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The Romantic Unity of "Kubla Khan"Author(s): Richard Harter FogleSource: College English, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Oct., 1951), pp. 13-18Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/372356 .Accessed: 12/04/2011 14:29

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UNDERS TANDING "HA MLET"NDERS TANDING "HA MLET"eradicated, we may now see how theevents of the play fall readilyinto place.We no longerhave to ask, "What hap-pensin Hamlet?"Aboveall, we no longerhave to puzzleoverHamlet'sbehaviororto wrestle with Freudian and othertheories, for the Prince'sdelays and in-consistenciesare now easily explicable.He seems o haveutterproofof Claudius'guilt, but it is fromsources that will notstand up in any court.Forexample,youcannot hail a Ghost before the judge.Hamlet quite justifiably becomes sus-picious of the Ghost's story. Very well,he will test it-and does so in theplay-within-a-play.But even after that"proof"he is still, at least subconscious-ly, in doubt: even whenClaudius, n self-defense, is trying to do away with him,Hamlet is not wholly sure. He asksHoratio, in the very last scene of theplay, if it is not now"perfectconscience"to kill the king. He could not ask this

eradicated, we may now see how theevents of the play fall readilyinto place.We no longerhave to ask, "What hap-pensin Hamlet?"Aboveall, we no longerhave to puzzleoverHamlet'sbehaviororto wrestle with Freudian and othertheories, for the Prince'sdelays and in-consistenciesare now easily explicable.He seems o haveutterproofof Claudius'guilt, but it is fromsources that will notstand up in any court.Forexample,youcannot hail a Ghost before the judge.Hamlet quite justifiably becomes sus-picious of the Ghost's story. Very well,he will test it-and does so in theplay-within-a-play.But even after that"proof"he is still, at least subconscious-ly, in doubt: even whenClaudius, n self-defense, is trying to do away with him,Hamlet is not wholly sure. He asksHoratio, in the very last scene of theplay, if it is not now"perfectconscience"to kill the king. He could not ask this

questionif, deepinside,he didnotharbora doubt, an uncertainty.Thus Hamlet'sdelays are clearlyexplainedby the con-flict between the apparentfacts, whicharenot facts at all, andthe promptingsofhis instincts or soul or subconscious,whichareright.Andthe simplicityof theexplanationsthemeasureof its superiori-ty to the ingeniousand fancifultheorieshithertoproffered.A finalword:Althoughthe play seemsmost depressing f readin this way-thehero dead because he operatedunder adelusion, the villain triumphant andready to take the spoilsof triumph-wemust shun the compulsive desire for ahappy ending, or at least an ending inwhich evil is roundly punished. TheHollywoodmovies,of which we have allseen too many, invariably punish thevillain at the end. In life, unfortunately,it is not always so. Shakespearewas toogreat an artist to pretendthat it is.

questionif, deepinside,he didnotharbora doubt, an uncertainty.Thus Hamlet'sdelays are clearlyexplainedby the con-flict between the apparentfacts, whicharenot facts at all, andthe promptingsofhis instincts or soul or subconscious,whichareright.Andthe simplicityof theexplanationsthemeasureof its superiori-ty to the ingeniousand fancifultheorieshithertoproffered.A finalword:Althoughthe play seemsmost depressing f readin this way-thehero dead because he operatedunder adelusion, the villain triumphant andready to take the spoilsof triumph-wemust shun the compulsive desire for ahappy ending, or at least an ending inwhich evil is roundly punished. TheHollywoodmovies,of which we have allseen too many, invariably punish thevillain at the end. In life, unfortunately,it is not always so. Shakespearewas toogreat an artist to pretendthat it is.

The Romantic Unity of "KublaKhan"RICHARD HARTER FOGLE'

The Romantic Unity of "KublaKhan"RICHARD HARTER FOGLE'

IN HISvaluable book on Keats' Crafts-manship,M. R. Ridley has cited KublaKhanalongwith the "magiccasements"passageof Keats's "Nightingale"ode asthe very essenceof "the distilledsorcer-ies of Romanticism,"and his statementis more or less typical. This concept of"romanticmagic" has its sanction andis by no means to be discardedas point-less. In practice,however,it has had theunfortunateeffect of discouraging riticalanalysis; and it likewise plays into thehandsof thoseof ourcon'temporariesho1Tulane University. Author of The Imagery ofKeats and Shelley (University of North CarolinaPress, I949).

