Coleridge and Shelley

"Kubla Khan" cautions against the indulgence of imagination by setting up the reader with vivid imagery, but then turning out what would seem to be paradise into the opposite. The first stanza describes a place with a sacred river, measureless caverns, and ten miles of fertile land (lines 3-6) and blossoming gardens, winding streams, and sunny areas (lines 6-11). However, the rest of the poem speaks negatively of this place; the speaker calls it "savage" and "enchanted" (line 14), and that a woman waits for her demon lover (lines 15-16). Witholding everything but the first stanza, the reader would most likely imagine a beautiful, peaceful place, but as the reader reads on, he/she would probably reconsider. The concept here is not to get carried away by overindulging in our imaginations. This may have been written for the American romantic poets who wrote much about nature and relied heavily on appealing to the reader's imagination.


In Shelley's poem Ozymandias, I can identify three speakers; the main speaker in the beginning, the traveller, and Ozymandias. The main speaker almost plays the role of a prophet in the sense that he/she is relating a story that has some type of social or political significance based in history. The traveller shares an observation of what seems to have been the remains of a statue or some type of monument. The traveller is the one who brings forth the information. The monument that the traveller speaks of is one of Ozymandias. Ozymandias speaks be saying, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!". This could mean that Ozymandias was some type of political or social authoritarian who was defeated, signified by the rubble of the statue. In other words, this may be speaking against proud leaders who become too domineering, leading to their own downfall.