bonniejjj
Member
Hello. This is an essay I wrote (in response to a question I made up that is adaptable.)
This is my first attempt at synthesis for Journeys (previously I had been doing it text by text.) I would really appreciate some constructive criticism. There's no need to read it all (unless you want to,) skim reading would suffice to tell me if it works. Thank you =) Oh, btw I know the names of the texts aren't underlined, when I copied and pasted it from word to here the formatting was gone.
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"Imaginative Journeys take us into worlds of inspiration, speculation, and imagination."
Discuss this statement, focusing on how composers of texts represent the concept of journey.
In your answer refer to your prescribed text, ONE text from the Board of Studies Stimulus Booklet: Journeys and at least ONE other related text of your own choosing.
_________________________________________________________________
Imaginative journeys have the power to transport us, to take us into worlds separate from our own reality. Journeys of the imagination are closely interwoven with the inner and physical. What separates imaginative journeys from other forms is that the destination is not a physical place; rather it is a state of mind. This idea is explored in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poems Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Kubla Khan, Shirley Geok-lin Lim's The Town Where Time Stands Still (Text 7 in the Board of Studies Stimulus Booklet) and Marele Day's feature article The Edge of Darkness (published in The Weekend Australian, 20-21, April 2002.) Each of these texts takes us into different worlds; of inspiration, speculation, and imagination. Reading them we are transformed; we cannot help but attain a greater understanding of self, and the imaginative journey.
Coleridge was a Romantic poet. According to Sir Maurice Brown in The Romantic Imagination, "Through imagination they could conceive the real essence of things and existence...when it is at work it sees things to which the ordinary intelligence is blind."
Romantic poets abhorred the industrial and sought a return to nature. Coleridge adhered to a Christian pantheistic theology, a doctrine adopted by some Romantics, and as such believed that journeying into the imagination would enable him to explore ideas that would reveal a truth about the human relationship with God and nature.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is an allegorical representation of journey. An ancient mariner tells his tale to a wedding guest who is compelled to listen. In the mariner's story, his shipmates are taken and he is spared. He feels separated from and revulsed by nature; expressed through repetition "a thousand thousand slimy things/ Lived on; and so did I."
In his isolation, in the moonlight he experiences a sort of epiphany "I watched the water-snakes:/ They moved in tracks of shining white" He comes to an understanding of the beauty of God's creatures, expressed through descriptive language and metaphor "They coiled and swam; and every track/ was a flash of golden fire."
Thus begins the process of redemption "A spring of love gushed from my heart,/ And I blessed them unaware." The mariner goes on to tell his story of inspiration, preaching love and reverence for all things God "made and loveth;" "He prayeth well, who loveth well/ Both man and bird and beast."
Marele Day in The Edge of Darkness experiences a similar inspirational communion with nature. She becomes lost in the forest, and is isolated like the mariner. Her fear is expressed through simile " my heart flapped about in its ribcage like a frightened bird." She initially feels a fear and revulsion towards the "red-bellied black snakes, funnel-web spiders, bull ants." In the silence of the cool night air, under the stars she too experiences an epiphany, bathed in "the soft green luminescence of thousands of glow worms scattered across the forest floor. I felt perfectly safe, at rest in this world pulsing with life." The imagery evokes a sense of peace and beauty in nature. Although the religious undertones are absent, the appreciation of nature is inherent; a move away from the industrial towards the natural. Like the mariner, she also goes on to tell her story, to an old farmer. The gap in time and space between Day's context and Coleridge's suggests that communion with nature is a universal theme, inspirational in our age of industry and concrete.
Text 7 from the Board of Studies Stimulus booklet also reflects this theme. Lim suggests through thought provoking word play that people desire to "be moved rather than to move," seeking an "external geography" that will work upon their "internal psychology." This suggests that to journey is to experience change; a physical journey is parallelled by inner mechanisms, of perhaps a more significant kind. The journey, whether imaginative or physical always involves a degree of inner change. Places can have the power to inspire awe, wonder, salvation and reconciliation. The spirit can be rejuvenated, and hope restored, the traveller returning "blessed and altered," just as Marele Day and Coleridge's mariner did.
