Background of the Research

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

F. Background of the Research

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a familiar name for every people who concern with the literary works. Coleridge honored as central pillar of Romantic Movement together with William Wordsworth 1 . There was a general agreement that Romantic Movement began after the publication of Coleridge and Wordsworth prominent work “Lyrical Ballads” in 1798 2 . Samuel Taylor Coleridge born in Ottery St. Mary on 21 October 1772, youngest of the ten children of John Coleridge, a minister, and Ann Bowden Coleridge. During his life, Coleridge has made masterpiece of poetry. People admitted that Coleridge have an expressive and imaginative ability in improving his poetry to become some great works 3 . Unique and mystifying idea frequently appears in many of his poems. With his talents and capacity as the great poet, Coleridge ables to change or transform an ordinary idea and object into wonderful and attracting one 4 . 1 Samekto s.s. Ikhtisar Sejarah Kesusastraan Inggris.Jakarta: Daya Widya, 1998, P 67 2 Ibid 3 Luxemburg Jan Van. Tentang sastra.,Jakarta: Intermassa,1991, P 165 4 Ibid In his poems, Coleridge temporarily abandons his immediate surroundings, exchanging them for an entirely new and completely fabricated experience 5 . His addicted in opium play an important role on his imaginative power 6 . The definition of imagination is the ability to create mental images or pictures 7 . Imagery is mental images or pictures in poetry 8 . The faculty which transmits poetic image is the imagination 9 . At all, imaginative power of Coleridge which transfers into poetic structure or poetry called imagery. The writer realizes that imaginative power of the poems reflecting imagery. Like the other romantics, Coleridge worships nature and uses the poetry to describe the beauty of the natural world. All of Coleridge poems express a respect and delight natural observation 10 . Romantic idea and imaginative power combine in Coleridge poems such as “Kubla Khan”. The first three stanza of “Kubla Khan” entirely consists of imagination. Coleridge claims that while sleeping, he had fantastic vision and composed simultaneously some two or three hundred lines of poetry 11 . On “Kubla Khan” Coleridge illustrates the natural scene, like walls and tower encircling beautiful garden, forests, crevasse, water fountains, and devious river. More over, 5 http:www.sparknotes.compoetrycoleridgesection3.rhtml 13th August 2006 6 Ibid 7 Hornsby, A.S. Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University press, 1995, P. 592 8 Siwantoro. Apresiasi Puisi-Puisi Sastra Inggris.Surakarta: Muhammadiyah University Press,2002, P. 50 9 Lewis, Day. The poetic image. London: Cape London, 1947, P.91 10 http:www.exampleessays.comviewpaper90832.html August 13th 2006 11 http:www.sparknotes.compoetrycoleridgesection5.rhtml August 13th 2006 Coleridge gives description of Holy River that flow over the hills and cave which turn into the sea with no living spirits there. On the other words this poem take set on the nature and brought the core of romantic idea. In “The Nightingale” and “Frost at Midnight” Coleridge visits the themes of Childhood, and the poetry relation to nature. As in “Frost at midnight”, the success of “The Nightingale” rests on evocation of a dramatic setting, in this case “The Nightingale” take the setting on the old mossy bridge where the speaker and his friend hear the nightingale song 12 . While “Frost at Midnight” set the scene in the cold and silent February night. Everyone in the household is sleeping except the poet, who is sitting by a dying fire 13 . Referring to the explanations above, the writer interested to analyze imagery used on three Samuel Taylor Coleridge Poems, the poems are: Kubla Khan, Frost at Midnight, and the Nightingale. Three poems reflect imaginative power, and essential idea of romanticism.

G. Focus of the Study