Imaginative journeys allow us to transcend the physical world and travel through a metaphysical realm, giving us greater freedom to speculate and to learn. The limitless nature of imagination lends itself willingly to speculation, suspending disbelief, and offering endless possibilities. Imagination allows the traveler to over come the restrictions of the physical world, and enables a greater understanding of the world and of himself. This is shown in the poetry of Coleridge, and other texts.
Through imagination we are able to speculate on possibilities previously thought to be intangible. Coleridge's Kubla Kahn reflects this notion through the exploration of the potential of the human mind. Coleridge compares imagination to "Alph, the sacred river" and conveys its endless potential, through the image of an infinite chasm "through caverns measureless to man." The "stately pleasure dome" represents an idea, the product of speculation, built "where Alph, the sacred river ran" on imagination.
Ms. note by Coleridge scholar John Louis Haney (18...
English: Samuel Taylor Coleridge at age 42. Franç...
English: Titlepage of Kubla Khan.Through a contrast of "walls and towers" to the sensory imagery, and the evoked smells of nature "gardens bright with sinuous rills" "blossomed many an incense-bearing tree", Coleridge shows us the reconcilement of opposites. This is further reinforced through the contrast of "as holy and enchanted", two paradigms in conflict with each other, yet existing within the dome. Coleridge reinforces the surreal image, through the contrast of the "sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice" and opposites are once more reconciled. The recurring image of the "sacred river", "five miles meandering" "through wood and dale" traverses the many speculations, symbolic of the creation of ideas from imagination. Thus we see that the dome is able to exist through imagination. This is reinforced through the image "I would build that dome in air" as Coleridge is able to "revive within me" his speculation "a vision I once saw" through the power...