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ENG 203: World Literature Professor Craig Carey Romantic Poets and “Romantic Orientalism” In preparation for the letters and poems that follow, here’s an introduction to “romantic orientalism” taken from The Norton Anthology of English Literature. As you read the material, consider how the letters, poems, and prose dramatize the ideas encapsulated by the concept of “romantic orientalism.” "Romantic Orientalism" — the second term sometimes expanded to "Oriental exoticism" or "Oriental fantasy" — brings together two concepts that continue to be much in dispute among theorists and literary historians. For practical purposes, "Romantic" here refers to the writers (and the ideas and culture they reflect) of the Romantic Period section of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, where the dates are given as 1785–1830. "Orientalism" refers to the geography and culture of large parts of Asia and North Africa, plus some of what we now think of as Eastern Europe. Above all, from a British point of view, "Orientalism" connotes foreignness or otherness — things decidedly not British — and it sometimes seems as if the "East" signified by "Orient" is not only what is east of Europe and the Mediterranean but everything east of the English Channel. In literary history, Romantic Orientalism is the recurrence of recognizable elements of Asian and African place names, historical and legendary people, religions, philosophies, art, architecture, interior decoration, costume, and the like in the writings of the British Romantics. At first glance, Romantic literature may seem to be divided between the natural settings of sheep fields in the southwest of England or the Lake District and the unnatural settings of medieval castles that are, for all their remoteness from present-day reality, always Christian and at least European, if not always British. But a closer look reveals a tiger — decidedly not indigenous to the British Isles — in one of Blake's most famous songs; an impressive dream of "an Arab of the Bedouin Tribes" in book 5 of Wordsworth's Prelude; the founder of the Mongol dynasty in China as well as an Abyssinian "damsel with a dulcimer" in Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"; Eastern plots, characters, and themes in Byron's "Oriental tales," some of which show up later in Don Juan; a poet's journey into the innermost reaches of the Caucasus (the legendary boundary between Europe and Asia) in Percy Shelley's Alastor; a tempting affair with an Indian maiden in Keats's "Endymion" and a feast of "dainties" from Fez, Samarcand, and Lebanon in "The Eve of St. Agnes"; an Arab maiden, Safie, as the most liberated character in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Orientalism, via the literature and art of the time, was increasingly in the air (as well as the texts) in both London and the British countryside. The Orientalism of British Romantic literature has roots in the first decade of the eighteenth century, with the earliest translations of The Arabian Nights into English (from a version in French, 1705–08). The popularity of The Arabian Nights inspired writers to develop a new genre, the Oriental tale, of which Samuel Johnson's History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759) is the best mid-century example (NAEL 8, 1.2680– 2743). Romantic Orientalism continues to develop into the nineteenth century, paralleling another component of Romanticism already presented in the Norton Web sites, "Literary Gothicism." ...Like Gothic novels and plays, Oriental tales feature exotic settings, supernatural happenings, and deliberate extravagance of event, character, behavior, emotion, and speech — an extravagance sometimes countered by wry humor even to the point of buffoonery. It is as though the "otherness" of Oriental settings and characters gives the staid British temperament a holiday. Gothicism and Orientalism do the work of fiction more generally — providing imaginary characters, situations, and stories as alternative to, even as escape from, the reader's everyday reality. But they operate more sensationally than other types of fiction. Pleasurable terror and pleasurable exoticism are kindred experiences, with unreality and strangeness at the root of both. Before the publication of Edward Said's extremely influential and controversial Orientalism (1978), scholars tended to view the Eastern places, characters, and events pervading late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century British literature as little more than stimuli for easy thrills. But this attitude has changed dramatically. Along with its well-studied interests in the inner workings of the mind, connections with nature, and exercise of a transcendental imagination, the Romantic Period in Britain is now recognized as a time of global travel and exploration, accession of colonies all over the world, and development of imperialist ideologies that rationalized the British takeover of distant territories.

