Coleridge and Shelley - Imagination and Narrative Voice (Due: Monday, March 23, 2009)

Before you begin this week's blog entry, re-read Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" (pp. 759-760) and Shelley's "Ozymandias" (p. 803).

Hopefully over the past week you've developed a feel for the social and political climate in which the Romantic poets were writing and for the ways these poets used their writing as calls for change. With this in mind, I'd like you to respond to the following for this week's post:

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)?

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?