A Study Of The Romantic Orient In Kubla Khan

British Romantic literature stands for the crowning achievement of European Romantic literature in the nineteenth century.The principal feature of British Romantic literature is to emphasize a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility,encourage poets’ imagination and fascinate with the exotic and mysterious Orient.The Romantic Orient turns into a common tendency among the Romantic writers.Samuel Taylor Coleridge,a mile-stone figure in the history of both British and world literature,is well known in his poetic imagination,theological thought and profound political idea about the construction of state,etc.Meanwhile,he has a persistent interest in and a close relationship with the Orient.Kubla Khan,his well-known supernatural poem,is a good case in point in terms of its creation background,its images within,its theme and especially its title.As just one part of social activity,the souls of Romantic poets are not a closed system,and neither is Coleridge an isolated individual.Therefore,to research the Romantic Oriental elements presented in Kubla Khan,it is worth situating the poem in the historical context of its composition.Throughout the Romantic period,both the Industrialization that seriously destroys nature,(the source of Romantic poets’ inspiration)and the French Revolution,(which frustrated their expectation to establish an ideal world,)profoundly influence the Romantic poets’ philosophical ideas and ideological values.So it is urgent for the Romantic poets to build a unified transcendental world,in which their philosophy,religion and society are capable of developing multi-facedly and harmoniously on the most diverse foundation.At this time,the fashionable Oriental culture in Britain inspires the Romantic poets to establish a transcendental world in the light of the Oriental images.Therefore,the appearance of the Romantic Orient is somewhat inevitable in Romantic literature.Kubla Khan is renowned for its strong exotic sentiment,including the typical Chinese element of Kubla Khan,the sublime Chinese garden and the infinity of East.The typical Chinese element,the emperor Kubla Khan,is not only the subject of the first line,but the title of the whole poem,which envelopes this poem in a mysterious Oriental world,adding more charm to its content.The other impressive Chinese image in Kubla Khan is the vivid and spectacular garden landscape.This kind of garden landscape strangely coincides with Chinese landscape design concept.Coleridge is totally immersed in the sublime beauty of the Chinese garden.In addition to this,the poem is bestowed with the psychological infinity of the East,with precise mathematical description of natural and humanized revisions of it.Through the description of the “endless cave”,or “sunless ocean”,and in the precise mathematics of both natural landscape and artificial landscape,Coleridge well presents the psychological infinity of the East that provides a medium for him to create a transcendental world in the light of imagination.The Orient as an exotic and mysterious place is inextricably linked with Coleridge,who is profoundly influenced by the Orient,not merely on a physical but on a spiritual level as well.First,being an opium addict,opium marked as the Orient brings fatal damages to his health,but opium also alleviates his physical pain and anxiety and produces a positive effect on his poetic ability,by sharpening his sense and providing sublime materials for his poem.So opium is a double-edged sword which brings two effects of extreme to Coleridge.Secondly,being a radical dissenter in the Romantic period,Coleridge harshly criticizes the kowtow ritual of the Qing Dynasty and severely attacks the despotism and the tyranny of the Qing Dynasty through the case of the kowtow controversy,by which he shows his very critical and negative attitude to the so-called Celestial Empire.Meanwhile,Coleridge’s philosophical view of Oneness permeates his poetic ideology,and is echoed by the idea of Oriental philosophy of harmony-integrity,for both the Oriental philosophy of harmony-integrity and Coleridge emphasize the harmonious coexistence among things and aim to establish a unity universe.This thesis,from the perspective of New Historicism,aims to study the Oriental elements in Kubla Khan for a better understanding of Coleridge’s persistence in the Orient under the Romantic historical culture context.The thesis holds that the presentation of the Romantic Orient in Romantic literature is a result of the interaction between history and literature.The supernatural poem Kubla Khan,with its imagery,its theme,especially its title and creation background,best represents the English Romantic Oriental color.Coleridge’s feeling towards the Oriental culture is complex and contradictory,mysteriously fascinated and greatly puzzled as well.Coleridge’s philosophical view of nature and his pursuit for Oneness bare resemblance with traditional Chinese eco-philosophy in essence.