Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” as Manifestation of Romanticism

Sutherlin 1 Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” as an Illustration of Romanticism Although best known for his poetry, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was also an important literary critic who helped to popularize the Romantic Movement among English speaking peoples. Romanticism had emerged from the German Sturm und Drang movement of the second half of the eighteenth century, which itself had arisen as a reaction to Enlightenment philosophy and values. Whereas Enlightenment thinkers envisioned an orderly universe and advocated for the use of reason as guide for productive living, the Sturm und Drang called for a passionate approach to life in a world more sensual than sensible. The Romantics, while maintaining distance from the objective rationalism of the Enlightenment, also distanced themselves from the impetuousness of Sturm und Drang. They focused on a subjective view of reality that, while transcending the strictures of logic and reason, also avoids complete domination by ungoverned emotionalism. For the Romantic, meaning is best found through the use of imagination rather than strict adherence to calculation or passion. Coleridge’s critical essays and his poetry, especially “Kubla Khan,” serve as a Romantic counterargument to the ideals of the Enlightenment as described by Emmanuel Kant in his seminal essay “What is Enlightenment?” Indeed, “Kubla Khan,” in its very form and message, illustrates the Romantic principles that Coleridge advances in his criticism. Kant summarizes the fundamental nature of Enlightenment as, “man’s emergence from his self-imposed… inability to use *his+ own understanding without another’s guidance” (Kant 54). Enlightenment thinkers sought to release the minds of men from the historical grip of the  Sutherlin 2 state and the church. The fundamental assumption of the Enlightenment was that there are universal truths and laws to which the human mind is naturally able to aspire. The universe, they believed, operated on rational principles, and humans, as products of the universe, may function rationally and productively within the world as long as we are not dominated by social structures built upon superstition or mysticism in the service of authoritarian power. The aim of Enlightenment philosophy was to create and promote political structures in which the subjects and citizens of nations are free to guide themselves toward the universal laws and thus influence their own political structures for the betterment of humankind in general rather than simply for the benefit of an elite ruling class. Underlying the philosophical assumptions and political aims of the Enlightenment is the belief that the universe and humankind are both fundamentally rational. Advances in science and philosophy from Descartes to Newton had indicated a basic orderly structure to the universe, and so Enlightenment thinkers, eager to modernize their societies, sought to put their ideas of universal harmony into political practice. The two most dramatic examples of Enlightenment political praxis are the American and French revolutions. In both countries, the revolutionaries rejected the political authority of both monarch and state and sought to unite their peoples instead under the shared universal principles of democracy, personal liberty, and political equality. The United States’ Declaration of Independence, for example, cites in its opening paragraph “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as its authority to reject the rule of the British monarch and the Church of England. Obviously, the American experience was more successful than the French, but the revolutionary principles advanced in both countries clearly represent Enlightenment ideals.  Sutherlin 3 In 1784, shortly after the birth of republican democracy in America and amid growing revolutionary tension in France, the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant published his essay “What is Enlightenment?” In the essay, he outlines his philosophy of rejecting the “everlasting tutelage” of “dogmas and formulas” and advocates for the Enlightened Absolutism of the Prussian King Frederick II (later to be known as Frederick the Great). “If *the public+ is only given enough freedom,” Kant says, “enlightenment is almost inevitable” (Kant 55). Freedom, as Kant defines it, is “the public use of one’s reason in all matters,” and the ability for citizens, “to publish their ideas concerning a better constitution, as well as candid criticism of existing basic laws” (Kant 60). Such a state of affairs exists currently in Prussia, Kant declares, under the benevolent rule of Frederick. “Argue as much as you please,” Kant has Frederick saying with the qualifying caveat: “but obey!” (Kant 56) The essay has philosophical underpinnings, but it is essentially a political argument that focuses on man as a public entity utilizing his reason for the public good and dedicating himself to public and political order by heeding the monarch’s command to “obey!” In keeping with the Enlightenment idea that universal laws govern the cosmos, Kant’s ideal society is not libertine; freedom must be exercised within well-regulated restrictions. “A lesser degree of civic freedom,” Kant says, “creates room to let that free spirit expand to the limits of its capacity. Nature, then, has carefully cultivated the seed within the hard core” (Kant 60). Even the all-important freedoms of thought and expression must be controlled under the authority of an enlightened autocrat, according to Kant, in order that society might operate in accordance with the principles of the presumed universal laws dictated by nature.  