Kubla Khan

1) The power of the imagination is often exalted in Romantic poetry. In your opinion, does “Kubla Khan” celebrate the imagination or caution against its indulgence? To whom might Coleridge be writing and for what purpose(s)?

I think that "Kubla Khan" was written to caution against the indulgences of the imagination. Coleridge shows in his poem that by giving into his imagination, the reader is taken on a wild ride, through a river and over the ground, beneath the moon,and through many other forms of nature. Coleridge also does something interesting when he writes his poem in a lyrical tone and with rhyme, though the actual words and the story he produces is choppy and jumps from subject to subject. THis is very interesting because dreams are often shown in a choppy manner, not exactly a story, just images running together.


2) Even in the brief space of a sonnet, Shelley suggests a number of narrative frames. How many speakers do you hear in "Ozymandias"? What does each of these voices seem to say to you (or to others) as listeners?

In this sonnet, the speakers appear to be a traveler and a sculptor. The traveler describes the ruins to the reader. The sculptor is spoken of because he was the one who created the art that the traveler is seeing. Ozymandias also makes an appearance in the sonnet, and it is ironic because on the worn down sculpture Ozymandias wrote very passionate piece of writing, but it is old and falling apart because of the sculptor.