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... r the poem was published. The number five can be found twice in Kubla Khan, the first time when speaking of Khans palace of Xanadu. Coleridge goes out of his way to use the number five here, saying twice five miles instead of simply saying ten. The second use of the number five is after the pleasure dome has been subdued by natures wrath. The significance of the number five is huge in paganism.
The number five refers to the fifth element, spirit, which in pagan belief is the source of all magic and life on Earth. The pentacle and pentagram are symbols of the number five, and the space within a pentagram is said to be separate from this plane of existence, much like the pleasure dome in the second part of the poem, and the paradise of Xanadu. This paganism ties in with romanticism, as they both can worship multiple gods and also see nature as living and animate. After line 36, an abrupt change in subject, writing style, and tone occurs. This marks the shifting from paganism to Christianity in his studies. This is also an example of the idea of convex versus concave, as the first line of the first section is In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, while the first line of the second section is A damsel with a dulcimer.
This sharp contrast between the convex Kubla Khan, a male, and the concave damsel, a female, both continues this theme of convex versus concave, emphasizing the change in sections and the difference between paganism and Christianity, as well as continuing Coleridge's obsession with sex in nature. This portrayal of humans having sex in the same poem as the sex occurring in the chasm with the two pianistic gods show the authors desire to connect humanity with nature, a true romantic ideal. The damsel, an Abyssinian (Ethiopian), is the concave force in another relationship, that of her with the sunny dome. The opposite forces of the maid with the dome are further dramatized by the dark and light relationship between them. This clashing of light with dark shows the romantic ideology of the sun versus the moon. In romanticism, sunlight is a harsh, evil force, while moon light is the source of all creativity, and thus good.
This is significant, as this maid is Coleridge's muse, his source of creativity. The maid is directly related to night, and the moon, in this poem, and so is pure good. Conversely, the pleasure dome is directly related to the sun, and thus to evil and the opponent to creativity. Much like the paradox of the material dome in the romantic garden, there is another dome in this section, although it is one made from the imagination and brought on by creativity (the maid). This dome represents the true paradise, one that can not be created from materials, and is strongly connected to the pagan pentacle.
A pentacle was believed to mark a space that was separated from our plane of existence, much like the paradise created in this second romantic and pagan dome. The dome is juxtaposed with the ignorant christians, who ironically scorn this true paradise, and cry Beware! Beware! Martin Priestman, in an analysis of this pagan romanticism, noted: We may detect here some of the seeds of Coleridge's idea of a clarity in On the Constitution of the Church and State... as well as a trace of his earlier image of the poet's dangerous knowledge in Kubla Khan. This lashing out at Christianity and Christians in general may have also been a reaction to his minister father, as the role of the father at the time of Coleridge's childhood was somewhat alienated from the family.
The fact that the Christians dont accept this heaven that the speaker has created may also hint that Coleridge believes that the Christian idea of heaven is false. The repetition of the word Beware! is an example of a common device in romantic writing. When an author wanted to stress an image or a feeling that a word was implying, the author would repeat the word, drilling it into the readers mind. The author desired to emphasize the rejection that the Christians had upon his heaven, and thus on him. This may have been an allegory for the isolation and rejection that he felt at the hands of his critics, who did not appreciate him during his time as much as he deserved.
The three circles that they weave around him are both an ancient, superstitious (and thus pagan) ritual to keep an evil spirit at bay, and a reference to the holy trinity (with the number three). This ironic juxtaposition of Christians cursing the speaker with a pagan ritual further displays the ignorance of these fools, and also provides a final connection between the pagan first section and the Christian second. The poem is closed with a description of the gustatory delights of paradise, making a final attempt to lure the probably biased reader into the fruits of this pagan and romantic paradise. Coleridge did not live in a vacuum, and so he was affected by both past and present while writing this poem. Kubla Khan was inspired by the great Kublai Khan (this is an example of one of the authors numerous spelling errors in this poem). Historically, this thirteenth-century descendant of Genghis Khan had built the palace of Kai Ping, which roughly translates to a homophone of Xanadu.
Kublai Khans greatest accomplishment was the conquering of China, and one can think of the pleasure dome that he constructed as his reign over the lands of China, just as his dome floats above the land inside the boundary of his walls, or dominion. Khans rule was ended in 1368 by the Ming dynasty, in a presumptuously bloody takeover. This is the reason behind the ancestral voices prophesying war, as they are speaking of the Ming that are soon to come. The choice of a military ruler in the poem may have been influenced by the period in which this poem was written: the Napoleonic era. Napoleon was deeply hated by the British, and so warmongering may have been a subject that he had hoped people could relate and thus connect to. It didnt seem to have worked, however, as his work was widely scorned.
Despite this scorning, however, Kubla Khan is a literary work that has stirred more interest than almost any other poem ever written, at least one of such short length. Samuel Taylor Coleridge uses amazingly implicative imagery and allegory to show his romantic ideals of paganism over Christianity. He does this with amazingly complex metaphors and imagery, such that are so ambiguous as to suggest not having a purpose at all. The ambiguous ness he creates is a strong example of romanticism, something that is ambiguous in of itself, as one writer said: Some scholars see romanticism as completely continuous with the present, some see it as the inaugural moment of modernity, some see it as the beginning of a tradition of resistance to the Enlightenment, and still others date it firmly to the direct aftermath of the French Revolution.
The topic is complex enough that most "characteristics" taken as defining Romanticism have also been taken as its opposite by different scholars. (Romanticism) This ambiguity creates a sort of literary mist, and one can not help but to feel that somewhere underneath this mist, perhaps in a chasm or a cave, is the meaning of life itself. This feeling is what draws so many to Kubla Khan, and it is this unexplainable feeling that keeps such fervid study buzzing about it. Such a feeling can only be created by a True Genius, and Coleridge proves himself to be one in Kubla Khan. List of Works Cited Priestman, Martin. "Temples and Mysteries in Romantic Infidel Writing. " Romanticism On the Net 25 (February 2002): 16 pars. < web > Romanticism. Wikipedia. 3 Apr. 2005 < web >
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Research essay sample on Kubla Khan And It Relationship To Romanticism
