Greg Olear wrote an analysis of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” which is hilarious and insightful. I read it in high school or college but never saw it as he sees it now: the product of an opium-addled brain. He compares parts of it to rock music and shows something my teachers never mentioned: that behind his feverish dream is an erotic imagination.
Then he connects the theme of the ecstatic poem to one Donald J. Trump and the joyless Putin.
His essay on this mysterious poem made me laugh out loud.
Enjoy!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Olear is at once an astute historian and a gifted analyst. I thoroughly enjoyed his rendering of this imagery along with both 1) the backstory of Coleridge and the contemporary mindset toward his metaphorical language and 2) the connections of our current dictator wanna-be. History gives us many lessons, but not all are exposed to their true meanings. Thus, Trump as tragic anti-hero becomes more apparent. What will history tell of his story?
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Me too, LG. I laughed out loud.
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Thanks for posting this. You are alway finding interesting stuff.
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It is truly astonishing what creative potential lies within people, waiting to be tapped and showing itself in altered states of consciousness such as dreams, fevers, states induced by drugs or austerities, trance states, and possession (as by a Muse, who was literally described as being breathed in (in-spired in an act of inspiration).
I have long practiced writing based on dreams, as soon as I awaken, and my friends often remark on how wondrous these are. Such things are in all of us.
Usually, it is important to distinguish between the speaker of a poem (the “I” in a poem) and the poem’s author. After all, the speaker is an assumed persona/voice. That’s one of the fundamental tenets of the New Criticism, which tended to give short shrift to the Romantics, like Shelley, and to favor intellectualized poets like Donne and Pope and Eliot and Stevens. However, in this case, I think Mr. Olear and the New Critics whom he draws upon wrong. The I at the end is Coleridge. Clearly. He is reporting what is the case in the middle of this ecstatic vision. And it’s astonishing. This is the state that the Romantic Poet seeks–to reach that state and sustain it long enough to create a Great Work. Shelley as Alastor, same thing. Complete transport.
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=560520228&q=my+god+it%27s+full+of+stars&tbm=vid&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJzu22uP2AAxXamYQIHZKeBw0Q0pQJegQIERAB&biw=1590&bih=905&dpr=1.01#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:d3e52556,vid:oALxLNOhI6I
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One of the takeaways from this: such transformative ecstatic experience is there for any of us to have.
Tragically (and infamously), Richard Nixon, in an attempt to “go after the blacks and the hippies,” created the “war on drugs,” which turned out to be a jobs program for illegal and violent drug cartels, and one of the consequences of this is that it stopped, cold, the research on psychedelics and a) their powers to unlock breathtaking and important depths of human experience, as well as b) their great medical uses for treatment of PTSD, alchoholism, depression, and panic related to end-stage terminal illness. Nixon and subsequent morons taking up his cause–people like Bill Bennett–basically created a lingering and utterly unscientific MORAL PANIC. This moral panic reflected the fears of the unknown on the part of lily-livered, cowardly morons on the Reich-wing, and it has held generations back from having some of the most important, most valuable experiences that it is possible for people to have.
It’s time to end all those literally INSANE prohibitions. Highly recommended reading:
Pollan, Michael. How to Change Your Mind. Penguin, 2018.
Straussman, Rick. DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences. Park Street P., 2001.
Lewis-Williams, David. Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness and the Origins of Art. Thames & Hudson, 2004.
See also the great materials on the definitive website on psychedelics, Erowid.org.
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All this said, a cautionary note: one of the truly egregious consequences of the idiotic “war on drugs” has been that the drug trade, having been driven underground, is no subject to any regulation or quality control. So, for example, Wired magazine, I think it was, bought 100 different tabs of MDMA (ecstasy) in New York clubs and had them analyzed. Some incredibly small number turned out not to have adulterants in them, some of these very dangerous adulterants. So, our drug laws in the U.S. put people in enormous danger. That’s just evil and wrong. We need to end prohibition and start doing regulation. So, if you are going to experiment with psychedelics, make sure that you are getting clean stuff, and then be careful to have a trip sitter and to ensure that you have a safe set (state of mind) and setting (place) going into the experience. These are powerful and important drugs. They are for spiritual experiences. They are not for mere recreation.
