17 pages • 34 minutes read
Samuel ColeridgeKubla Khan
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1816A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading
Frost at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a series of conversation poems, a groundbreaking technique that replaced previous poetry’s elevated language with a more plainspoken English. In “Frost at Midnight,” the poet uses a wakeful winter night to reflect on his childhood and the future of his infant son sleeping beside him.
“Floating Island” by Dorothy Wordsworth
Coleridge enjoyed an important friendship with poet William Wordsworth, whose sister Dorothy (1771-1855) also wrote poetry. A lesser-known female Romantic, Dorothy Wordsworth studied nature and laments its fragility in “Floating Island.” This seven-stanza poem describes an island in a lake and invites readers to observe their environment as closely as the poet does.
“Dream Song 29” by John Berryman
John Berryman (1914-1972), a poet of the modernist era, dwelt on dreams and the mind throughout his poetry, particularly in his iconic series of poems The Dream Songs. First published in 1969, this poem depicts Henry (the persona character throughout the Dream Songs) contemplating guilt and thought itself. Whereas Coleridge glorifies the mind’s capacity to dream in “Kubla Khan,” Berryman depicts a more tumultuous mental environment in “Dream Song 29.”
Related Titles
By Samuel Coleridge
