deep romantic chasm

As discussed in class, I feel that Coleridge begins to delve into the realm of failure in this phrase. Instead of presenting an immaculate poem of perfection, he imbues his poem with the possibility of failing, of not being able to accompish a goal as a result of an opium induced stupor. This lethargy and hint of failure reminds me of some lyrics by Bob Dylan: "She knows that theres no success like failure, and that failure ain't no success at all." By viewing the Romantic epoch's historical context with the lens of Dylan, an exegesis can be performed. In 1816, "Kubla Khan" was considered to be nonsense by Coleridge's contemporaries; that is, they could not grapple with this nonrational, phantasmagorical vision of a dream fraught with failure. In Coleridge's own mind, however, he might have thought this very supposed "failure" to be a success. Like Dylan, Coleridge was always an enigmatic figure. His lectures would follow a very stream-of-consciousness style, and his very character embodied a nonconventionalism. I think that this parallel is interesting, and worthy of note. Instead of spoon-feeding his readers with normality, Coleridge infuses a mysterious ehtos of failure into his work.