Kubla Khan is inspirational in that it stands testament to the amazing power of the human imagination, to create complete worlds of fantasy from, in Coleridge's case "a vision in a dream, a fragment."
Speculation is a key facet of the imagination. The imagination has the tendency to run wild in times of fear; to imagine future scenarios and possible dastardly endings. Day in The Edge of Darkness uses simile to describe her very real fear that "A helicopter would never find me, my body would eventually rot like a log." Eventually, she shakes herself free of her imagination and listens to "the thin voice of reason." This illustrates that the memory can be both a creative and dangerous place.
Lim in her musings in text 7 speculates on the human condition, attempting to define what has motivated people throughout the centuries to travel. She believes there to be something beyond the "baser motives of profit and pleasure," something "subtler" and more "unconscious." She speaks of a spiritual journey, a desire to find meaning and purpose. In her speculation, Lim touches on a raw truth of humanity, a truth keenly expressed in the experiences of Coleridge's mariner and Marele Day.
One of the most important aspects of journey is its ability to take us into worlds of imagination, where we can learn about the imaginative creations of others, and inturn discover truths about our own imagination. This theme is explored explicitly in Coleridge's Kubla Khan. This poem is a pure journey into the imagination, a beautiful flight of fancy. We discover that our imagination is unfathomable, limitless, and that there is much we don’t (and cannot) know about our own minds. This is expressed though a powerful metaphor for the imagination "caverns measureless to man." We learn to accept, and embrace the existence of contradictions within the imagination with Coleridge's creation of the paradoxical “sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice.” The imagination is engaged with a variety of senses, through the use of sensual imagery “where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree,” and “where was heard the mingled measure” describing the aural quality of the fountain and the river mingled, but in a way that can be separated. In this way Coleridge invites all our senses to explore the world he has created, not just our sight alone. Coleridge also explores the use of sensual triggers to revive memories, real or imagined; “Could I revive within me/ Her symphony and song…/I would build that dome in air,” meaning that if the song could be revived, the song would recreate the vision of the dome.
The pleasure-dome is a metaphor for the imagination. As we read Coleridge’s poem, we form a unique creation from the given words. Therefore no two imaginative constructions of the pleasure dome will be the same.
Coleridge reveals the nature of the imagination; whilst imaginatively exploring a world he has created. The reader makes discoveries that lead to a greater understanding of the working of the imagination, of the mind, thus attaining a greater understanding of self.
Day in The Edge of Darkness also uses sensual imagery "smelt the dankness of rotting wood, heard the whispy chirp of crickets." This description firmly places us in the world of her experience. Day also invites us to explore the inner workings of her imagination; whilst describing the real, she also describes her intuitive feelings as she "imagined the respiration of the trees, the soft-sleep breath of unseen bush creatures." Thus we too, whilst empathising and placing ourselves in the physical setting, explore and feel the realness of the things which, although she cannot see them with her eyes, she envisions with her imagination.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner also explores the idea of transportation into worlds of imagination, as the wedding guest (who is compelled to listen,) and vicariously the reader, are taken on a riveting journey into the mariner's world, a place we are transported to through the power of our imagination. Each responder will interpret the poem differently, the language evoking visual imagery and feelings, "with sloping masts and dipping prow" conveys a sense of breathless urgency, whilst "as idle as a painted ship/ Upon a painted ocean," evokes images of a still and lifeless picture.
These texts all illustrate the awe-inspiring power of the human imagination. The composers of the texts use the journey to reveal some truth about the human condition, and indeed make sense of their own world. Coleridge uses the imaginative journey to seek solutions to the problems within the world, such as society’s preoccupation with the artificial and movement away from god and nature. Lim speculates on the nature of journey, of human motivation, and arrives at a place of undeniable truth. Day shares Coleridge's appreciation of and communion with nature, who as an Australian writer explores the universality of the beauty of nature through her different context. Each of the texts takes us on an imaginative journey; into worlds of inspiration, speculation, and imagination, inturn leaving us to divine our own truth. In the words of Joseph Conrad “only in men’s imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention is the supreme master of art as of life.”