Romantic Poets and “Romantic Orientalism” · ENG 203: World Literature Professor Craig Carey Romantic Poets and “Romantic Orientalism” In preparation for the letters and poems

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ENG 203: World Literature Professor Craig Carey

Romantic Poets and “Romantic Orientalism”

In preparation for the letters and poems that follow, here’s an introduction to “romantic orientalism” taken from The Norton Anthology of English Literature. As you read the material, consider how the letters, poems, and prose dramatize the ideas encapsulated by the concept of “romantic orientalism.”

"Romantic Orientalism" — the second term sometimes expanded to "Oriental exoticism" or "Oriental fantasy" — brings together two concepts that continue to be much in dispute among theorists and literary historians. For practical purposes, "Romantic" here refers to the writers (and the ideas and culture they reflect) of the Romantic Period section of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, where the dates are given as 1785–1830. "Orientalism" refers to the geography and culture of large parts of Asia and North Africa, plus some of what we now think of as Eastern Europe. Above all, from a British point of view, "Orientalism" connotes foreignness or otherness — things decidedly not British — and it sometimes seems as if the "East" signified by "Orient" is not only what is east of Europe and the Mediterranean but everything east of the English Channel.

In literary history, Romantic Orientalism is the recurrence of recognizable elements of Asian and African place names, historical and legendary people, religions, philosophies, art, architecture, interior decoration, costume, and the like in the writings of the British Romantics. At first glance, Romantic literature may seem to be divided between the natural settings of sheep fields in the southwest of England or the Lake District and the unnatural settings of medieval castles that are, for all their remoteness from present-day reality, always Christian and at least European, if not always British. But a closer look reveals a tiger — decidedly not indigenous to the British Isles — in one of Blake's most famous songs; an impressive dream of "an Arab of the Bedouin Tribes" in book 5 of Wordsworth's Prelude; the founder of the Mongol dynasty in China as well as an Abyssinian "damsel with a dulcimer" in Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"; Eastern plots, characters, and themes in Byron's "Oriental tales," some of which show up later in Don Juan; a poet's journey into the innermost reaches of the Caucasus (the legendary boundary between Europe and Asia) in Percy Shelley's Alastor; a tempting affair with an Indian maiden in Keats's "Endymion" and a feast of "dainties" from Fez, Samarcand, and Lebanon in "The Eve of St. Agnes"; an Arab maiden, Safie, as the most liberated character in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Orientalism, via the literature and art of the time, was increasingly in the air (as well as the texts) in both London and the British countryside.

The Orientalism of British Romantic literature has roots in the first decade of the eighteenth century, with the earliest translations of The Arabian Nights into English (from a version in French, 1705–08). The popularity of The Arabian Nights inspired writers to develop a new genre, the Oriental tale, of which Samuel Johnson's History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759) is the best mid-century example (NAEL 8, 1.2680–2743). Romantic Orientalism continues to develop into the nineteenth century, paralleling another component of Romanticism already presented in the Norton Web sites, "Literary Gothicism." ...Like Gothic novels and plays, Oriental tales feature exotic settings, supernatural happenings, and deliberate extravagance of event, character, behavior, emotion, and speech — an extravagance sometimes countered by wry humor even to the point of buffoonery. It is as though the "otherness" of Oriental settings and characters gives the staid British temperament a holiday. Gothicism and Orientalism do the work of fiction more generally — providing imaginary characters, situations, and stories as alternative to, even as escape from, the reader's everyday reality. But they operate more sensationally than other types of fiction. Pleasurable terror and pleasurable exoticism are kindred experiences, with unreality and strangeness at the root of both.

Before the publication of Edward Said's extremely influential and controversial Orientalism (1978), scholars tended to view the Eastern places, characters, and events pervading late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century British literature as little more than stimuli for easy thrills. But this attitude has changed dramatically. Along with its well-studied interests in the inner workings of the mind, connections with nature, and exercise of a transcendental imagination, the Romantic Period in Britain is now recognized as a time of global travel and exploration, accession of colonies all over the world, and development of imperialist ideologies that rationalized the British takeover of distant territories.