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LSD and DMT are among the safest of substances. A LOT more safe than are cigarettes and alcohol, for example. But prohibition has enabled the operation of underground manufactures and the widespread adulteration of street drugs leading to people DYING. YUP. OUR DRUG LAWS KILL PEOPLE where, the case of most psychedelics, the drugs do not, where the drugs themselves are typically, mostly harmless.
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There is definitely a gnosis, a philosophical awakening, to be had via these experiences. It’s profound. It’s transformative. It’s among the most important and valuable things that a human can do.
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Eloquent as always, Bob. Perhaps Coleridge was the “I,” but like with most art, the interpretation is in the eye (or “I”) of the beholder. Maybe that’s the intentional part of the mystique.
Also while reading this missive, my thoughts strayed to the bogus “War on Drugs” but in the sense that chemical refreshment is always available to the privileged and (mostly) without legal consequence. It’s not just the disadvantaged among society that seek this recreation, but it’s most always the have-nots who suffer said consequences.
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That certainly is the case.
With regard to variations in interpretation, I’m with E. D. Hirsch, Jr., in believing that we need to at least uphold a fiction that there is a correct interpretation. Here’s why: People typically write in order to communicate (though they write for other reasons as well). That means that there is something that they wish to communicate–to pass to others and down through the generations. If I thought that my work meant whatever people might imagine they would like for it to mean, I wouldn’t see any reason to bother writing to begin with. When I write, there is something I wish to communicate, and the goal of criticism, I believe, is to recover that. See Hirsch’s Validity in Interpretation.
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The whole idea of cultural transmission is based on this idea, that there is some message to be transmitted across generations. Not any message that people would like to attach to a piece.
Let us go then you and I
Well, the speaker is saying that he and the Other are lettuce, and it goes, or wilts, quickly. It’s about the ephemeralness of love.
I don’t think so.
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So, I would say, rather, that people arrive at competing interpretations, and it is the business of critical argument/dialectic to sort those out. I would be happy to debate the point with Mr. Olear based on evidence from the poem and from the lives and works of Coleridge and other Romantic poets.
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The Romantics did, certainly, at times, take on the personae of others–assume voices through which they spoke, as poets typically do. But like the Confessional Poets of the 20th century–Plath and Sexton, for example–they often wrote extremely personalized verse. Alas, this led to a lot of terrible poetry in imitation of them.
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This stance on interpretation emphatically does NOT require that one insist on one’s own or that one not be open to other possibilities. And it doesn’t mean that there aren’t situations in which the writer worked in such a way as intentionally to preserve ambiguity of interpretation.
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I think it important for the discipline to maintain the idea that interpretation has to be based on evidence related to the author’s intention.
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Another wrinkle, however. Literary works not only “mean” in the sense of reflecting an intention on the part of the author but also “mean” in the sense of having a significance to the reader. They often create little worlds into which the reader enters and has an experience, and that experience, that significance, that “Meaning” in the sense of significance, will differ people cause people differ. Does that make sense? So, two different kinds of “meaning.” It the best-made works, ofc, these two types of meaning will converge into one.
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So, I’m sort of with you, LG. I think that there is room for variety of interpretation with regard to significance and that people can certainly argue differing interpretations with regard to author’s intention.
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Context does add a layer in the enjoyment of the art, whether it be laced in the experience (or lack thereof) of the person taking in the art or in the knowledge of the creator’s background. At which point does the artist divorce themselves from the art? Or should the artist do so at all? (How dare I even ask whether or not an artist “should” or “should not” do anything, but that’s another topic.)
The personal imprint on one’s art is often a calling card, such as a blatant utilization of certain creative devices or simply a constant formal construct. To historically insert oneself in the story may be just that calling card, although I find the most clever among authors (non-fiction, aside) to be the ones who leave the door of ambiguity open wide.
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Well, yes. Of course. This happens.
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Perhaps that view is more prevalent in visual art in the abstract and less in that which has a definitive titled subject. I find a lot of music leaves the interpretation wide open, and this convention transcends musical genres and time periods.