IN HISvaluable book on Keats' Crafts-manship,M. R. Ridley has cited KublaKhanalongwith the "magiccasements"passageof Keats's "Nightingale"ode asthe very essenceof "the distilledsorcer-ies of Romanticism,"and his statementis more or less typical. This concept of"romanticmagic" has its sanction andis by no means to be discardedas point-less. In practice,however,it has had theunfortunateeffect of discouraging riticalanalysis; and it likewise plays into thehandsof thoseof ourcon'temporariesho1Tulane University. Author of The Imagery ofKeats and Shelley (University of North CarolinaPress, I949).

inclineto look upon Romanticpoetry asa kind of moonlit mist, which dissolvesat the touch of reality and reason.The fascinating but uncritical studyof Lowes, with its emphasis upon theirrationaland the unconscious,and itsuntiring quest for sources,has had anequallyunfortunateanddiscouragingn-fluence.Only recently,with the workofElisabeth Schneider and others whohave pointedthe way, has it becomepos-sible to think of Kubla Khan as otherthan a kind of magnificentfreakand totreat it as an intelligible poem whichlies open to critical examination. Andthe influenceof Lowes still imposesupon

inclineto look upon Romanticpoetry asa kind of moonlit mist, which dissolvesat the touch of reality and reason.The fascinating but uncritical studyof Lowes, with its emphasis upon theirrationaland the unconscious,and itsuntiring quest for sources,has had anequallyunfortunateanddiscouragingn-fluence.Only recently,with the workofElisabeth Schneider and others whohave pointedthe way, has it becomepos-sible to think of Kubla Khan as otherthan a kind of magnificentfreakand totreat it as an intelligible poem whichlies open to critical examination. Andthe influenceof Lowes still imposesupon

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COLLEGE ENGLISHthe student the tyrannyof sourcestudy.He has openedso wide a field for specu-lation that scholars are still inclinedrather to revise or enlarge his conclu-sions than to proceedto the task of thecritic.The study of possible sources forColeridge'simagery is valuable. What-ever we can get, in fact, in the way of in-formationon the genesisand the circum-stances of a poem is useful. Such infor-mation,however,canbe dangerous f weexaggerate ts function and substitute itfor the poemitself. It is background,notforeground. To discover, for instance,a parallelbetweena passagein Plato anda poem of Coleridge s valuablewhen itadds to the poem's potential meaning;but the discoveryis misused if Plato ispermitted to determinewhat Coleridgeis talking about. The proper place tostudy Coleridge'spoetry is ultimatelyThe Poetical Works of Samuel TaylorColeridge.By implication the foregoing incau-tiousremarksbindthisessayto a twofoldeffort: first, to give such an account ofKubla Khan's "distilled sorceries"and"romanticmagic"as will reconcilethemwiththe rationalanddiscursiveprocessesof criticism;and, second, to accountforthem within the boundsof the poem. Asto the first, no one need fear that our"romanticmagic"will be dispelled,sucha Pyrrhic victory as that lying quitebeyond either the powers or the wishesof the presentwriter.As to the second,Ihope for a generously oose constructionas to what the bounds of the poem in-clude.A number of contentions must pre-cede the specific examinationof KublaKhan. First, the immediateliterary ef-fect intended and obtained in it byColeridgeis pleasure-a pleasurewhichderives from that very "Romanticsor-

cery" of which we have spoken. Thispleasure,as Pope says of Nature, is "thesource,and end, and test" of poetic art.It is not necessary, of course, to claimthat Coleridgehas found the only meansof attainingit. Second,this pleasure s inno way incompatiblewith even the pro-foundestmeaning;is in fact inseparablefrom meaning. The basic criterion forpoetry is in the broadest sense humaninterest: a poem should deal with a hu-man situation of universal interesttreated with sympathy, judgment, andinsight. This human significanceis notto be regardedas a monopoly of theclassical orneoclassicalhumanistbut be-longs to the Romantic poet as well.Third, Kubla Khan embodies the Cole-ridgean doctrine of "the reconciliationof opposites."On this point be it addedthat the authorityof the poemis at leastequal to prose definitionsof these doc-trines; it is the living word, as opposedto the skeleton of abstract definition.Neither, however, is fully intelligiblewithout the other. Finally, Kubla Khanis in the most essential sense a com-pleted work, in that it symbolizes andcomprehends the basic Romantic di-lemma,a crucialproblemof art.To avoid misunderstanding,let uspreface nterpretationof the poemwith aself-evident but necessary distinction.Kubla Khan is "fanciful" rather than"realistic"; the simplest, most basicpleasure it provides stems rather fromits distancefromactualitythanfromanyversimilitude or skilful imitation ofmatter of fact. It belongs n the categoryof what Drydencalled "the fairy way ofpoetry," and considerationof its mean-ing must be controlled by our under-standing of this limitation. With thisconceded, however,we can still demon-strate the immenselyimportantfact ofits basic humanityand significance.The