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Lord Byron Letters on Albania (1809-1810) British poet, Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), set out on a grand tour of the Mediterranean in 1809, in the course of which he visited Spain, Malta, Albania, Greece and Asia Minor. His visit to Albania in the autumn of that year made a lasting impression on him and is reflected in the second canto of the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," that catapulted him to fame as a writer in 1812. The first letter here, written to his mother from Albania, betrays much of the excitement he felt on his first journey to the "Orient" and, in particular, at his meeting with the formidable tyrant Ali Pasha of Tepelena (1744-1822), the so-called Lion of Janina. The second letter, written to John Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869), describes his encounter with Veli Pasha, son of Ali Pasha. Prevesa, November 12, 1809 My dear Mother, I have now been some time in Turkey. The place is on the coast but I have traversed the interior of the province of Albania on a visit to the Pacha. I left Malta in the Spider, a brig of war, on the 21st of September and arrived in eight days at Prevesa. I thence have been about 150 miles as far as Tepaleen, his highness' country palace, where I staid three days. The name of the Pacha is Ali, and he is considered a man of the first abilities, he governs the whole of Albania (the ancient Illyricum), Epirus and part of Macedonia. His son Velly Pacha, to whom he has given me letters, governs the Morea and he has great influence in Egypt, in short he is one of the most powerful men in the Ottoman empire. When I reached Yanina the capital after a journey of three days over the mountains through country of the most picturesque beauty, I found that Ali Pacha was with his army in Illyricum besieging Ibraham Pacha in the castle of Berat. He had heard that an Englishman of rank was in his dominion and had left orders in Yanina with the Commandant to provide a house and supply me with every kind of necessary, gratis, and though I have been allowed to make presents to the slaves etc. I have not been permitted to pay for a single article of household consumption. I rode out on the vizier's horses and saw the palaces of himself and grandsons; they are splendid but too much ornamented with silk and gold. I then went over the mountains through Zitza, a village with a Greek monastery (where I slept on my return) in the most beautiful situation (always excepting Cintra in Portugal) I ever beheld. In nine days I reached Tepaleen, our journey was much prolonged by the torrents that had fallen from the mountains and intersected the roads. I shall never forget the singular scene on entering Tepaleen at five in the afternoon as the sun was going down, it brought to my recollection (with some change of dress however) Scott's description of Branksome Castle in his lay, and the feudal system. The Albanians in their dresses (the most magnificent in the world, consisting of a long white kilt, gold worked cloak, crimson velvet gold laced jacket and waistcoat, silver mounted pistols and daggers), the Tartars with their high caps, the Turks in their vast pelisses and turbans, the soldiers and black slaves with the horses, the former stretched in groupes in an immense open gallery in front of the palace, the latter placed in a kind of cloister below it, two hundred steeds ready caparisoned to move in a moment, couriers entering or passing out with dispatches, the kettle drums beating, boys calling the hour from the minaret of the mosque, altogether, with the singular appearance of the building itself, formed a new and delightful spectacle to a stranger.