Sutherlin 4 Romanticism does not disagree with the Enlightenment’s emphasis on the individual mind liberated from institutional control, but it does differ in two important ways. Enlightenment, as explained by Kant, assumes that the universe and humankind are both fundamentally rational, and he emphasizes the use of enlightened rationality for the purpose of social and political progress. Romanticism, on the other hand, presumes that mystery, and not reason, lies at the heart of nature and that the individual connects with the cosmos, not through his outward-focused understanding, but through an internal exploration of his own emotional and intuitive depths. Moreover, Enlightenment thinkers sought to remake society in accordance with natural law; the Romantic seeks quiet and solitude to apprehend his own soul and unite it organically with the spirit of nature. Beyond the scope of political imperative, Romanticism posits a very different world view than Enlightenment. The differing stances toward nature, as mentioned before, stem from this difference in world view. Enlightenment takes for granted the existence of an objective reality that can be comprehended through reason. The aim of the intellect, in the Enlightenment view, is to rationally grasp the mechanistic workings of the universe and to bring human behavior into alignment with the natural order discovered through reason. Enlightenment recognizes no difference between the phenomena of an object perceived through the senses and the intrinsic reality of the object perceived. The world of the Enlightenment is filled will real things that can be seen and comprehended and circumscribed. The Romantic, however, is keenly aware that his sense is all he knows. Phenomena appear to the Romantic, not in the environment, but in his mind. The Romantic lives in a world, not of things, but of images; not of laws, but of metaphors. Owen Barfield discusses this difference in his Essay “Symptoms of  Sutherlin 5 Iconoclasm.” He refers to the Enlightenment apprehension of objects as a type of idolatry, implying that the objects which Enlightenment thinkers view as having intrinsic reality (or possessing a “life inherent in the object,” as Barfield puts it) are, in fact, merely representations of something more profound; Enlightenment mistakes the sensory phenomenon for the thing itself like a worshipper praying to the lifeless stone statue of his god (Barfield 45). The Enlightenment artist measures his success by the faithfulness of his imitation of the object, which he sees as a manifestation of natural laws. The Romantic artist sees the external object not as a manifestation of universal laws but already as a metaphor with its meaning rooted in his own psyche. He seeks not to faithfully reproduce the phenomenon, but to trace the source of the metaphor inherent within the perceived object. An enlightenment artist sees a tree—he paints the tree. A Romantic artist, on the other hand, experiences the effect of a tree and paints what the effect means to him. Ultimately, all objects perceived by the eye are seen as projections of the viewer’s own subconscious. As Barfield says, “we have learned that art can represent nothing but man himself… that nature herself is the representation of Man” (Barfield 45). Coleridge outlines his perspective on the artist’s relationship with nature in his 1818 essay “On Poesy or Art.” “We all know,” he says, “that art is the imitatress [sic] of nature.” For Coleridge, a mastery of art requires that the artist “master the essence, the natura naturans, which presupposes a bond between nature in the higher sense and the soul of man” (Coleridge). The proper object of imitation, Coleridge argues, is not nature, per se, but “the beautiful in nature,” which he defines as “the unity of the manifold, the coalescence of the diverse; in the concrete, it is the union of the shapely (formosum) with the vital” (Coleridge).  Sutherlin 6 The two important elements in imitation, according to Coleridge, are “sameness and difference.” Attending only to the sameness between the object and its artistic representation with no attention to their differences results, he says, in a “disgusting” and loathsome” effect, much like a wax dummy in a museum which horrifies the viewer with its corpse-like appearance (Coleridge). This fixation on reproducing the external appearance equates to what Barfield calls idolatry. In order to avoid the trap of conflating the phenomenal object with its meaning, Coleridge insists that the artists should attend to the difference between the appearance of the object and its significance. He says: The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols—the Natur-geist, or spirit of nature, as we unconsciously imitate those whom we love; for so only can he hope to produce any work truly natural in the object and truly human in the effect. (Coleridge) Coleridge stresses that the aim of true art is to reconcile diametrical oppositions: likeness and sameness, the internal and the external, nature and thought, plan and execution. This successful synthesis, he says, is “the mystery of genius in the fine arts.” These combinations, according to Coleridge, are effected by a productive dialogue between the conscious mind of the artist and his unconscious activity, which he calls “the genius in the man of genius” (Coleridge). Rather than simply recreating perceived phenomena, which Coleridge claims would “produce masks only,” an artist “must out of his own mind create forms according to the severe laws of the intellect, in order to generate in himself that co-ordination of freedom and law… which assimilates him to nature, and enables him to understand her” (Coleridge).  