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THE ROMANTIC UNITY OF "KUBL K HAN"setting of Kubla Khan is pleasurableandwell removedfromany contactwiththe sharpedgesof the actual;yet withinits enchantedgardenwe shall findprob-lems of the weightiest import.Thus thecentral situation of the poem is thespaciouspleasure-garden f Kubla:So twice fivemilesof fertilegroundWith walls and towers were girdled round....And the poem itself is embodiedin thisgarden, various, extensive, yet inclosedfrom the world without. But our esti-mate of the situation is incompleteif itignores the implicationsof the toweredwalls. A reality against which we mustfortifyourselves s hardlya realitywhichwe can ignore.We must then extend ourdefinitionto includethis implicationandconsider the core of the poem to residein an opposition or stress between thegarden, artificial and finite, and the in-definite, inchoate, and possibly turbu-lent outsideworld.

Since, however, what lies beyond thewalls is only implied, not imaged, wemust pass to whateverrelationshipsexistinside them.In XanadudidKublaKhanA statelypleasure-domeecree....

This pleasure-dome s the focal point ofthe physical setting and is correspond-ingly important. Within the bounds ofthe encircledgarden, the pleasure-domeand the river are the opposites to bereconciled. The pleasure-dome is as-sociated with Man, as Kubla is an em-blem of Man; it figures his desire forpleasureand safety; it standsfor strictlyhuman and finite values. The image ofthe dome suggests agreeablesensationsofroundednessandsmoothness; hecrea-tion of Man, its quasi-geometricalhapeis simpler than the forms of Naturewhichsurroundt, yet blends with them.This dome,however,also evokes the re-

ligious-it is in some sort a temple, ifonly to the mere mortal Kubla Khan.And thus there is also a blending orinterfusion with its opposite, the sacredriverAlph.The pleasure-dome is the chosenrefugeof Kublathe mighty, the emperorwhose every whim is law, who wouldhave temptationstowardhubris. t is thecenterof his retreat in his haughtywith-drawal roma worldunworthyof him. Itis above and beyondNature, a "miracleof raredevice"in whichMan transcendsand circumventsmerenaturalprocesses.It stands amid an enormousgarden inwhicha considerable egmentof wildna-ture is isolated and imprisonedfor thedelightof the humanKubla.And there were gardensbright with sinuousrills,Whereblossomedmanyanincense-bearingree;Andherewere orestsancientas thehills,Enfolding unnyspotsof greenery.

This description hints, however, thatNature here is an uneasy prisoner, orperhapsa prisonerwho is boundedonlyduring her own pleasure. The "forestsancient" suggest an existence unknownto man and uncoercedby humanpower,whoseswayover it is temporaryandpre-carious. It is a force and being unlikeMan, busy about its own purposes and,like the serpent, inscrutable in thelabyrinthinewanderingsof the "sinuousrills"of the gardens.Here one may affirmthat this settingillustratesa typicalRomanticconceptionof "the reconciliationof opposites" bymeans of a concrete,visual scene. By aprocessof shadingand gradation n lightand dark, in garden and forest, opposi-tions become blended, interfused, andunified; and this visual unificationextends to the feelings and ideas whichthe scene evokes. This is the Romantic"picturesque,"more fully to be seen in

