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Coleridge couldn't keep up with Wordsworth in terms of number of poems and felt his end of the series unequal. Wordsworth published the book and presented it as an experiment.

Therefore, Coleridge did not get much say on his ideas of what the function of poetry should be until later when he published Biographia Literaria.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Function of Poetry

Coleridge and his friend poet William Wordsworth

Lyrical Ballads

Coleridge believed poetry should awaken the imagination of the reader by representing some semblance of truth while at the same time containing supernatural qualities.

The two poets agreed that poetry should adhere to two main ideas.

1. The power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature.

2. The power of giving the interest of novelty by modifying the colors of the imagination.

The poets decided to write a series of poems, one adhering to the first idea and another to the second. The problem lay in the individual poet's way of creating the desired effect.

Coleridge was to try to invoke a semblance of truth through exploration of the supernatural. He encouraged a willing suspension of disbelief in his readers and constituted poetic faith.

Wordsworth was to attach charm and novelty to the everyday things and excite feelings analogous to the supernatural by jolting the mind's attention away from the boredom of familiarity.

Response to Kubla Khan

The supernatural in Kubla Khan

Caves of Ice!

Poet Mary Robinson responded to Coleridge's Kubla Khan with a poem wherein she claimed to join the "spirit divine" and wander "imagination's boundless space!" and the "caves of ice". She was clearly in the world of the supernatural with Coleridge in that moment.

For Coleridge, to achieve the effects of the supernatural was to plumb the depths of the mind.

"Through caverns measureless to man" the caverns are representative of the subconscious which is employed in the acceptance of the reality of the supernatural.

  • The focus is on what the mind "sees," not what the eyes see.
  • The "romantic chasm" and "cedarn cover" hide from the eye and excite the mind.
  • The "walls and towers" "girdled round" keep us out of the line of vision and only allow our other senses freedom to explore the realm he depicts.
  • We hear the woman "wailing for her demon-lover" and the "Ancestral voices prophesying war!"
  • We don't even get to see the dome, only the "shadow" of the dome. Therefore, we are given a collection of things which we construct subjectively to our own sense of reality or what we can see as real.

Page 671-672

Kubla Khan

Rustic in Nature v. Supernatural

Wordsworth believed that the best way communicate to his readers was to write in the common language of men and appeal to the low and rustic lifestyle.

Coleridge would argue that this would limit the vocabulary greatly. He thought the people reading poetry were not likely to be the people living the "rustic" life and therefore would not understand the conversation.

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