This is my first attempt at synthesis for Journeys (previously I had been doing it text by text.) I would really appreciate some constructive criticism. There's no need to read it all (unless you want to,) skim reading would suffice to tell me if it works. Thank you =) Oh, btw I know the names of the texts aren't underlined, when I copied and pasted it from word to here the formatting was gone.
_________________________________________________________________
"Imaginative Journeys take us into worlds of inspiration, speculation, and imagination."
Discuss this statement, focusing on how composers of texts represent the concept of journey.
In your answer refer to your prescribed text, ONE text from the Board of Studies Stimulus Booklet: Journeys and at least ONE other related text of your own choosing.
_________________________________________________________________
Imaginative journeys have the power to transport us, to take us into worlds separate from our own reality. Journeys of the imagination are closely interwoven with the inner and physical. What separates imaginative journeys from other forms is that the destination is not a physical place; rather it is a state of mind. This idea is explored in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poems Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Kubla Khan, Shirley Geok-lin Lim's The Town Where Time Stands Still (Text 7 in the Board of Studies Stimulus Booklet) and Marele Day's feature article The Edge of Darkness (published in The Weekend Australian, 20-21, April 2002.) Each of these texts takes us into different worlds; of inspiration, speculation, and imagination. Reading them we are transformed; we cannot help but attain a greater understanding of self, and the imaginative journey.
Coleridge was a Romantic poet. According to Sir Maurice Brown in The Romantic Imagination, "Through imagination they could conceive the real essence of things and existence...when it is at work it sees things to which the ordinary intelligence is blind."
Romantic poets abhorred the industrial and sought a return to nature. Coleridge adhered to a Christian pantheistic theology, a doctrine adopted by some Romantics, and as such believed that journeying into the imagination would enable him to explore ideas that would reveal a truth about the human relationship with God and nature.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is an allegorical representation of journey. An ancient mariner tells his tale to a wedding guest who is compelled to listen. In the mariner's story, his shipmates are taken and he is spared. He feels separated from and revulsed by nature; expressed through repetition "a thousand thousand slimy things/ Lived on; and so did I."
In his isolation, in the moonlight he experiences a sort of epiphany "I watched the water-snakes:/ They moved in tracks of shining white" He comes to an understanding of the beauty of God's creatures, expressed through descriptive language and metaphor "They coiled and swam; and every track/ was a flash of golden fire."
Thus begins the process of redemption "A spring of love gushed from my heart,/ And I blessed them unaware." The mariner goes on to tell his story of inspiration, preaching love and reverence for all things God "made and loveth;" "He prayeth well, who loveth well/ Both man and bird and beast."
Marele Day in The Edge of Darkness experiences a similar inspirational communion with nature. She becomes lost in the forest, and is isolated like the mariner. Her fear is expressed through simile " my heart flapped about in its ribcage like a frightened bird." She initially feels a fear and revulsion towards the "red-bellied black snakes, funnel-web spiders, bull ants." In the silence of the cool night air, under the stars she too experiences an epiphany, bathed in "the soft green luminescence of thousands of glow worms scattered across the forest floor. I felt perfectly safe, at rest in this world pulsing with life." The imagery evokes a sense of peace and beauty in nature. Although the religious undertones are absent, the appreciation of nature is inherent; a move away from the industrial towards the natural. Like the mariner, she also goes on to tell her story, to an old farmer. The gap in time and space between Day's context and Coleridge's suggests that communion with nature is a universal theme, inspirational in our age of industry and concrete.
Text 7 from the Board of Studies Stimulus booklet also reflects this theme. Lim suggests through thought provoking word play that people desire to "be moved rather than to move," seeking an "external geography" that will work upon their "internal psychology." This suggests that to journey is to experience change; a physical journey is parallelled by inner mechanisms, of perhaps a more significant kind. The journey, whether imaginative or physical always involves a degree of inner change. Places can have the power to inspire awe, wonder, salvation and reconciliation. The spirit can be rejuvenated, and hope restored, the traveller returning "blessed and altered," just as Marele Day and Coleridge's mariner did.