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COLLEGE ENGLISHthe landscape of Wordsworth's "Lines. . . above Tintern Abbey," with itscomplexblending of sky and valley, ofMan andNature, objectified n blendingand gradation of color and form. InKubla Khan the effectpermitsus simul-taneously and with no sense of paradoxor jar to receive the gardens as theelaborateplaythingof a greatpotentate,the emblem of his pride, exclusiveness,and power, and also as an ironic com-mentary upon the impossibility of anyreal ownershipof Nature.These oppositions,however, are onlya subthemeor prelude.The river is thetrue exemplarof nonhumanforces, sub-humanand superhumanalike.Even the"deep romantic chasm" of its rising isincompatiblewith the orderof Kubla'spleasure-grounds.t "slantsathwart"; tcuts acrossthe pattern. The simileof the"woman wailing for her demon-lover"invests it with the supernatural, theArabian Nights wonder and fear of thejinni, beings unfriendlyto man and yetobscurelyconnected with him.Of the river itself most noticeable isthe brevity of its surfacecoursein rela-tion to the hidden potentialities of itssubterraneanlowing:Fivemilesmeandering ith a mazymotionThroughwoodanddalethe sacredriverran,Thenreached he cavernsmeasurelesso manAnd sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean....Treated as a whole and in its relation-ship with the dome and the pleasure-grounds,the river is the primordialandthe irrational,whateverlies beyond thecontrol of the rational and consciousmind. The power of the source, vividlyimaged in the dancingrocks-And from this chasm,with ceaselessturmoilseethingAs if this earth in fast thick pants were breath-ing,A mighty fountain momently was forced

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burstHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,Orchaffygrainbeneath he thresher'slail:And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and everIt flung up momently the sacred river ... -is a powerbeyondmortalman, even be-yond Kubla Khan. This source is crea-tion and birth, a force and urge at oncefrenetic and turbulent and also rhyth-micalandregular.At the mouthis death,icy andlifeless,whereAlph in tumult re-turns to the underground.As with thesource,powersunknownand uncontrol-lable are at work, descendingat last toquiescence.Herearepotentialitiesnot ofdeathabsolutelybut relative to what canbe imaginedand experienced.Thus the oppositionbetweenriveranddome. But here we must shift our em-phasis, as previouslywith the pleasure-groundsthemselves,more fully to Alph.The river is human life, past, present,and future, birth, life, and death. Forfive miles it runsupon the surface,con-sents, "meanderingwith a mazy nio-tion," to harmonizewith the order ofKubla's estate, to yield to his power. Itis like Bede'sfamousbirdwhichfliesin amoment throughthe warm hall, swiftlyproceedingfrom unknown birth to un-knowndeath.AndKubla in hispleasure-domeis Man, living in his specialcosmosof palaceand garden,but hearing

... the mingled measureFrom the fountain and the caves....Impulses unaccountable, creative anddeadly alike,comprehendingmoreof lifethan the reason can grasp. It is amid thetumult that Kubla hears the ominousprophecyofwar,andthisfromthe dying,the caves of ice. The poem as narrativecan go no further than this, for the de-structionis impliedof Kubla'selaborateand artificialescape.The complexorderandequilibriumof his existenceareover-


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THE ROMANTIC UNITY OF "KUBLA KHAN"set by the merehint. This statement im-plies,of course,that thepatternmust notwithin the poem be broken and thatKublais never to emerge romhis walledpleasure-grounds.Yet in an importantsense the patternis broken n that Coleridgecontinuesthelyric but abandonsthe story. Suddenlythe imagery shifts to the "damsel witha dulcimer."Thisdamsel,the Abyssinianmaid, is most simply comparable o themuse invoked by the classical poet.Shehas, as has beensuggested,a relationto Milton'sheavenlymuseUrania,as thestimulatingspeculationsaboutthe sourceof "Mount Abora" indicate. It is valu-able to compareher also, as does MissSchneider, to Platonic inspiration, thefurorpoeticusof the bard.Appropriately,however, to Coleridge's Romanticismand to the special context of KublaKhan, she is wild and remote, with theglamourand terror of a far-off,mysteri-ous land, marvelous, inaccessible, yetrich with the significantassociationsofliterature.So Keats in a lyric much akinto KublaKhan:

I saw parched Abyssinia rouse and singTo the silver cymbals' ring!I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierceOld Tartary the fierce!-The damsel is as well the ideal singer,the archetypalpoet. The transmissionofher song, if transmission here could be,would be like the conceptionof imitationin Longinus,wherethe divine firepassesfrom poet to poet, and Plato emulatesHomer in the beneficent rivalry ofgenius.But Coleridges modest,with theclear sense that the song can never beequaled:

Could I revive within meHer symphony and song,To such a deep delight 'twould win meThat with music loud and longI would build that dome in air....

