Kubla Khan From S T Coleridge 1772 1834

Kubla Khan: From S. T. Coleridge (1772 – 1834) to Rush (1974 – 2015)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge – born in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, at 9 left for London, to study Christ’s Hospital in London, WW: felt sorry for him, thanking winds “that dwell among the hills where I was born […] thou, my Friend! Wert reared/ in the great City, ‘mid far other scenes. ” (from The Prelude) – in 1794 he befriended Robert Southey (1774 - 1843), planned to establish a new society in the New World, based on “Pantisocracy” – a newly coined term by STC, they married the Fricker sisters (Edith and Sara), – he believed in purity of nature, wanted his son Hartley to grow up in a better place than he did from Frost at Midnight (1798) Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the intersperséd vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought! My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes! – Rime of the Ancient Mariner (in Lyrical Ballads), 625 -line epic poem – in 1810 he fell out with WW, after 20 years they reunited, STC even resorted to plagiarism to meet deadlines – in 1817 Biographia Literaria, or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions

Lyrical Ballads (1798, 1800, 1802) – with W. Wordsworth = “Revolution in 23 poems” – 4 by STC, rest by WW, 1 st edition was anonymous – John Thelwall (1764 – 1834), a radical writer, grew suspicious, the lease was terminated, WW and D. left and settled at Grasmere (Dove Cottage) – in 1843 he became poet laureate of Great Britain (unwillingly, but…) – PREFACE to the 2 nd and 3 rd editions is considered a manifesto of romantic poetry Ideas to Remember Subject matter of his poetry? ”The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, […] the primary laws of our nature […]” (Wordsworth, in Greenblatt, 2006, p. 264, see Bibliography)

The Language of romantic poetry? Common People’s Speech “The language, too, of these men has been adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. ” (ibid. , p. 265)

Purpose of Poetry? “From such verses the Poems in these volumes will be found distinguished at least by one mark of difference, that each of them has a worthy purpose. Not that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formerly conceived; but habits of meditation have, I trust, so prompted and regulated my feelings, that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose. If this opinion be erroneous, I can have little right to the name of a Poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: […]” (ibid. )

Figures of speech and tropes? “The Reader will find that personifications of abstract ideas rarely occur in these volumes; and are utterly rejected […]. My purpose was to imitate, and, as far as possible, to adopt the very language of men; and assuredly such personifications do not make any natural or regular part of that language. […] There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually called poetic diction; as much pains has been taken to avoid it as is ordinarily taken to produce it; this has been done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of men […]” (Ibid. , p. 267)

from Kubla Khan (1797, p. 1816) A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. / Mount Amara Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Crisis? / from Dejection: An Ode (1802) part VI There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness: For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine. But now afflictions bow me down to earth: Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth; But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, My shaping spirit of Imagination. For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still and patient, all I can; And haply by abstruse research to steal From my own nature all the natural man— This was my sole resource, my only plan: Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

Kubla Khan (1797/ p. 1816) – inspired by Samuel Purchas (1577 – 1626) and his travels, Purchas His Pilgrimage: or Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered, from the Creation unto this Present (1613) – 750 -page document referring to 700 authors – from the epistle to the reader: ‘Reade therefore, with praises vnto God, the father of thy light; and prayers, for these Heathens, that GOD may bring them out of the snare of the Deuill, and that Christ may be his saluation to the ends of the World. ’ (IN Dimmock, 2014, p. 263) “Yet although Purchas is clear on matters of Protestant Christian primacy, and precise on the scope and coordinates of his great work, its nature and purpose remain strikingly ill-defined. ” (Dimmock, 2014, p. 263) The Body of this Booke is HISTORIE, Clad in quaint garments of GEOGRAPHIE, Adorn’d with Iewells of CHRONOLOGIE, Fetch’d from the Treasur’s of ANTIQVITIE. The better part thereof, THEOLOGIE, Soule of the World; Religious PIETIE Addes life to all, and gives ETERNITIE (IN Dimmock, 2014, p. 263)

