspects of a woman's life where she experiences injustice, oppression aad violence engineered through different cultures in different ways. Dharker is sy undaunted rebel, unwilling to retreat or to fail in this world of gender inequality. The intensity and eloquence of her life and poetic accomplishment make a fascinating study of crushing condemnation of the suppressive prescriptions against the freedom, dignity and respectable living of women, ae wt 1 there ee tobe a Worl Laurea, hr fr mete rae coud ony be fled by nie Dhara Carol Ann Dufly198 Vistas and Visions ‘Wisnea de. peogneIIMINITA Rbas ocngcy expresses the poet's compassion ag agony and distress for the silent sufferers with no voice, and ‘who accept @ ends with no promises. + Notice how the meaning of ‘another woman! has been used to ‘She crouched, as usual, on the floor beside the stove, ‘When the man came home she did not look into his face nor raise her head; but bent her back a little more. Nothing gave her the right to speak. She watched the flame hiss up and beat against the cheap old pot,Another Woman 199 a wing of brightness against its blackened cheek. This was the house she had been sent to, the man she had been bound to, the future she had been born into. ‘So when the kerosene was thrown Gust a moment of surprise, 40 a brilliant spark) it was the only choice that she had ever known. Another torch, blazing in the dark. Another woman. 45 We shield our faces from the heat. the first five lines and locate the expressions that 1 - different senses and colours. What impression do these ¢ woman and her life? > sea kind of a woman was she? (clue: lines 6-9; 11-17, — do you think so? ‘Lines 10-11, 23, 3) and35 produce const fi fe | | How is that contrast crafted? spoke ‘The usual words’ that ‘came and beat/ their wings " against her’? What were the ‘usual words’ What are the words |" compared to? Explain the use of ‘against’ here. “ Face ver site aa atthe wor do they treat her in that manner? How does she respo cruelty? Imagine yourself in the position of the woman. I _ would you react to the situation? ‘woman was never allowed to speak. Discuss her feelings "wing of brightness’. How do both the ‘wings’ affect the + Describe the cooking pot (lines 33 and 35), and how it i still 14-15), Discuss the indirect comparison between the co