And thank you for continuing your comments. I actually had not read them all before responding—my apologies. You did address the POV of audience as contributing to their own experience. On the same topic of contributing to the experience, I once wrote a paper in an undergrad philosophy course on the topic of whether or not the performer contributes to the composition through their interpretation of the composer’s instructions and thus becomes part of the composition team, after a fashion. It seemed absurd at the time, but one can argue just about any point if they are convincing enough. That was also back when I apparently knew everything…haha!
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Of course the performer contributes to creating the composition. One has but to listen to the difference between, say, András
Schiff and Daniel Berenbaum playing the Moonlight Sonata. The question is, does the listener create a different piece? And the answer to that is probably yes. However, those who follow Hirsch in believing in validity in interpretation would argue that as the listener learns more, his or her interpretation will converge with those of other similarly astute listeners, viewers, readers.
Actors and directors and other members of the creative team on a play or film certainly contribute a lot to creating the work and what it means.
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It makes sense that the listener helps create the experience, but obviously only for the listener themselves. So the third person in the equation brings their own interpretation based on what they know and expect. I notice this in my own experience as I can relate to even the most mediocre music of the 80s with giddy joy when I would never have elevated what can be analyzed as base drivel to my musically trained mind if I hadn’t had some pretty emotional experiences as a teen while listening to it. As humans, we certainly do judge quality through our own experiences. (Sounds a little like what’s going on politically in our country now.) Context. Context. Context.
By the way, a perfect example of performer-as-co-composer is the late Glenn Gould who took the music he performed to places even his colleagues would never dream of going. (Check Bernstein’s introduction to Gould’s Brahms’ Piano Concerto in D minor.) In doing so, Gould single-handedly advanced the art, and we are all better for it.
However, we must be conscious of the utility of categorization labels as there is a certain role each of these entities perform, primarily. The composer is the originator of the organized musical thoughts while the performer could be seen as a bit of an editor. I now remember the essay I wrote a bit more vividly: It asked who was responsible for creating the music. I remember that I took this on as a student of improvisation in college especially intrigued by the story of how a prominent early 20th century composer would sneak into clubs to hear Oscar Peterson play in complete adoration and awe. And to think, jazz wasn’t treated as a serious art form in conservatories until the latter part of the the last century.
We have an ongoing battle in music education philosophy over what matters, the musical work itself or the act of making music. I was fortunate to take a course in grad school taught by the author of Music Matters himself, Professor David Elliott. He crafted his philosophy based on in-service experience, a philosophy that was widely considered a counter-argument from his mentor, Bennett Reiner who championed musical works as the “nature and value” of music taking—a real deep dive into aesthetics. I don’t see either position at odds if you encompass the aesthetic value of works through thorough analysis of the conventions of what Elliott coined as “Musicing” or the praxial philosophical treatment of music education. I take a little of both in my pedagogy as forms have their own conventions through the context of the culture. My students—and not just the percussionists—all are introduced to beat hierarchy in the Western European cultural tradition as a starting point, and we examine how this hierarchy is built into performance practice as it pertains to rhythmic and melodic (primarily) constructs in other cultures. (I don’t go into too much regarding the harmonic structures because they are basically learning how to operate instruments at the same time.) It’s nearly impossible to fit in a great deal of analysis in a 30 minute/week beginner band lesson, but I want the students to know how the music works compositionally and in performance-practice. Their ownership of the performance part of the music helps them to become a part of the experience. It’s the hook that humanizes the whole program of study. So now they are partly responsible for creating the music. Win-win.
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want the students to know how the music works compositionally and in performance-practice
So, yes, both the aesthetic and the praxial. I studied classical guitar, then jazz. Very, very different, and I certainly would not say that the latter was any less sophisticated than the former. I would say the contrary, actually. I am now working on some flamenco stuff. Very, very different. Again, I do think that performers in music, film, and theatre are co-authors. I am less inclined to say this about viewers and listeners, who need to learn enough to pay attention to what is actually presented to them rather than impose their generally uninformed and idiotic ideas upon work they barely understand and probably need to return to again and again if they are going to.