The phrase "deep delight" carriesusinto the problem of pleasure,more es-peciallyinto the problemof the pleasurewhich the particularpoem KublaKhanshouldprovide.This delight is for Cole-ridge as well as Wordsworththe pre-requisiteof poetic creation,the imagina-tive joy and effluencedescribed n "De-jection: An Ode."But here it is also aneffectpeculiarto the poem itself: a kindof magic, an apparentlynaive delight inthe presentation of wonders, and ingorgeousimages evoked in imaginationin the sort of pleasuresuggestedby theclassic ancient accounts of Plato, Aris-totle, and Longinus.This pleasure is also partly fromvariety and fulness-wonders whichsatisfy, as for a child at a carnival.Thesequalities are embodied not only in theimagery but in fulness and variety ofmelodic movement in the verse, whichwould bear more thorough discussionthan can be given here.The word"sym-phony" in line 43 is not lightly or care-lessly used. The delight is roundedandcompletedby the darktingeof the "deepromantic chasm," the turbulent powerof the river, the doom of the ancestralvoices, and lastly by the mingling ofdread and enchantment in the closinglines, where the holiness of the inspiredpoet is in a senseunholy too, an affairasit were of the infernalgods as much asthe cleardeity of Apollo.The interpretationn earlierpageshasattempted to demonstrate an essentialprofundityanduniversality n the themeof Kubla Khan. It remainsto assertthatpleasureis in no way incompatiblewithsignificance. n somecontemporary oet-ry and criticism there seems implicitthe notion that it is somehowdishonestand shameful to please, an attitudewhichhas tellinglybeentermed"thenew

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COLLEGE ENGLISHPuritanism." One feels inclined to re-new the old question,"Dost thou think,becausethou art virtuous,there shall beno more cakes and ale?" But in KublaKhan, as probablyin all good Romanticpoetry, the pleasure which draws uswithin the poem is also inseparable romits full meaning. Imaginative delight inthe wondersof the pleasure-grounds in-dispensableto the sense of their oppo-site. Fully to appreciate the theme'spotentialities, we must be beguiled intobelieving momentarily in the perma-nency of the impermanent, he possibil-ity of the impossible.The fullest mean-ing, a synthesis of antitheses, calls forfeeling and imaginationat full stretch,reconciled with intellectual scope andunderstanding.And pleasure, one mayclaim, is the basis and beginningof theprocess.Our final contention re-emphasizesthe depth and significance of KublaKhan. It is in the truest sense a com-pleted work, in that it symbolizes andcomprehendsthe crucial Romantic di-lemma. In a more obvious sense it isclearlyunfinished:as a narrative t bare-ly commences, and it shifts abruptlywith the Abyssinianmaidfromobjectiveto subjective. Consideredas lyric, how-ever, it is self-containedand whole. TheRomantic poet as idealist and moniststrivesto includewithinhis cosmosbothactualand ideal, as in Coleridge,Words-worth,Shelley,even Byron, and to some

extent Keats. His attempt, however,co-exists with his consciousness that heseeks the unattainable; the ideal cannever be fully actualized.Thus in goodRomantic poetry there is a continuoustension, compactedof the sense of theimmensepotentialities of his theme setoff against the knowledgethat they canonly partially be realized. This tensionand conflict can be reconciledand ren-deredvaluablepartly by the poet's ownbelief in the value of the attempt itself.The poet excels himself as it were byforce;he is stimulatedto creationratherthan falling into despair. Above all, hebenefitsby understandingand acceptinghis dilemma even while trying to riseabove it nonetheless.And this is eminently the case withKubla Khan. Coleridgeprovidesa sceneand experiencetoo fine for commonna-ture's daily food. With exquisite judg-ment he forbearsthe attempt to explainwhat can only be hinted and dramatizesinstead what is lost in the very act ofrelinquishing t. But amid the master-artist's skilful manipulationof interestand suspense, his suggestionsof "morethan meets the eye," is the humaninter-est, the complexityand spaciousgrasp,withoutwhichthe restwouldbe nothing,could not separately exist. Properlyunderstood,Romanticpoetry is never acheat, althoughit often laborsunderthedisadvantageof being extremely agree-able.

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