When comparing William Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey. and Samuel Colderidge’s “Kubla Khan” . one notices a distinguishable difference in the usage of imaginativeness within the two verse forms. Even though the two poets were coevalss and friends. Wordsworth and Colderidge each have an original and different manner in which they introduce images and thoughts into their poesy. These differences give the reader rather a alone experience when reading the plants of these two writers. Through the imaginativeness of the poet. the reader can besides derive penetration into the head and personality of the poet himself. These thoughts will be explored through analysis and comparing of the two verse forms. with the purpose to better understand the imaginativeness of each poet. and hence. to perchance better understand the poet himself.
In Tintern Abbey. Wordsworth begins with a drawn-out description of the Wye river and the forests environing its Bankss. He paints a fantastic image of the country in general within the undermentioned lines:
The wild green landscape. Once once more I see
These hedge-rows. barely hedge-rows. small lines
Of supportive wood run rampantly ; these pastoral farms
Green to the really door ; and wreathes of fume
Sent up. in silence. from among the trees ( 15-19 )
Wordsworth takes these colourful physical descriptions and begins to tie in these images with the spirit of adult male and all that is good and pure. This thought is reached in the flood tide of the verse form where he goes on to depict nature as being:
The ground tackle of my purest ideas. the nurse
The usher. the defender of my bosom. and psyche
Of all my moral being. ( 110-112 )
The consequence is one where Wordsworth takes a low and beautiful scene and expands the thoughts until the same images become cosmic and empyreal. associating to the really nature of adult male and to life itself. Colderidge uses a different type of imagination in “Kubla Khan” . He takes an about super-natural and surreal scene. and brings the reader to a expansive decision much the manner that Wordsworth does in his verse form. Colderidge begins his verse form with the lines:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A baronial pleasure-dome edict:
Where Alph. the sacred river. ran
Through the caverns measureless to adult male
Down to a sunless sea. ( 1-5 )
These lines paint a phantasy based image and put the tone for the remainder of the verse form which brings the reader to a charming far off land where there exists a “deep romantic chasm” and “caves of ice” . Even though these images are non needfully of this Earth. Colderidge makes a point about art and its effects on adult male which is stated in the ines:
Her symphonic music and vocal.
To such a deep delectation ‘twould win me.
That with music loud and long.
I would construct that dome in air. ( 43-46 )
Equally good as in the line. ” And all who heard should see them at that place. ” ( 48 ) which is proposing that certain images and/or sounds can do the head to animate past memories and experiences. Both Wordsworth and Colderidge are similar in that they each use the description of a topographic point and puting to do a point that has a far deeper significance than the existent scene does on its ain. The verse forms differ in the images and puting that are used to take the rader to the point that the poet is seeking to do.
Both Wordsworth and Colderidge use the image of a river to some similarity within each of their verse forms. The river symbolizes the chief force within each verse form. every bit good as being a thematic component which ties together certain images and thoughts. The images of the river besides helps to solidify the formal construction and convey coherance to the plants as a whole. To Wordsworth. the river represents the strength and anchor. if you will. of the scene which he is picturing. Wordsworth besides makes an interesting mention to the river in the line. ” O sylvan Wye! Thou roamer through the forests. How frequently has my spirit turned to thee! ” ( 57-58 ) . which suggests that Wordsworth might even be utilizing the image of the river as a metaphor for himself. In the lines that follow this quotation mark he goes on to depict his forest experiences with nature. and how his apprehension of life and nature itself has grown from being a “wanderer through the woods” . the same description used for the river.
