Contrast and Comparison of Wordsworths Tintern Abbey and...

Contrast and Comparison of Wordsworths Tintern Abbey and Colderidges Kubla Khan When comparing William Wordsworths Tintern Abbey, and Samuel Colderidges Kubla Khan, one notices a distinct difference in the use of imagination within the two poems. Even though the two poets were contemporaries and friends, Wordsworth and Colderidge each have an original and different way in which they introduce images and ideas into their poetry. These differences give the reader quite a unique experience when reading the works of these two authors. Through the imagination of the poet, the reader can also gain insight into the mind and personality of the poet himself. These ideas will be explored through analysis and comparison of the two poems, with†¦show more content†¦Colderidge sets the description of his poem on the banks of a river as well, but the river of this poem represents the imagination or creative flow of the poet. In the introduction of the poem, Colderidge describes how while in an opium induced dream, he has a vision of Kubla Khan commanding a place to be built. Upon awakening, he set about to write down his vision but was interrupted by a visitor. When he returned to finish his work, he had only a vague recollection of the dream to which he likens as the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast. It is this description of his imagination within the introduction to the poem which give the clues as to Colderidges metaphorical use of the river within the poem. To re-examine the first four lines of the poem also gives us insight into this idea. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through the caverns measureless to man (1-4) Colderidge believed the imagination to consist of three parts. The primary imagination, which was the divine source of all inspiration and ideas. The secondary imagination, which works together with the primary imagination, and is in a sense the manifestation or attempted creation of those ideas that have come from the primary imagination. The third is fancy,