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even the most mediocre music of the 80s with giddy joy when I would never have elevated what can be analyzed as base drivel to my musically trained mind if I hadn’t had some pretty emotional experiences as a teen while listening to it
Sometimes I can experience this, for a short period, but for the most part the stuff I listened to as a kid does sound like idiotic drivel to me. OMG, how could I have ever thought that that was original or interesting (some pastiche of musical and lyrical cliches passing for a popular song). When I hear people like Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page lauded as great guitarists, it makes me sick. Throw a stick at opening day in a freshman class of guitarists at any music school and you will hit an 18-year-old kid who can play circles around those people. It’s only the musical ignorance of the public at large that makes such people into heroes.
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It’s nearly impossible to fit in a great deal of analysis in a 30 minute/week beginner band lesson, but I want the students to know how the music works compositionally and in performance-practice.
I bet you are a GREAT freaking teacher, LG!!!!
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I get annoyed that people who have given almost no time to actually learning about art or music or film or theatre nonetheless think that their opinions are somehow on the same level as those of people who have devoted years of study to these arts. Such people are utterly clueless. They simply have not learned to hear or see. They are effectively blind. Many years ago, I was grading papers during my prep period and listening to Gould play The Art of the Fugue as I was doing that, and a kid who was flunking out of all his classes popped his head in and said, “All this shit sounds alike.” And I thought, that’s important, what he just said. To John, it probably does sound like a stream of undifferentiated noise. He has never learned how to listen to it.
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I was actually berated on social media for commenting how I truly disliked one of the vocalists in my husband’s favorite band. The person who “ripped me a new one” was one of his childhood friends who basically told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t belabor the issue as it wasn’t worth the fight, but I haven’t spoken to the man either in person or on social media since. Apparently, my husband had mentioned to him how I loathe the way the guy sings, but as they both put this singer on a pedestal, it bothered his friend especially in the light of me having two degrees in music. It reminded me of the social media nonsense that alt right supporters engage in when responding to medical professionals in regard to Covid. It’s a bizarre triggered reaction based on their own personal bias and context. This new cultural practice of dismissing experts is becoming its own psychological epidemic.
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Respect for knowledge. This is a big one for me! Sorry this happened to you, LG! Again, I bet that you are a great music teacher.
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People like Clapton and Page learn a few chords and extremely simple chord progressions and two (count them, two, scales–the major and minor pentatonics) and spend a whole lifetime doodling on these over and over and people think that they are musical geniuses. This really burns me. It’s like holding up preschool crayon doodles as high art.
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When I was in college, I dated a woman who was crazy about the music of Judy Collins. I loved Collins’s repertoire, but it drove me crazy that she consistently sang flat, in those days before AutoTune.
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Then you have the likes of Pat Metheny who is one of the great players and composers, and he’s mostly unknown by the masses.
Speaking of more basic harmonic structures, bebop artists took simple blues progressions and did far more than doodling, however the practice of implying chordal extensions has become inherent in the art form.
Yes, Judy Collins’s sense of pitch always made me cringe, although I have been accused of being an elitist for saying as much. I need to temper my tongue depending on the company.
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Metheny. What a master! And yeah, I could listen to variations on Rhythm Changes all next month! xoxxoox
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I vibrate (literally) for days after a Metheny concert. Was hoping to catch him on this current tour, but the tix for decent seats are too rich for my blood right now. Some day.
Thanks for the conversation, Bob. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
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Same, LG!!! BTW, I took guitar lessons from a fellow who taught Metheny at Berklee. Small world.
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I had no idea he was being taught at Berkeley—I just thought he was a professor there. I remember the story of how he went to U of Miami and ended up teaching right away. What a genius.
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Berklee School of Music, in Boston. Yeah, he truly is amazing.
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Eric Clapton cannot even read music.
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He is to music what an illiterate is to literature. And he’s an ignorant anti-vaxxer to boot.
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From your “Approaches to Literary Criticism” blog post:
“Reader-Response Criticism—Criticism based upon the idea that interpretation and evaluation of a literary work is a highly subjective process in which the reader “constructs” the text in the process of reading it. A controversial approach to literary criticism, reader-response criticism is summed up in the phrase “There are no texts, only readings.” (Representative critic[s]: Louise Rosenblatt, Stanley Fish)”
This is akin to what I mentioned in regard to the performer having some part in creating the music, although not exactly.
