Prashanth Jayaram Professor Malabika Sarkar
Prashanth Jayaram Professor Malabika Sarkar
Prashanth Jayaram Professor Malabika Sarkar
What do you see as the essential points of difference between Wordsworth’s version of the creative
moment presented in Tintern Abbey and Coleridge’s version at the end of Kubla Khan.
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 coevals and friends, Wordsworth and Colderidge each have an original and
different manner in which they introduce images and thoughts into their poems. These differences give the
reader rather lonely experience when reading the works of these two writers.
In Tintern Abbey. Wordsworth begins with a drawn-out description of the Wye river and the forests
environing its banks. He paints a fantastic image of the country in general within the undermentioned lines:
These hedge-rows.
Wordsworth takes these colourful physical descriptions and begins to tie in these images with the
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:
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”.
The verse forms differ in the images that is used to take the reader 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 help to solidify
the formal construction and convey coherence to the plants as a whole. To Wordsworth. the river represents
the strength and anchor. From 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 Banks 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 an 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.
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 third is fancy. which is merely 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
Where Colderidge’s river seem to stand for a perturbation to the river. Wordsworth’s wood is a
peaceful 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
Wordsworth is a steadfast thruster in the power of nature. and is acute to take a simple state putting
and turn it into a window through which we can see our psyche. Through nature. Wordsworth is able to
teach 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 an adult male who in analyzing the ordinary, could convey about a profound sense of the
extraordinary. Colderidge preferred to take the extraordinary and do it look non-merely more common
topographic point but important to a facet of human nature. Even though the two poets’ imaginativeness
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