Coleridge

Samuel Coleridge enjoyed making his writes as outlandish and opium induced as humanly possible. If you ignore this fact and attempt to interpret some of his works without it, many people would find themselves confused and disorientated. His poems more closely resemble stories, albeit mostly pointless ones. He wants to get his readers up out of their seats and take them for a ride; he wants them to take a break from reality and just have a little fun. This is why some confuse the obscurely deep and meaningful for opium induced deliriums. Coleridge wants to take us on a journey, a journey that probably closely resembles his most recent opium induced hallucination. In order to achieve this effect without the use of drugs of any kind Coleridge used some different tactics. He used vivid imagery to describe where he thought he was. A prime example of this is found in “Kubla Khan”, Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers were girdled round and there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, where blossomed many incense bearing tree; and here were forests ancient as the hills, enfolding sunny spots of greenery. (Kubla Khan, 3-11). This type of imagery makes the reader feel like they are there right in the middle of this pleasure palace. This kind of imagery is also used to create feelings of excitement and adventure, probably pre-laudanum dosage. This is seen in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, The entire story is full of gripping action packed lines that leave the reader on the edge of their seat. This is the kind of writing that makes for a good, albeit creepy, bedtime story. It is full of wild adventure and tall tales. This poem, as well as “Kubla Khan”, puts you in the character’s shoes. Coleridge makes you think about what it would be like to be in the situation characterized in his poem. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, The reader has to think about what it would be like to have such guilt. Guilt is often seen as the byproduct of sin. If the act wasn’t morally wrong, then why would one feel guilty' This is the main question that the reader may find himself asking while reading “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. The man kills a seagull in line 82, and because of it the ship is diverted to Antarctica, the crew dies, and the character has to be whisked away by spirits to safety. It seems like the punishment for this atrocious crime is simply living with the fact that he was responsible for the deaths of a score or more men. Coleridge may have been trying to say that sometimes there can be no remission of guilt; sometimes you have to live with the mistakes you’ve made. He may also have just forgotten about the bird’s murder when the voices start talking to him in line 410. Perhaps by the time he got to the end he forgot what the original sin was. Another question that the reader finds himself asking is why does the Mariner at a wedding' And why does he stop a random guest' One can only pretend to know what was going on inside the foggy mind of the author, but one can speculate that perhaps it was just a random setting. It seems like the mariner found the happiest place and stole one of its inhabitants, in this case a potential partier. He then systematically destroyed all will to be happy; he depressed the poor party patron right out the wedding. One can only assume that the mariner felt bad about what he did and the only logical choice was to go and break down others who were happier than he was. Just like in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, there are some perplexing questions in “Kubla Khan”. Like what is Coleridge talking about' He starts off with a half baked, probably fully baked, thought that morphs into a volcano eruption that somehow leads to a woman with a stringed instrument. I believe that one can extract some kind of meaning from this poem, but it is probably not what Coleridge intended. Coleridge wanted to take the reader for a ride. What better place to start than at a fictitious land of pleasure' In isolated Xanadu the reader could conjure up whatever fantasy he wants, and it will become reality. Coleridge also creates a sense of mysticism with the sacred river Alph, flowing through measureless caverns. (3-4) But Coleridge could not simply allow the reader to make their own fantasia, he had to tell them what his fantasy was. A poet’s fantasy might be filled with mystic wonderful things, but as a writer there must be conflict. This is where the volcano comes into the story. Suddenly there is a great explosion, sending debris everywhere, but before the reader can fully swallow this there is another abrupt interruption. Suddenly there appeared a woman playing a dulcimer. There is a very good explanation for the chaos and confusion in Kubla Khan. First Coleridge was resting in his hazy den when an idea came to him: Xanadu. So naturally he acted on his impulsion. He began writing about his pleasure palace, a land where the “milk” is free, and the “incense” grows on trees. But then there was an interruption, a knock at the door. And just as some people incorporate real life with their dreams, so did Coleridge. The knocking incorporated itself as an eruption, violet and catastrophic. Coleridge, represented as Kubla Khan, does what any good Khan does, he declares war on the violence and goes to quench it. He arrives at the source of the catastrophe, his front door. He opens it only to find nothing of importance. When he sits back down to conclude his vision the magic was gone. In order to finish the tale he needed more inspiration, once acquired and fully used he began to finish the tale. The only problem, it was the end to a different story, and this is how Coleridge managed to go from Xanadu, to volcano, to the dulcimer. It would appear that Coleridge’s Utopia is full of chaos and disorder. It is quite difficult to extrapolate any kind of deep meaning from this poem. The only kind of meaning that one can hope to obtain is in small fragments. For example, Coleridge includes trees that burn incense (line 9) and milk of paradise (line 54). This obviously represents opium and laudanum, two of his favorite things that no paradise should go without. In conclusion, Coleridge was often inspired by opium and its close friend laudanum. This means that much of what comes out of Coleridge is tainted with the soft sweet scent of madness. These poems, especially “Kubla Khan” often confuse readers who try to make some kind of sense out of it. Many also entangle themselves with poems like “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, because there are so many questions that go unanswered. The reader is yanked out of reality and is thrown into a fantastic dream that Coleridge creates. If his objective was to send the reader on a journey of the likes he would never forget, Coleridge succeeded. This, perhaps, is why he is considered a great poet, because he broke away from what was conventional, he stood above the rest and refused to be like everyone else.