Kubla Khan is inspirational in that it stands testament to the amazing power of the human imagination, to create complete worlds of fantasy from, in Coleridge's case "a vision in a dream, a fragment."
Speculation is a key facet of the imagination. The imagination has the tendency to run wild in times of fear; to imagine future scenarios and possible dastardly endings. Day in The Edge of Darkness uses simile to describe her very real fear that "A helicopter would never find me, my body would eventually rot like a log." Eventually, she shakes herself free of her imagination and listens to "the thin voice of reason." This illustrates that the memory can be both a creative and dangerous place.
Lim in her musings in text 7 speculates on the human condition, attempting to define what has motivated people throughout the centuries to travel. She believes there to be something beyond the "baser motives of profit and pleasure," something "subtler" and more "unconscious." She speaks of a spiritual journey, a desire to find meaning and purpose. In her speculation, Lim touches on a raw truth of humanity, a truth keenly expressed in the experiences of Coleridge's mariner and Marele Day.
One of the most important aspects of journey is its ability to take us into worlds of imagination, where we can learn about the imaginative creations of others, and inturn discover truths about our own imagination. This theme is explored explicitly in Coleridge's Kubla Khan. This poem is a pure journey into the imagination, a beautiful flight of fancy. We discover that our imagination is unfathomable, limitless, and that there is much we don’t (and cannot) know about our own minds. This is expressed though a powerful metaphor for the imagination "caverns measureless to man." We learn to accept, and embrace the existence of contradictions within the imagination with Coleridge's creation of the paradoxical “sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice.” The imagination is engaged with a variety of senses, through the use of sensual imagery “where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree,” and “where was heard the mingled measure” describing the aural quality of the fountain and the river mingled, but in a way that can be separated. In this way Coleridge invites all our senses to explore the world he has created, not just our sight alone. Coleridge also explores the use of sensual triggers to revive memories, real or imagined; “Could I revive within me/ Her symphony and song…/I would build that dome in air,” meaning that if the song could be revived, the song would recreate the vision of the dome.
The pleasure-dome is a metaphor for the imagination. As we read Coleridge’s poem, we form a unique creation from the given words. Therefore no two imaginative constructions of the pleasure dome will be the same.
Coleridge reveals the nature of the imagination; whilst imaginatively exploring a world he has created. The reader makes discoveries that lead to a greater understanding of the working of the imagination, of the mind, thus attaining a greater understanding of self.
Day in The Edge of Darkness also uses sensual imagery "smelt the dankness of rotting wood, heard the whispy chirp of crickets." This description firmly places us in the world of her experience. Day also invites us to explore the inner workings of her imagination; whilst describing the real, she also describes her intuitive feelings as she "imagined the respiration of the trees, the soft-sleep breath of unseen bush creatures." Thus we too, whilst empathising and placing ourselves in the physical setting, explore and feel the realness of the things which, although she cannot see them with her eyes, she envisions with her imagination.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner also explores the idea of transportation into worlds of imagination, as the wedding guest (who is compelled to listen,) and vicariously the reader, are taken on a riveting journey into the mariner's world, a place we are transported to through the power of our imagination. Each responder will interpret the poem differently, the language evoking visual imagery and feelings, "with sloping masts and dipping prow" conveys a sense of breathless urgency, whilst "as idle as a painted ship/ Upon a painted ocean," evokes images of a still and lifeless picture.
These texts all illustrate the awe-inspiring power of the human imagination. The composers of the texts use the journey to reveal some truth about the human condition, and indeed make sense of their own world. Coleridge uses the imaginative journey to seek solutions to the problems within the world, such as society’s preoccupation with the artificial and movement away from god and nature. Lim speculates on the nature of journey, of human motivation, and arrives at a place of undeniable truth. Day shares Coleridge's appreciation of and communion with nature, who as an Australian writer explores the universality of the beauty of nature through her different context. Each of the texts takes us on an imaginative journey; into worlds of inspiration, speculation, and imagination, inturn leaving us to divine our own truth. In the words of Joseph Conrad “only in men’s imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention is the supreme master of art as of life.”