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I was conducted to a very handsome apartment and my health enquired after by the vizier's secretary "a la mode de Turque." The next day I was introduced to Ali Pacha. I was dressed in a full suit of staff uniform with a very magnificent sabre etc. The Vizier received me in a large room paved with marble, a fountain was playing in the centre, the apartment was surrounded by scarlet Ottomans, he received me standing, a wonderful compliment from a Mussulman, and made me sit down on his right hand. I have a Greek interpreter for general use, but a Physician of Ali's named [Seculario?] who understands Latin acted for me on this occasion. His first question was why at so early an age I left my country? (the Turks have no idea of travelling for amusement). He then said the English Minister, Capt. Leake, had told him I was of a great family, and desired his respects to my mother, which I now in the name of Ali Pacha present to you. He said he was certain I was a man of birth because I had small ears, curling hair, and little white hands, and expressed himself pleased with my appearance and garb. He told me to consider him as a father whilst I was in Turkey, and said he looked on me as his son. Indeed he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and sugared sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats twenty times a day. He begged me to visit him often, and at night when he was more at leisure. I then after coffee and pipes retired for the first time. I saw him thrice afterwards. It is singular that the Turks who have no hereditary dignities and few great families except the Sultan's pay, so much respect to birth, for I found my pedigree more regarded than even my title. His Highness is sixty years old, very fat and not tall, but with a fine face, light blue eyes and a white beard, his manner is very kind and at the same time he possesses that dignity which I find universal amongst the Turks. He has the appearance of anything but his real character, for he is a remorseless tyrant, guilty of the most horrible cruelties, very brave and so good a general, that they call him the Mahometan Buonaparte. Napoleon has twice offered to make him King of Epirus, but he prefers the English interest and abhors the French as he himself told me. He is of so much consequence that he is much courted by both, the Albanians being the most warlike subjects of the Sultan, though Ali is only nominally dependent on the Porte. He has been a mighty warrior, but is as barbarous as he is successful, roasting rebels etc. etc. Bonaparte sent him a snuffbox with his picture. He said the snuffbox was very well, but the picture he could excuse, as he neither liked it nor the original. His ideas of judging of a man's birth from ears, hands etc. were curious enough. To me he was indeed a father, giving me letters, guards, and every possible accommodation. Our next conversations were of war and travelling, politics and England. He called my Albanian soldier who attends me, and told him to protect me at all hazards. His name is Viscillie and like all the Albanians, he is brave, rigidly honest, and faithful, but they are cruel though not treacherous, and have several vices, but no meannesses. They are perhaps the most beautiful race in point of countenance in the world, their women are sometimes handsome also, but they are treated like slaves, beaten and in short complete beasts of burthen, they plough, dig and sow, I found them carrying wood and actually repairing the highways. The men are all soldiers, and war and the chase their sole occupations. The women are the labourers, which after all is no great hardship in so delightful a climate. Yesterday the 11th November, I bathed in the sea, today it is so hot that I am writing in a shady room of the English Consul's with three doors wide open, no fire or even fireplace in the house except for culinary purposes [...] Today I saw the remains of the town of Actium near which Anthony lost the world in a small bay where two frigates could hardly manoeuvre, a broken wall is the sole remnant. On another part of the gulph stand the ruins of Nicopolis built by Augustus in honour of his victory. Last night I was at a Greek marriage, but this and 1000 things more I have neither time or space to describe. I am going

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tomorrow with a guard of fifty men to Patras in the Morea, and thence to Athens where I shall winter. Two days ago I was nearly lost in a Turkish ship of war owing to the ignorance of the captain and crew though the storm was not violent. Fletcher yelled after his wife, the Greeks called on all the Saints, the Mussulmen on Alla, the Captain burst into tears and ran below deck telling us to call on God, the sails were split, the mainyard shivered, the wind blowing fresh, the night setting in, and all our chance was to make Corfu which is in possession of the French, or (as Fletcher pathetically termed it) "a watery grave." I did what I could to console Fletcher but finding him incorrigible, wrapped myself up in my Albanian capote (an immense cloak) and lay down on deck to wait the worst. I have learnt to philosophize on my travels, and if I had not, complaint was useless. Luckily the wind abated and only drove us on the coast of Suli on the main land where we landed and proceeded by the help of the natives to Prevesa again; but I shall not trust Turkish sailors in future, though the Pacha had ordered one of his own galleots to take me to Patras. I am therefore going as far as Missolonghi by land and there have only to cross a small gulph to get to Patras. Fletcher's next epistle will be full of marvels. We were one night lost for nine hours in the mountains in a thunder storm, and since nearly wrecked. In both cases Fletcher was sorely bewildered, from apprehensions of famine and banditti in the first, and drowning in the second instance. His eyes were a little hurt by the lightning or crying (I don't know which) but are now recovered. When you write address to me at Mr. Strané's English Consul, Patras, Morea. I could tell you I know not how many incidents that I think would amuse you, but they crowd on my mind as much as would swell my paper, and I can neither arrange them in the one, or put them down on the other, except in the greatest confusion and in my usual horrible hand. I like the Albanians much, they are not all Turks, some tribes are Christians, but their religion makes little difference in their manner or conduct; they are esteemed the best troops in the Turkish service. I lived on my route two days at once, and three days again in a Barrack at Salora, and never found soldiers so tolerable, though I have been in the garrisons of Gibraltar and Malta and seen Spanish, French, Sicilian and British troops in abundance. I have had nothing stolen, and was always welcome to their provision and milk. Not a week ago, an Albanian chief (every village has its chief who is called Primate) after helping us out of the Turkish galley in her distress, feeding us and lodging my suite consisting of Fletcher, a Greek, two Albanians, a Greek priest and my companion Mr. Hobhouse, refused any compensation but a written paper stating that I was well received, and when I pressed him to accept a few sequins, "no," he replied, "I wish you to love me, not to pay me." These were his words. It is astonishing how far money goes in this country, while I was in the capital, I had nothing to pay by the vizier's order, but since, though I have generally had sixteen horses and generally six or seven men, the expence has not been half as much as staying only three weeks in Malta, though Sir A. Ball, the governor, gave me a house for nothing, and I had only one servant. By the bye I expect Hanson to remit regularly, for I am not about to stay in this province for ever, let him write to me at Mr. Strané's, English Consul, Patras. The fact is, the fertility of the plains are wonderful, and specie is scarce, which makes this remarkable cheapness. I am now going to Athens to study modern Greek which differs much from the ancient though radically similar. I have no desire to return to England, nor shall I unless compelled by absolute want and Hanson's neglect, but I shall not enter Asia for a year or two as I have much to see in Greece and I may perhaps cross into Africa at least the Egyptian part. Fletcher like all Englishmen is very much dissatisfied, though a little reconciled to the Turks by a present of eighty piastres from the vizier, which if you consider everything and the value of specie here is

