/lit/ - Literature

Biographia Literaria

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was probably bipolar; he was prone to both mania (concocting fanciful plans like moving to the United States and starting a commune) and depression. He also self-medicated with opium.

I gave an answer to the same question in another thread a couple of weeks ago. I think it's decently insightful, so I'll repost it here.

There are probably several factors to the decline of poetry in the English language. Among them are the following:
>poetry circles have become fairly incestuous and closed off, with almost all poets who regularly get published in major magazines being at universities
>popular music replaced poetry as a major form of mass entertainment (to the extent it ever was)
>poetry is extremely hard to write (Faulkner said something about all novelists being failed poets) and it's easier for people with a modicum of literary talent to just write prose (granted, this factor isn't new, but it's exacerbated by the other ones)
>the decline of traditional meter and the rise of free verse blurred the lines between verse and prose and probably pushed some would-be poets to not bother with line breaks at all
>many of the poetic forms which were once standard are now not appreciated at all (maybe you could publish a novel in blank verse today, but good luck publishing one in heroic couplets)
>there's no longer any expectation that any fiction will be in verse (quite the opposite, actually), so writers are freer now to choose prose than they were in the past (for example, even if Shakespeare had wanted to write his plays all in prose, he probably wouldn't have been able to get away with defying the conventions of his time like that)
>elite tastemakers have less sway over the opinions of the masses than they did in ages past, which is why Rupi Kaur is probably the most popular poet writing in English today despite having no critical esteem
>the material taught in schools has changed substantially; most American schoolchildren do read Shakespeare in high school and a few other poets like Frost as well, but poetry (especially classical poetry) used to play a much greater role in education than it does today; remember that prepubescents used to read the Iliad in the original Greek
It's worth mentioning that this isn't the first time English poetry has been in a nadir; most of the 18th century produced next to no enduring poetry (basically everything after Pope and before the Romantics is considered minor at best). Furthermore, even in eras when English poetry "flourished," most of it was still pretty much worthless; most poets who were prominent in their time have been forgotten, and even among those who are remembered we mostly only read a small fraction of their work (e.g. Coleridge's reputation basically rests entirely on three poems). If you want to see why, go get an unabridged collection of a major poet's works; I guarantee you that at least 90% of it will be boring at best. It's also probably worth pointing out that other once-popular art forms have seriously declined as well (the most obvious example being opera); to some extent, tastes are going to change no matter what.

Favorite Romantic poem?

>Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Coleridge's masterpiece, which he wrote after experiencing an opium dream.

>Kubla Khan: or, A Vision in a Dream

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
And folding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and inchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted Burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she play'd,
Singing of Mount Abora,
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread:
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drank the milk of Paradise.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
And folding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and inchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted Burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she play'd,
Singing of Mount Abora,
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread:
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drank the milk of Paradise.