I am going to share the link to your blog post with my niece who is majoring in writing. I know she will find it valuable. Thank you for your work.
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Thanks for sharing the work. That is much appreciated, LG!
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I would argue that in general, the New Critical Principle of distinguishing between the author and the speaker (or I) of a poem is important. However, I would propose this exception: because they were into projecting themselves as tragic, romantic heroes–iconoclasts fighting social strictures–many of the Romantic poets often (though not by any means always) violated this principle. They assumed their characters. They wanted to be their characters. Their heroes were often idealized versions of themselves. Childe Harold.
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cx: YIKES. “the New Critical Principle,” ofc
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“the New Critical principle”
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That said, I enjoyed Mr. Olear’s piece as well. Mine is but a minor quibble on one point.
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It’s also not the case that Coleridge had read everything, though he had read a lot. Neither had his young friend Shelley, who could prop his feet up and read ancient Greek the way you read a newspaper. The extensive reading that informed Coleridge’s dream fragment and his “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is discussed in one of the monumental works of criticism of the 20th century, The Road to Xanadu, by John Livingstone Lowes.
But there are severe limitations on what any of us can read in a lifetime:
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And, ofc, it is not at all surprising that dreams should have overt and symbolic sexual content, both of which are abundant in Coleridge’s poem.
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I wrote a long note on the use of psychedelics. WordPress put it in moderation, ofc. Testing to see if the word alone is enough.
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Après Trump, un déluge du remboursement! (after Trump a flood of payback!)
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haaaaa!!!!!!
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How to tell Trump has permanent rent-free real estate holdings in your brain: you find references to him in a British poem from 226 years ago.
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Anyone who doesn’t worry about Trump returning to office is brain dead.
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indeed
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This is the guy who got furious at his Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security because she would not order the Border Patrol TO SHOOT innocent asylum seekers.
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I’ve said many times that if the Democrats would have fulfilled any of their campaign promises the Republicans would be a non-issue – people would turn out to vote for Dems in droves. But they seem to prefer to send billions to nazis instead, so c’est la vie. In fact, I’m quite sure the Dems want Trump to stick around because “But Trump!” is the sum extent of their campaign message.
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Sorry, Dienne, but I have never agreed with your belief that Ukraine is a Nazi state. The true Nazis are the invaders, the thugs who bomb civilian targets, schools, and hospitals.
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It’s not a “belief”, Diane. I have sent you about 20 articles, all from mainstream western media, documenting the problem prior to 2022. Do you think the problem disappeared? There’s also the fact that ukraine celebrates Stepan Bandera as a national hero, naming streets after him, building statues of him, celebrating his birthday as a national holiday, complete with torchlight parades. Then there’s the fact that even NYT acknowledges that the prevalence of nazi insignia among the ukrainian military, including high ranking leaders, just might give credence to the “Russian propaganda” that ukraine is a nazi country. There have been numerous documented pogroms against Romani people and other minorities, not to mention the assault against the ethnic Russians in the Donbass that kicked this whole thing off (along with NATO encroachment). The only people still denying that ukrainians are nazis are western liberals. The ukrainians themselves are happily putting out videos proclaiming themselves nazis and showing off their nazi training summer camps for children. In fact, many western liberals have even given up pretending that ukrainians are not nazis; they just say that as long as they’re fighting big, bad, evil Putin, they’re our nazis – the good kind.
Russia, meanwhile, still mourns for the 27 million people they sacrificed defeating the nazis in WWII. They are proud that their country spans many races and cultures. The only nazis in Russia are your friend Navalny and his friends, who openly call Muslims “cockroaches”. There’s a reason that China, India, Africa and South America are increasingly openly supporting Russia in this proxy war. Nearly all major European countries held colonies in Africa, many of which have only recently been liberated. Some, like Niger and Mali, are still fighting for their full liberation. You know which country never colonized Africa? Russia.