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nearly worth ten guineas English. He has suffered nothing but from cold, heat, and vermin which those who lie in cottages and cross mountains in a wild country must undergo, and of which I have equally partaken with himself, but he is not valiant, and is afraid of robbers and tempests. I have no one to be remembered to in England, and wish to hear nothing from it but that you are well, and a letter or two on business from Hanson, whom you may tell to write. I will write when I can, and beg you to believe me, your affectionate son, BYRON P.S. I have some very "magnifique" Albanian dresses, the only expensive articles in this country. They cost 50 guineas each and have so much gold they would cost in England two hundred. I have been introduced to Hussein Bey, and Mahmout Pacha, both little boys, grandchildren of Ali at Yanina. They are totally unlike our lads, have painted complexions like rouged dowagers, large black eyes and features perfectly regular. They are the prettiest little animals I ever saw, and are broken into the court ceremonies already. The Turkish salute is a slight inclination of the head with the hand on the breast, intimates always kiss. Mahmout is ten years old and hopes to see me again, we are friends without understanding each other, like many other folks, though from a different cause. He has given me a letter to his father in the Morea, to whom I have also letters from Ali Pacha. Tripolitza, August 16, 1810 Dear Hobhouse, I am on the rack of setting off for Argos amidst the usual creaking, swearing, loading and neighing of sixteen horses and as many men serving us included. You have probably received one letter dated Patras and I send this at a venture. Velly Pacha received me even better than his Father did, though he is to join the Sultan, and the city is full of troops and confusion, which as he said, prevents him from paying proper attention. He has given me a very pretty horse and a most particular invitation to meet him at Larissa, which last is singular enough as he recommended a different route to Ld. Sligo who asked leave to accompany him to the Danube. I asked no such thing, but an his enquiring where I meant to go, and receiving for answer that I was about to return to Albania for the purpose of penetrating higher up the country, he replied, "no you must not take that route, but go round by Larissa where I shall remain some time an my way. I will send to Athens, and you shall join me, we will eat and drink well, and go a hunting." He said he wished all the old men (specifying under that epithet North, Forresti, and Strané) to go to his father, but the young ones to come to him, to use his own expression "vecchio con vecchio, giovane con giovane." He honored me with the appellations of his friend and brother, and hoped that we should be an good terms not for a few days but for life. All this is very well, but he has an awkward manner of throwing his arm round one's waist, and squeezing one's hand in public, which is a high compliment, but very much embarrasses "ingenuous youth". The first time I saw him he received me standing, accompanied me at my departure to the door of the audience chamber, and told me I was apalikar (young brave) and an eumorpho paidi (beautiful boy). He asked if I did not think it very proper that as young men (he has a beard down to his middle) we should live together, with a variety of other sayings, which made Strané stare, and puzzled me in my replies. He was very facetious with Andreas and Viscillie, and

