Poetry Study Guide: Keats, Browning and Coleridge Analysis

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Birth: 1772 | Death: 1843

Written: 1797

Kubla Khan built a stately pleasure dome at Xanadu, where the sacred river Alph runs through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea. The garden is enclosed with walls and towers, and it is beautiful. A feeling arises as if a lady is crying for her demon lover. Beside the river, from a fountain with stones, a loud sound came, and the ancestors' voices were also there in front of the dome's shadow on the water.

Key Imagery

• A damsel with a dulcimer, an Abyssinian maid singing of Mount Abora
• The pleasure palace built in the air
• "Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair!"

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Written: 1819 | Length: 50 lines in 10-line stanzas

Themes: History, mortality and death, truth and beauty

Birth: 31 October 1795 | Death: 23 February 1821 (tuberculosis)

Major works: Sleep and Poetry

The urn is a "Sylvan historian" who tells a flowery tale in a very good way. Its figures are gods and mortals, and it asks where they are going and from where they come. Are the temples or Arcady mad, or what chase has been shown? Its melodies are sweeter than unheard ones, and its pipes play as a young man sits beneath a tree. A priest leads a heifer decorated with garlands to sacrifice. The town, the river, the seashore and the mountains are empty, and the people who attended the ceremony are gone, as is that morning.

The urn, in its silent form, teases us out of thought and reminds us of eternity. When we grow old, you will remain, and your friendship with humanity will endure.

My Last Duchess by Robert Browning

Written: 1842 | Length: 56 lines in rhyming couplets (AA BB CC DD)

Form: Dramatic monologue

Themes: Objectification of women, control and manipulation

Birth: 7 May 1812 | Death: 1889

Married to: Elizabeth Barrett

Known as: Master of the dramatic monologue

Major works: The Pied Piper of Hamelin, The Ring and the Book

Summary

"That last Duchess painted on the wall looks alive." Fra Pandolf's hard work brought it to life. People who see the portrait ask how the glow was achieved. The Duchess did not blush at my arrival; she had a heart that was easily impressed, and the Duke felt her qualities were not truly valued. Perhaps he should have explained himself to his wife, but why should he stoop to speak with her? He had her killed. Now, as we walk downstairs, we notice a bronze statue of Neptune taming a sea-horse.

The Last Ride Together by Robert Browning

A dramatic monologue spoken by a single speaker.