Sutherlin 7 The goal of art for the Romantic is to reveal the inner truth of Nature. Enlightenment recognizes the truth of Nature in its revealed phenomenon; the essence of an extant object is available and comprehensible on its surface. The Romantics view perceived objects as metaphors of concealed truths. “The business of ideal art,” according to Coleridge, is to free the object from the context of “the disturbing forces of accident” and reveal its “moment of self-exposition” (Coleridge). These “disturbing forces of accident” are simply the mundane laws of nature and chance; they are the Newtonian actions in the field of time and space in which physical objects reside and which Enlightenment takes as the fundamental root of being. The aim of the Romantic artist, according to Coleridge, is to remove the object from its rational context and reveal it metaphorical meaning through the medium of his own intuition. Coleridge published his Romantic masterpiece poem “Kubla Khan: Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment” in 1797, thirteen years after Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?” The poem is accompanied by an introduction by the author detailing its creation. In his introduction, Coleridge claims that he had fallen asleep reading Samuel Purchas’ Pilgrimage and while asleep had dreamed an entire epic poem of at least “two to three hundred lines” (Coleridge 377). He says that upon waking he immediately began to write out the fully and spontaneously composed poem as quickly as he could but was interrupted by a visitor. By the time the visitor had left, Coleridge says, the poem had evaporated from his mind leaving only the lines appearing in the published version. Coleridge explicitly identifies “Kubla Khan” as a fragment, and most critics take him more or less at his word, as fragmentation is seen as one of the hallmarks of the Romantic style. It could be argued, however, that the introduction and the poem are parts of a single cohesive  Sutherlin 8 whole which Coleridge intended to be read together. In his essay “Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ and the Fragment of Romanticism,” Timothy Bahti suggests that Coleridge has engaged in a bit of literary sleight-of-hand by calling his poem a fragment—indeed that it is not fragmentary at all and that when read together, the introduction and the poem are intentionally united by the author into a complete statement not only on the poetic creative process, but on the fundamental Romantic view of the world. The poem begins with the line, “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure dome decree,” and continues for nine additional lines describing Khan’s beautiful palace grounds. They are “bright” and “sunny” and enclosed within strong, defended walls. The orderliness and pleasantness of the Khan’s palace grounds and the fact that they exist by his “decree” bring to mind the enlightened kingdom of Kant’s Frederick the Great. The Khan, like Frederick, is a benevolent autocrat, using his temporal powers to build and maintain an earthly paradise. Kant’s description of Frederick as commanding “a well disciplined and numerous army as guarantor of public peace” seems equally applicable to Coleridge’s Khan (Kant 60). His demesne is bright and rational, and that is where Kant would stop, since an enlightened monarch is all Kant requires for productive life in the Enlightenment world. Coleridge however sounds an ominous tone, for beneath the Khan’s well-lit garden runs “Alph, the sacred river… through caverns measureless to man.” Beneath the Khan’s rational world lurks an unfathomable and uncircumscribable realm, like the unconscious laying in wait silently beneath the conscious mind. There is more to the world—more to the mind—than rationality can provide or account for, Coleridge suggests.  Sutherlin 9 The reader does not have to wait long for the hidden chthonic force of the river to reveal itself. Following his description of the Khan’s gardens planted atop the subterranean river, Coleridge shifts into narrative mode. The underground river erupts in a fountain, spewing water and earth in a violent upwelling, creating a temporary above-ground river that wanders heedless through the Khan’s garden before sinking again into the abysmal depths. Amid the eruption, the Khan is treated to a two-fold vision: he hears ghostly voices “prophesying war” and sees the juxtaposed image of “the shadow of the dome of pleasure” cast across the tumbling waters. Following this revelation, Coleridge shifts again and briefly describes a vision he had experienced of a young Abyssinian woman singing and playing a dulcimer. Then suddenly Coleridge shifts again and moves from the narrative mode to address the reader in the present. Echoing, perhaps, the frustration he describes in the introduction of being interrupted in his poetic vision by the visitor from Porlock, he describes a transformation into a supernatural state that would occur if he could remember and reproduce the song of the damsel from his vision. Literalist critics take Coleridge’s introduction at face value and view the poem as a mere fragment of a vision, and attempt to find the concrete sources of his images in the real world. Lane Cooper, for example attempts to use inductive reason to pinpoint the geographical location of the Khan’s palace in the present day country of Ethiopia near the source of the Nile by comparing it against the “Mount Abora” in the song of the “Abyssinian maid” (Cooper, 327). Cooper misses the point, however, because like an Enlightenment thinker, he attends only to the explicit descriptions and does not see the metaphorical content of the poem. Cooper’s explication of the poem resembles the imitation of an artist focused exclusively on rendering  Sutherlin 10 similarity, and the result is inadequate—or as Coleridge would say, “disgusting” and “loathsome.” A fruitful analysis of “Kubla Khan” does not center on finding concrete correlations between Coleridge’s images and the real word or in dismissing it as a simple dreamed-up