Kubla Khan Theme

Grant Renner
Mrs. LaMorte
English 4 Honors P.4
6 February 2018
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” Poetry is a a form of not only expressing feelings an author has but also expressing their thoughts of society in a fantastic form of literature. Poetry was especially unique during the Romantic era. The romantic era was a time period that showed distinct characteristics throughout literature, music, and intellectual studies. Because of the recent events, the people during the time felt a sense of pride and individualism with the push for “power to the people.” This era was also in reaction to the Industrial Revolution, with the Age of Enlightenment, and rationalization of nature. The influence of current events inspired the themes of intuition,

In reality, we must realized that there really is no such thing as paradise, and that it is just a figment of our imagination. This perfectly shows the theme of imagination in Coleridge’s poem along with other lines throughout the poem. The lines “Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills; Enfolding sunny spots of greenery” shows blatantly the themes of nature that relate directly to the time period shown with trees, forests, and spots of greenery (Coleridge). Nature is also shown with the reference to the river and the caverns and pretty much everything in the first two stanzas of the poem. More lines show the need to be free and extremes mental state, such as “And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean,” where we must expand our minds to understand a line like this because this is not something you think about in everyday life and are forced to dig a little deeper (Coleridge). The themes throughout “Kubla Khan” perfectly reflect the themes of the time period, while still displaying references to Coleridge’s own

The reader can see these similarities to the other characteristics during the time period by analyzing the poem line by line, understanding the message by reading through a couple times, and looking at the similar word usage to other poems written during the Romantic Era. Overall, “Kubla Khan” is a prime example of what a poem written during the Romantic Era is supposed to be written