Purchas[, ] His Pilgrimage (1613) – “In assembling his Pilgrimage he relied entirely on those books and manuscripts he could access in England, and later he would announce in a marginal note to his Pilgrimes that ‘Euen I, which have writte[n] so much of trauellers and trauells, neuer travelled 200. miles from Thaxted in Essex, where I was borne. ’” (Dimmock, 2014, pp. 264) – a means to prove “Roman Catholicism to be closer to paganism than to Protestantism, and fundamentally heretical: ” (pp. 269) – he believes that under the king, “Iacob”, the defender of the faith, the English found the true religion and have to spread it worldwide “True religion is the right way of reconciling and reuniting man to God, that he may be saued. ” (IN Dimmock, 2014, pp. 271) – “the tawney Moore, blacke Negro, duskie Libyan, ash-coloured Indian, olive coloured American, should with the whiter European become one sheep-fold, under one great Sheepheard, till this mortalitie being swallowed up of Life, we may all be one, as he and the father are one” (p. 273) – in his work the first English translation of Alcoran is quoted, the whole translation published in 1649, The Alcoran of Mahomet

From Purchas[, ] His Pilgrimage (1613) “In Xandu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightful Streams, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure, which may be removed from place to place. ” (Greenblatt, S. , 2006, p. 446)

Kubla Khan (1797/ p. 1816) – Kublai was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire reigning from 1260 to 1294 , founder of the Yuan dynasty in China and ruled as the first Yuan emperor – Coleridge was unable to finish the poem (hence the term “a fragment”) The Romantics (2008), by P. Ackroyd, Episode 3: Nature, 3. 30 to 12. 10, on Coleridge’s addiction

Prog? “Progressive rock and art rock are two almost interchangeable terms describing a mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility. […] Prog-rock tends to be more traditionally melodic (even when multi-sectioned compositions replace normal song structures), more literary (poetry or sci-fi/fantasy novels), and more oriented toward classically trained instrumental technique [. . . ] Art rock is more likely to have experimental or avant-garde influences, placing novel sonic texture above prog-rock's symphonic ambitions. Both styles are intrinsically album-based, taking advantage of the format's capacity for longer, more complex compositions and extended instrumental explorations. “ https: //www. allmusic. com/subgenre/prog-rock-ma 0000002798

Mainstream pop vs. propressive rock

RUSH Neil Peart (1952 – 2020) Geddy Lee (Gary Lee Weinrib, 1953) Alex Lifeson (Alexandar Živojinović, 1953)

A Farewell To Kings (1977) / Neil Peart on Xanadu Recorded in at Rockfield Studios, Wales, mixed at Advision Studios, London "To seek the sacred river Alph / To Walk the caves of ice / To break my fast on honeydew / And drink the milk of Paradise. “ "My original thought was Citizen Kane. I really wanted to do something aligned with Citizen Kane so I had this title written around that angle. Then I came across that poem and those four lines just etched like a burning image in my head. It hit me so strongly that all of a sudden the whole scope of theme changed. ” (IN Harrison, 1977) – Xanadu, according to Peart, “forms an eleven minute tour-de-force, and is certainly the most complex and multi-textured piece we have ever attempted. It also contains one of Alex's most emotive and lyrical guitar solo's, as well as a very dramatic vocal from Geddy. ” (ibid. )

The Seminar – Kubla Khan and its rock adaptation Xanadu: Searching for a moral The poet Anna Barbauld said the poem “lacked a moral” (see Greenblatt, S. , 2006, p. 446) Do you agree with the criticism? Compare the imagery of the two poems (poem and song). Comment on the tone of the poems.

Bibliography and sources Dimmock, M. Faith, form and faction: Samuel Purchas’s Purchas His Pilgrimage (1613). 2014. Renaissance Studies Vol. 28 No. 2 (pp. 262 – 277) Greenblatt, S. , 2006. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 2, New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company. 2877 pp. ISBN 0 -393 -92715 -6. On-line references: A condensed Rush Primer, by Neil Peart http: //www. 2112. net/powerwindows/afarewelltokings. html#tourbook Canada's Most Successful (And Least Recognized) Rock Band, by Tom Harrison http: //www. 2112. net/powerwindows/transcripts/19770908 georgiastraight. htm Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage, a 2010 documentary directed by Scot Mc. Fadyen and Sam Dunn https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=s 8_l. DIk. MFyg https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=S-5 m. I 3 GSX 3 Q -- Top Ten Prog Rock 3, by Bill Bailey, Rush from 1. 49 The Romantics (2008), written and presented by P. Ackroyd, Episode 3: Nature