The Dungeon Analysis

And this place our forefathers made for man!

This is the process of our love and wisdom,

To each poor brother who offends against us—

Most innocent, perhaps—and what if guilty?

Is this the only cure? Merciful God!

Each pore and natural outlet shrivelled up

By Ignorance and parching Poverty,

His energies roll back upon his heart,

And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison,

They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot;

Then we call in our pampered mountebanks—

And this is their best cure! uncomforted

And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,

And savage faces, at the clanking hour,

Seen through the steam and vapours of his dungeon,

By the lamp's dismal twilgiht! So he lies

Circled with evil, till his very soul

Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed

By sights of ever more deformity!



With other ministrations thou, O Nature!

Healest thy wandering and distempered child:

Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,

Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,

Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,

Till he relent, and can no more endure

To be a jarring and a dissonant thing

Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;

But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,

His angry spirit healed and harmonized

By the benignant touch of Love and Beauty.

.: :.

“Is this the only cure? Merciful God!”
-rhetorical question
-followed by religious exclamation emphasises exasperation
LATER ON HOWEVER COLERIDGE CALLS TO NATURE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS SO RATHER THEN PLACING PEOPLE IN JAILS SEND THEM ONTO NATURE RRATHER THEN "HOUSE OF CORRECTION" SO THAT THEY CAN EXPERIENCE THE IMAGINATIVE SUBLIME
The Dungeon is written in dramatic blank verse this being the style of writing most similar to everyday speech. This fact meant that its use (the unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter) is very common throughout the collection and the Romantic period as a whole.

| Posted on 2008-11-07 | by a guest

.: Simply overview :.

The Dungeon is written in dramatic blank verse this being the style of writing most similar to everyday speech. This fact meant that its use (the unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter) is very common throughout the collection and the Romantic period as a whole. This form is used to help convey the theme that the two poets were working hard to achieve: poetry can be ordinary and can be understood by ordinary people. This idea is then emphasised by the use of a prisoner as the main character. In

| Posted on 2008-01-28 | by a guest