Major English Writers 2

The essay below is intended to help you understand the basics of writing an essay response. Notice in particular the thesis and thesis statement, the organization, the support and development of ideas, the use of quotations and other supporting evidence, the use of parenthetical citations, and the formal writing style. Just click on the numbered links below for pop-up boxes explaining the different parts of the essay. The essay below is not perfect, and a few of the numbered links explain aspects of the essay that could be stronger.

Unlike the sample essay below, your essay should be double spaced. You should indent the first line of each paragraph (press [Tab] once), and there should not be any extra spaces between paragraphs.

The essay question: In an essay, explain how Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" explores the role of the poet in relation to the theme of the human desire for permanence and the theme of mutability.

The Essay

Although Samuel Taylor Coleridge professed to doubt the "supposed poetic merit" of his poem "Kubla Khan" {1} (1596) {2}, the poem, in fact, has much poetic merit. The poem takes readers to the exotic world of Xanadu, where the powerful Kubla Khan decrees the building of an earthly paradise. {3} Despite the exotic setting, the poem explores the familiar themes of mutability and permanence and of the poet's power to create lasting art. Through Kubla Khan's attempts to build his own paradise, Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan" {4} explores the human desire for beauty and permanence {5} in a world of inevitable change {6} while developing the related theme of the poet's power to create imagined worlds that can outlast even the most stately of physical structures {7}. {8}

The first part of the poem suggests Kubla Khan's attempts to build a sort of earthly paradise, free from the world of change around it. {9} Several details of the poem recall the Garden of Eden, suggesting that Khan is interested in building not just a beautiful kingdom but a paradise on earth. The speaker describes an idealized landscape, complete with "fertile ground" (6) {10}, "gardens bright with sinuous rills" (8), "many an incense-bearing tree" in blossom (9), and "sunny spots of greenery" (11). {11} This is an Edenic world of gardens and trees in bloom, the sun shining, and the air scented with blossoms. {12} The centerpiece of this world is the "stately pleasure dome" (2), a structure whose details remain vague in the poem but that is clearly designed to fulfill Khan's desire for pleasure and grandeur. That the world of the pleasure dome and the surrounding landscape is an earthly paradise intended to last is further emphasized by Khan's desire to protect it. This beautiful but fragile world is "girdled round" (7) with ten miles of "walls and towers" (7), suggesting {13} the dangers that threaten even the most perfect of human creations. In the first part of the poem, readers are exposed to Khan's attempt to create a beautiful and permanent world, but the "the sacred river" that flows through the kingdom (3), through "caverns measureless to man" (4), and "[d]own to a sunless sea" (5), perhaps a metaphor for the fluid and mysterious nature of life itself {14}, is an ominous suggestion of trouble to come as Khan tries to create and preserve his own earthly paradise. {15}

The end of Khan's beautiful world is suggested as the theme of mutability is emphasized through the natural processes of the earth and through the inevitability of human conflict. {16} From the chasms of the earth rise "ceaseless turmoil" (17), described metaphorically as if the "earth in fast thick pants were breathing" (18). The metaphor of birth is developed as "a mighty fountain momently was forced" from the chasm (19), throwing "huge fragments" into the air (21). Literally, the speaker describes a volcanic eruption, but the metaphor emphasizes that the event is simply a natural part of earthly and human existence, an event beyond human control and part of the continual changes that human beings must face. More trouble follows for Kubla Khan. In the midst of "this tumult Kubla heard from far / Ancestral voices prophesying war!" (29-30). {17} {18} Both natural events and human conflict now pose a threat to Khan's world as he is reminded of the threats of warfare that his ancestors have faced and that he, presumably, must face as well. With a recognition of the changes inherent to earthly existence, the speaker describes how "[t]he shadow of the dome of pleasure / Floated midway on the waves" (31-32), implying the transitory nature of the beautiful world that Khan has built and has tried to protect. {19}

Readers seem to face an abrupt shift in the final section of the poem, but the speaker continues to explore the human search for beauty and permanence and the theme of mutability presented earlier while developing the idea that poets have the power to build and inhabit their own earthly paradises. {20} The focus is now on the speaker, as signaled by the first use of "I" in the poem (38). The speaker imagines the power he could wield if he were able to "revive within" himself (42) the "symphony and song" (43) of a damsel he once saw in a vision. {21} With this inspiration and creative energy, the speaker proclaims that, with "music loud and long" (45), he "would build that dome in air / That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!" (46-47). The speaker now imagines himself, and not Kubla Khan, as building the beautiful pleasure dome. The poet builds the dome with his words, but "all who heard should see" the speaker's creation (48). The speaker is, in a sense, more powerful that Khan. Not only can the speaker create the pleasure dome "in air" (46), suggesting that he can create the stately structure out of nothing, but the imagined world created by the poet's words is not susceptible to the natural forces and human conflict that threaten to destroy Khan's dome and bright gardens. The poet's words can outlast physical structures. {22} This creative power is almost magical: {23} "all should cry, Beware! Beware!" (49) as they are filled with "holy dread" (52) while witnessing the inspired poet/creator. The poem ends without any suggested threats to the poet's created world. While Khan's world crumbles, the speaker indicates that the poet "on honey-dew hath fed, / And drunk the milk of Paradise" (53-54). {24} {25}

In Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan," {26} the speaker portrays Khan's attempts to create an earthly paradise, but he also presents the inevitable threats to this fragile world, suggesting the futility of human attempts to build a permanent and unchanging paradise in this world of change. Like Khan, the poet has the power to create his own earthly paradise, but the poet's world, built from words alone, is more lasting than Khan's physical structure and beautiful gardens. The power of the poet to create imagined worlds is confirmed by the poem "Kubla Khan" itself, for it is in this poem that Coleridge builds Khan's kingdom and the "stately pleasure dome" (2), and the poem remains preserved for all who wish to enter this world created by Coleridge. {27}

How long should each body paragraph be? {28}

How long should the introduction and the conclusion be? {29}

How many body paragraphs should be in a short essay? {30}

Should the essay include a "Work(s) Cited" page? {31}

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