Meagan Hale Assignment 3

"Kubla Khan"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge creates a serene tone in his poem Kubla Khan. This poem is about Xanadu, a summer palace where the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan would visit and Coleridge describes this mystical place in a way he imagines it. His use of imagery allows the audience to imagine this magical place fit for royalty. In line 9, "where blossomed many incense bearing tree," has a vivid effect on the audience's senses. We can believe this place is real through this description. Walking through, smelling these trees makes for a calm and peaceful setting. "Caverns measureless to man" and "a timeless sea" are both full of mystery but also their secluded nature and their silence equally contribute to the tranquil tone of the poem. In line 21, we can hear the, "huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail." Nearly everyone has heard this sound or something similar to it. It can be a peaceful sound, like the soft pitter patter of the rain that usually accompanies the hail. It is relaxing which makes Xanadu seem so much more real to the audience. Though there is a shift change near the end of the poem which disrupts the poems serene tone, the majority of the poem does maintain a semblance of peacefulness. This is created through Coleridge's use of imagery and diction that entice the reader's senses.


"It doesn't make much difference how the pain is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement." --Jackson Pollock

I agree with Pollock in this statement concerning art. I believe that the most important aspect of art is the message it sends, the story it tells, or the emotions it evokes. The form is not as important as the message. Pollock's work has especially been criticized due to its simplistic conception. It is just paint splattered on a canvas, so what? In art history we have learned to stop saying, "I could do that," and start asking, "why did the artist do that?" I think that simple pieces of artwork are as complex as the ideas they represent. The splattered chaotic mess could really be representative of political anarchy or the perfectly symmetric solid colored square on a canvas could be a wink at a "cookie cutter" society. No matter how simple or complex a piece of artwork is, the weight it carries in the artist's motivation to make it matters much more than its construction. The artist was trying to tell their audience something they believed was important enough to invest time and money into making it art so we at least owe it to them to listen, despite our opinions on the aesthetics.