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recommended that my Albanians' heads should be cut off if they behaved ill. I shall write to you from Larissa, and inform you of our proceedings in that city. In the mean time I sojourn at Athens. I have sent Eustathius back to his home, he plagued my soul out with his whims, and is besides subject to epileptic fits (tell Matthews this) which made him a perplexing companion, in other matters he was very tolerable, I mean as to his learning, being well versed in the Ellenics. You remember Nicolo at Athens Lusieri's wife's brother. Give my compliments to Matthews from whom I expect a congratulatory letter. I have a thousand anecdotes for him and you, but at present ti na kano? (what to do?). I have neither time nor space, but in the words of Dawes, "I have things in store." I have scribbled thus much, where shall I send it, why to Malta or Paternoster Row. Hobby, you wretch, how is the miscellany, that damned and damnable work? "What has the learned world said to your paradoxes? I hope you did not forget the importance of monogamy." Strané has just arrived with bags of piastres, so that I must conclude by the usual phrase of yours etc. etc. BYRON P.S. You knew young Bossari at Yanina, he is a piece of Ali Pacha's!! Well did Horace writenil admirari.

Lord Byron in Albanian Dress (1835) Artist: Thomas Phillips

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William Wordsworth Excerpt from The Prelude Book 5: Lines 56-140

…Whereupon I told, That once in the stillness of a summer's noon, While I was seated in a rocky cave By the sea-side, perusing, so it chanced, The famous history of the errant knight Recorded by Cervantes, these same thoughts Beset me, and to height unusual rose, While listlessly I sate, and, having closed The book, had turned my eyes toward the wide sea. On poetry and geometric truth, And their high privilege of lasting life, From all internal injury exempt, I mused, upon these chiefly: and at length, My senses yielding to the sultry air, Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream. I saw before me stretched a boundless plain Of sandy wilderness, all black and void, And as I looked around, distress and fear Came creeping over me, when at my side, Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared Upon a dromedary, mounted high. He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes: A lance he bore, and underneath one arm A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell Of a surpassing brightness. At the sight Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide Was present, one who with unerring skill Would through the desert lead me; and while yet I looked and looked, self-questioned what this freight Which the new-comer carried through the waste Could mean, the Arab told me that the stone (To give it in the language of the dream) Was "Euclid's Elements;" and "This," said he, "Is something of more worth;" and at the word Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape, In colour so resplendent, with command That I should hold it to my ear. I did so, And heard that instant in an unknown tongue, Which yet I understood, articulate sounds, A loud prophetic blast of harmony; An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold Destruction to the children of the earth By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased The song, than the Arab with calm look declared

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That all would come to pass of which the voice Had given forewarning, and that he himself Was going then to bury those two books: The one that held acquaintance with the stars, And wedded soul to soul in purest bond Of reason, undisturbed by space or time; The other that was a god, yea many gods, Had voices more than all the winds, with power To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe, Through every clime, the heart of human kind. While this was uttering, strange as it may seem, I wondered not, although I plainly saw The one to be a stone, the other a shell; Nor doubted once but that they both were books, Having a perfect faith in all that passed. Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed To share his enterprise, he hurried on Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen, For oftentimes he cast a backward look, Grasping his twofold treasure.—Lance in rest, He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now He, to my fancy, had become the knight Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight, But was an Arab of the desert too; Of these was neither, and was both at once. His countenance, meanwhile, grew more disturbed; And, looking backwards when he looked, mine eyes Saw, over half the wilderness diffused, A bed of glittering light: I asked the cause: "It is," said he, "the waters of the deep Gathering upon us;" quickening then the pace Of the unwieldy creature he bestrode, He left me: I called after him aloud; He heeded not; but, with his twofold charge Still in his grasp, before me, full in view, Went hurrying o'er the illimitable waste, With the fleet waters of a drowning world In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror, And saw the sea before me, and the book, In which I had been reading, at my side.

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Kubla Khan (written in 1797, published in 1816) By Samuel Taylor Coleridge 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.

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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.

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The Tyger (1794) By William Blake Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?