Question

Pick out
1. contrasting images that are juxtaposed throughout the poem.
2. images that strike the eye and images that strike the ear, both positive and negative.
3. the words used to describe the movement of water.

Answer 1

(i) The poem consists of contradictory images. Here are a few instances from the poem:
The noisy and active river Alph contrasts with a calm and peaceful garden.
The gloomy and dim ocean is in contrast to the warm, lively forest.
The caves are freezing, icy and cold, contrasting them with domes that are warmer and gigantic.
The 'wailing woman' image contrasts with her lover, whom the poet Coleridge considers a 'demon'.
(ii) In Kubla Khan, we have images that strike the eyes.
Firstly, the name "Kubla Khan" imposes the trance-like effect on the reader the poet has been looking for.
The juxtaposition of the words' waning' and 'wailing woman' imparts a wailing sound.
In the line "Five miles meandering with a mazy motion", there is alliteration in the "m" sound and creates a kind of motion sound as it describes.
The halting assonance in "As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing" provides a sense of breathing.
(iii) The poet Coleridge uses different words to showcase various emotions and sounds. For instance, the poet attempts to visualize the river gushing down the hillside "momently" like a "fountain": "A mighty fountain momently was forced." The poet wants the reader to imagine the river as something that is recreated at every moment.
In the lines, "And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever. It flung up momently the sacred river"- the poet tries to make the readers visualize the river bouncing off the rocks. Through the words- "Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, then reached the caverns measureless to man, and sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean", the poet visualizes the river as it rushes down a deep canyon and cuts into a wooded hillside. The river then turns into a good, running river.