Student Question
What are key similarities and differences between "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"?
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Both "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" showcase Coleridge's lyrical style, vivid imagery, and historical themes. However, they differ in completion, structure, and genre. "Kubla Khan" is an unfinished poem with varied line lengths and a descriptive focus, while "Rime" is a complete narrative ballad with a consistent structure and storyline. Coleridge composed "Kubla Khan" in an opium-induced reverie and "Rime" with input from Wordsworth, refining it for publication.
"Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" are similar in their lyrical qualities, their use of imagery, and their faux historical subject matter. They are different in their state of completion, their structure, and their genre.
Both poems reflect Coleridge's skill with rhythm, meter, and rhyme that produce a lyrical quality immensely pleasing to the ear. Lines such as "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree" and "Day after day, day after day / We stuck, nor breath nor motion; / As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean" seem to roll off the tongue and are some of the classic lines of English poetry for their sheer beauty of language. Both poems rely on sensory descriptions to help the reader see, hear, and smell what the author is writing about. Lines 8 - 11 of...
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"Kubla Khan" and lines 59 - 26 of "Rime" are just two examples of Coleridge's masterful imagery. Both poems develop a seemingly historical incident: "Kubla Khan" is based on the historical founder of the Mongol dynasty in China in the 13th century, and "Rime" purports to be the account of a sailing expedition, which, while obviously fictional, Coleridge attempted to portray as factual by the use of academic "glosses" in its second printing.
Despite these similarities, the poems are quite different overall. One obvious difference is that "Kubla Khan" is a fragment, while "Rime" is a full poem that Coleridge studiously worked on and revised for publication. "Kubla Khan" was composed in a "sort of reverie brought on by two grains of opium taken to check a dysentery," according to Coleridge. He dreamed the poem, and tried to record it when he woke, but was unable to recall the entire piece and never finished it. "Rime" was conceived while Coleridge was on a walking trip with William Wordsworth, and Wordsworth gave him some ideas for the poem. Coleridge completed it for publication in the first issue of Lyrical Ballads, and then revised it, adding the explanatory glosses for a later printing.
The poems are quite different in their structure. "Rime" consists of many stanzas, most with four or five lines, in either iambic tetrameter or trimeter (shorter lines). "Kubla Khan" uses a variety of line lengths, and the stanzas are longer with varying numbers of lines. The rhythm is not strictly iambic but contains extra syllables or fewer syllables in many lines, creating a less consistent rhythm.
Finally, the genres of the two poems are different. Although "Kubla Khan" may have been intended to be a narrative poem, if it had been completed, the fragment is primarily descriptive, with almost no action. "Rime," however, is a ballad, a narrative poem, and contains a complete story arc.
Although Coleridge's lyricism, imagery, and love for history are displayed in both poems, the circumstances of their composition, their structure, and their genres are quite different.