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Sorry, Dienne. I don’t agree with your long-standing belief (and Putin’s) that Ukraine is a Nazi state. From my knowledge of WW2, I’d say that Russia is a totalitarian fascist state.
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I’m sorry you disagree with the evidence.
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The evidence seen by the entire world is that Putin invaded Ukraine without provocation. Only days ago, Putin eliminated his dear friend Prighozin. I’m baffled by your defense of the fascist Putin, who will be in office for another 13 years, longer if he wishes. Please do not write any more to me on this subject. Putin will win support from other dictators and fascists but so what? Hitler and Stalin had other nations in their orbit. It’s called real-politick. Putin joins their company. Navalny, by the way, is an international hero. When Putin tried to poison him, his life was saved in a German hospital. He could have taken refuge in the West but he chose to return to Russia, to face a phony trial, solitary confinement, and years of incarceration at the hands of the fascist Putin.
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I also disagree about whether Democrats fulfilled their campaign promises. Biden has done more to restore manufacturing jobs than any of his predecessors; more to rebuild infrastructure; more to try to relieve college student debt. He has fought against a unified Republican Party that believes in nothing, and he has fought without a solid majority in either house of Congress. FDR and LBJ accomplished great things with a large majority in Congress. Biden has accomplished legislative miracles without large majorities.
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I agree with Diane.
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You cannot talk sense into an ideologue, a fanatic, though its always wonderful to see you try to do so, Diane. Dienne has totally warped, bizarre notions about all of this. These come from a commitment to believing Russian propaganda and discounting anything that isn’t Russian propaganda.
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I have never figured out or understood why she believes in the sincerity of Putin. It’s baffling. In her mind, this brute is the good guy.
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It’s bizarre but an example of the extent to which ideological orientation can warp one’s perception of reality. The notion that Putin is the good guy here really is totally delusional. So, so bizarre and contrary to the facts.
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This happens with the worst sort of noise, doesn’t it? It persists. It’s difficult for months thereafter, after hearing Jason Aldean, for example, to get that psychopathic drivel out of one’s head. Or so I have recently found.
SAME WITH THIS RACIST AND SEDITIONIST AND CON MAN WHOM YOU ARE SO ENAMORED OF, DIENNE
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AND RAPIST, ofc
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Before I get into the rest of the analysis, I have to say after the first two paragraphs, funny how Lord Byron is more famous than Coleridge, but all Lord Byron ever did was write accolades for Samuel T Coleridge.
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Not all he EVER DID. You know what I mean.
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It was always thus. Bad Boy Byron was a rock star in his own day.
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Another best thing to read today Monday 8/28. Is Katy Roberts WAPO Essay. On what her 1960’s Public School U.S. History Teacher taught her about thinking and maturing as a human being in a troubled world.
“We were given Pamphlets & copies of Richard Wright’s “Native Son” and James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time.” We had a standard textbook, but Mr. Friedlander barely referred to it in class. Instead, we heard Alabama Gov. George Wallace call for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” during a film about civil rights demonstrations in the South.
There was a field trip to the South Central Los Angeles headquarters of Operation Bootstrap, a Black self-help group. We could earn extra points for reading scholarly books such as Kenneth Stampp’s The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South.
I used my tutoring money to buy “Soul on Ice” at Pickwick’s in the San Bernardino mall. Nor did she say anything when I stayed up too late reading “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” Mr. Friedlander’s optional-reading list also included such classics as C. Vann Woodward’s “The Strange Career of Jim Crow” and John Hope Franklin’s “From Slavery to Freedom,” but I went for the shocking page-turners first.
Only a few parents questioned Mr. Friedlander about what their children were reading. Their main concern was that the coursework allow for all points of view, which, remarkably, it did. No one apparently challenged what was in the school library, either. Including the aptly titled “Black Rage” by William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs — had checkout cards inside the covers.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/27/american-history-slavery-race-relations/
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How wonderful that you do your teacher this honor of remembrance, Ms. Irwin!!! Bless you.
Your Mr. Friedlander sounds really wonderful. MORE LIKE HIM!!!!
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Yikes. That note should have been addressed to Mr. Roberts!
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