fragment. The focus must be on discovering the meaning behind the images—but more so on the meaning of Coleridge’s use of his images. Only by understanding Coleridge’s use of image can a reader understand his commentary on Romanticism. The central image, arguable, is the river. It lies beneath the surface world, but it is not passive. It affects the Khan’s world even before it erupts. As Humphrey House argues, “The fertility of the plain is only made possible by the mysterious energy of the source *the river+” (House 307). The river, as symbol of the subconscious and of the profound meaning within the metaphor, is the essential fructifying force in the Khan’s world. Coleridge implies as much by naming it the Alph, which brings to mind the first letter of the Greek alphabet (Bahti, 1043). The river is the first thing. Although it might be a stretch, it may be worth noting that the name of the Khan’s realm of Xanadu begins with chi, which appears not last, but certainly much later in the Greek alphabet. Typical interpretations of “Kubla Khan” vary from a fanciful, opium-induced nature poem to an exposition of the creative process. However, it contains a deeper commentary on the differences between the Enlightenment and Romantic views of the world. Coleridge begins with an exposition of the Enlightenment view of the world. Kubla Khan has (or so he believes) bent nature to his will to create an earthly paradise. He has encompassed and enclosed the surface world to consolidate his seat of power. Like Enlightenment thinkers, Kubla has engaged the world of visible things—trees, gardens, walls, and towers—and believes he has thus  Sutherlin 11 entered into accord with nature. He has taken what he can see for all that is. When the underground river erupts into his world, he experiences it as an ominous intrusion. The fountain disrupts his order, and he can only see it as a harbinger of violent chaos. Like an Enlightenment thinker, for the Khan up must be up, down must be down, and all must remain within ordered boundaries. Analyzing the other proper names in the poem reveals more clues about Coleridge’s intention regarding his images. Both “Abora” and “Abyssinian” begin with the prefix ab-, which in the Latin means “from.” These names indicate that both the maiden and her song serve as sources of energy and meaning. The singer shares metaphorical roots with the sacred river; they share qualities of traditional Chinese Yin imagery: darkness and femininity as well as associations with water and the subterranean. Coleridge seems to be associating the singing damsel with the sacred river and positioning both as wellsprings of energy. Indeed, the poem proves out those associations out. The river erupts to the surface and brings prophesy to Kubla Khan, while the singer infuses the poet with the dreadful holy power of art. Coleridge goes even deeper in his commentary on Romantic principles. Contrary to what critics like Cooper think, the poem is not about any real place. Reflecting the idea that we live in a world of images and not things, the very subject of the poem is image, and Coleridge juxtaposes image upon image to emphasize the point. Coleridge tells the reader in his introduction that he experienced the poem as a vision. The poem itself is about that vision, and he describes the purported loss of the vision as “images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast” (Coleridge 377). In the Romantic worldview, as Coleridge argues, art  Sutherlin 12 cannot be an imitation of a thing but only the image of a thing. The projecting of image upon image is best seen in lines 31 through 34: The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It is in this rupture of order and reason in which the river absorbs within itself the likeness of the dome, that the Khan experiences the breaking of his rational world and is subjected to the profound powers of the deep. Taken together, Coleridge’s introduction and poem are a self-referential unity, arising ex nihilo like the sacred river itself. The introduction is a supposedly rational explanation of the poem, while the poem is a collection of words that attempt to reproduce the power of the original vision, which, in turn, (like the sacred river) has erupted unbidden from the subterranean depths of the poet’s mind. Like the world of the Romantic, there is no concrete source for anything. Words simply refer to other words which refer to the memory of a vision that appeared in a dream, and meaning can only be derived by analyzing the metaphorical connections between them without the benefit of any fixed external reference.  Sutherlin 13 Works Cited Bahti, Timothy. “Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ and the Fragment of Romanticism.” MLN 96.5 (1981): 1035-1050. Print. Barfield, Owen. “Symptoms of Iconoclasm.” Romanticism and Consciousness; Essays in Criticism. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Norton, 1970. Print. Coleridge, Samuel T. “Kubla Khan; Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment.” The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer through Frost. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Print. Coleridge, Samuel T. "On Poesy or Art." On Poesy or Art. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 1909-14. English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay. The Harvard Classics. Bartleby.com. Web. 28 Apr. 2013. Cooper, Lane. "The Abyssinian Paradise in Coleridge and Milton." Modern Philology 3.3 (1906): 327-332. Print. House, Humphrey. “Kubla Khan, Christabel, and Dejection.” Romanticism and Consciousness; Essays in Criticism. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Norton, 1970. Print. Kant, Immanuel. Kant: Political Writings. Ed. Hans Siegbert Reiss. Trans. H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 1991. Print.