Coleridge and Shelley

"Kubla Khan" cautions against the indulgence of the imagination. Coleridge paints this beautiful scenery causing the reader to imagine this gorgeous place, but then reverses it making the place seem dark, dangerous, and evil. This causes the reader's imagination to change its form and picture a dreary place filled with the evils of the world. Coleridge is trying to say here that relying on our imagination too much can be dangerous during a reading because it is not definate, the writer controls what the imagination sees through his words. This may have been geared towards the American Romantic warning them not to rely heavily on imagination, as well as the common people advising them to read with a balance of reason and imagination.

In Shelley's poem Ozymandias, I see three speakers; the main speaker, the traveler, and Ozymandias. The first speaker seem to play the role of someone like a prophet being that they are relating a story with social and/or political significance in history. The traveler and the main speaker observe the remains of an old structure, possibly a statue or monument of some kind. The traveler brings the information of the monument of Ozymandias. The words of Ozymandias, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!", could mean that he was defeated political or social leader. This may tell us that all proud leaders will fall if the become too controlling.