Colderidge sets the description of his verse form on the Bankss of a river every bit good. but the river of this verse form represents the imaginativeness or originative flow of the poet. In the debut of the verse form. Colderidge describes how while in an opium induced dream. he has a vision of Kubla Khan commanding a topographic point to be built. Upon rousing. he set approximately to compose down his vision but was interrupted by a visitant. When he returned to complete his work. he had merely a obscure remembrance of the dream to which he likens as “the images on the surface of a watercourse into which a rock has been cast” . It is this description of his imaginativeness within the debut to the verse form which give the hints as to Colderidge’s metaphorical usage of the river within the verse form. To re-examine the first four lines of the verse form besides gives us insight into this thought.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A baronial pleasure-dome edict:
Where Alph. the sacred river. ran
Through the caverns measureless to adult male ( 1-4 )
Colderidge believed the imaginativeness to dwell of three parts. The primary imaginativeness. which was the godly beginning of all inspiration and thoughts. The secondary imaginativeness. which works together with the primary imaginativeness. and is in a sense the manifestation or attempted creative activity of those thoughts that have come from the primary imaginativeness. The 3rd is fancy. which is mearly a mimicking of something that has already been seen. The “sacred river” of the verse form is representative of the secondary imaginativeness. while the “caverns measureless to man” are representative of the primary imaginativeness through which the “sacred river” or secondary imaginativeness flows or draws inspiration from. The pleasance dome which Kubla Khan is constructing on this river is a metaphorical description of the growing of an thought from the primary and secondary imaginativenesss.
The usage of woods as images is common to both verse forms. though once more the significance behind the usage within each verse form is different. Colderidge uses the image of a wood as a dark. cryptic topographic point and depict it as:
A barbarous topographic point! as sanctum and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning Moon was haunted
By adult female howling for her demon-lover! ( 14-16 )
From out of the forest comes convulsion as good. which causes the “sacred river” to travel into a disruptive province. This can be seen as the forest stand foring thoughts that are kept hidden within the subconcious. and when released can go a “mighty fountain” which stimulates the imaginativeness. Where Colderidge’s river seem to stand for a perturbation to the river. Wordsworth’s wood is a peacful composure that surrounds the river. In Tintern Abbey. the forests bring a “tranquil restoration” to the poet when he remembers them. The forests in this verse form are a metaphorical mirror of the enlightened and pure head of world. The power of the forests can best be described in the lines:
…for she can so inform
The head that is within us. so impress
With soundlessness and beauty. and so feed
With exalted ideas. that neither evil linguas.
Rash opinions. nor the leers of selfish work forces. ( 126-130 )
Shall e’er prevail against us. or disturb
Our cheerful religion that all which we behold ( 133-134 )
Wordsworth is proposing that if we understand nature and reflect upon her. we shall go uplifted and undisturbed by the “din of towns and cities” . Nature can take us to an enlightened topographic point. In both the Wordsworth and Colderidge verse forms. the forests symbolize something that brings about a type of alteration. The difference between the two being that in Tintern Abbey. the forests are a topographic point where 1 goes to seek alteration and enlightenment. In “Kubla Khan” . the forests are a topographic point of convulsion that conveying about alteration forcefully.
The imaginativeness displayed in each of the two verse forms is a representation of how the heads of Wordsworth and Colderidge percieve themselves and the universe around them. Colderidge believed “that there are more unseeable than seeable things in the universe” . and that in prosecuting these ideas it keeps the head from going “accustomed to the fiddling inside informations of day-to-day life” . The verse form “Kubla Khan” reflects this thought in that it explores the extraordinary. and through that geographic expedition the poet is able to depict imaginativeness and inspiration. and how the two might come to work together.
Wordsworth is a steadfast truster in the power of nature. and is acute to take a simple state puting and turn it into a window through which we can see our ain psyche. Through nature. Wordsworth is able to learn us about life and about the greater forces that are at work within life. In Tintern Abbey. a simple scene by the side of a river becomes the seed which allows Wordsworth’s imaginativeness to turn Forth images which allow him to link nature and its Torahs to the kernel that controls the well being of the heads of adult male.
Wordsworth was a adult male who in analyzing the ordinary. could convey about a profound sense of the extraordinary. Colderidge prefered to take the extraordinary and do it look non merely more common topographic point. but important to an facet of human nature. Even though the two poets’ imaginativenesss worked really otherwise from one another. their verse forms both worked towards the same end. which was to let the reader to come in their universe. so to talk. and so go forth the reader feeling as though they had learned something about themselves and the nature of life itself.
