“The Destruction of Sennacherib” by Lord Byron and “Kubla Khan” by Coleridge

Both Byron (“The Destruction of Sennacherib”) and Coleridge (“Kubla Khan) describe the landscape around the action to give realism and to locate the reader where the action is happening.

On one hand, Byron describes the death of the rider through natural elements, because the author tells the place where the rider is, as if this place were more important than this death. The poet does not say how he died, he only says how his body was, surrounded by an autumnal landscape: with leaves around, dew, breeze…

On the other hand, Coleridge describes in detail the environment through the experience of Kubla Khan, especially the sacred river, Alph, and its route by these mysterious terrains. The poet tells us how this river raised in a strange form.

In spite of the calm that both poems transmit, we can feel that there is a problem in them. In the first case, the Assyrian pursues the rider for some reason to kill him because he has spears and finally, we do not know if he killed him or not. We only know that the rider died. In the second case, Kubla Khan tells us when he heard a voice related to the war of long time ago, but readers do not know who says this.

In both poems, there are some allusions to women. In the first poem, the death of the rider is lamented by the widows of Ashur, as if only women felt the sorrow of the human beings and men had not heart to suffer. In the second poem, a woman is almost the protagonist where she was born and where people built a dome due to the sorrow she felt by a loss spiritual love. Also, Kubla Khan tells us his dream with a maid and how beautiful she was, he thought that her beauty could not be real, she had to be a spiritual image.

Both poems are a bit spiritual because there is a presence of spiritual elements. In the case of “The Destruction of Sennacherib”, it seems that the rider died due to a divine presence of an angel, as if the angel of Death had chosen the rider as its victim to safe him of the danger of the Assyrian. In the case of “Kubla Khan” all the elements of the poem seem to appear in a magical form, the river, the maid. All seem to happen due to the divine presence of God.

In both poems, we can appreciate the love for nature of both poets, because both use a lot of words related to nature.

In the case of Byron, he mentions “the sea” (verse 3), “leaves of the forest” (verse 5), “Autumn” (verse 7).

In the second case, Coleridge makes reference to “river” (verse 3), “sea” (verse 5), “fertile ground” (verse 6), “an incense-bearing tree” (verse 9), “the green hill”(verse 13), “this Earth”(verse 18).

Although Coleridge uses these words more than Byron, I think both poets describe the environment a lot in order to give realism to the poems and then, they situate readers in the appropriate scene in order to help their imagination.

The structure is very different:

The first poem has six stanzas with four verses each one. The first and second verses rhyme between them, and the third and the fourth also.

There are comparisons: “like the wolf on the fold”(verse 1), “like the leaves of the forest”(verse 5 and 7), “like snow…”(verse 24), “as the spray…”(verse 16), anaphors “that host with their banners”(verse 6), “that host on the morrow”(verse 8), alliterations “And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea”(verse 3).

Along the poem, Byron repeats a lot of times the word “and” and he uses it to begin almost all verses.

The second poem has five irregular stanzas.

There are comparisons “as the hills” (verse 10), anaphors “and all…” “and all…” (verse 48 and 49), repetitions “Beware! Beware! (verse 49).

Both poems are written in third person because Byron is telling the readers the story of the rider and Assyrian, he does not tell his own life, but an imagination. And Coleridge is telling what happened to Kubla Khan. We really do not know if these events are real or not.

Both poets use the technique of the run-on line to give more rhyme to poems.