Critically appreciate in your own words one of the following poems: a. Kubla Khan b. Ode to the West Wind c. Ode on a Grecian Urn
Answers
So, let's dive into our analysis. We'll take a look at the poem stanza by stanza, summarizing each stanza's content and looking for any themes, ideas or emotions that hold a poem together, that emerge. Let's start with the first stanza:
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,--
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
You can probably tell by the first few words ('My heart aches') that this isn't going to be an especially cheery poem. As the first stanza unfolds, the speaker compares his mental state to being intoxicated (or even poisoned, as suggested by 'hemlock'), even going so far as to allude, to make reference to, the river Lethe. In Greek mythology, the Lethe is a river in the underworld, whose waters will erase the memories of anyone who drinks them. As the stanza winds to its conclusion, we learn that the reason behind the speaker's trance-like state is the nightingale's song, which makes the speaker so happy that he can't focus on anything else.