The Unattainable Desire

“Kubla Khan” and “Naked Ladies” are two very different poems yet touch on various similar topics as well. One of the main topics touched in both “Kubla Khan” and “Naked Ladies” is desire. Desire is a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen. Greed also plays a big part in both Mary Reufle’s and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poems. “Kubla Khan” and “Naked ladies” comingle the two making it hard to see when they are talking about desire and when they are touching on the subject of greed. Ruefle and Coleridge put on a display of desire and greed showcasing the need and want of the unattainable in hindsight making it the desired party. “Naked Ladies” and “Kubla Khan” both shows the unattainable desire.
Mary Ruefle’s Poem “Naked Ladies” shows various example of desire. Desire is wanting what you cannot have; obtaining the unattainable.   Desire itself feeds off the foreign in “Naked Ladies” Ruefle writes the perfect example of desire “My neighbors are not ashamed of their poverty but would love to be able to buy a white horse, a stallion that would transfigure the lot” (L5-7) Mary Ruefle’s Neighbors have no need for the white horse or the stallion aforementioned they desire the transfiguration that it would create on the lot. “Kubla Khan” also touches on the subject of desire quite often. Coleridge shows various examples of desire in “Kubla Khan” as in “Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.” (L4-11) With the caverns and the fertile ground seemingly representing a womb, while the other lines represent a beautiful body, these words paint a picture of a woman, showing the desire for the pleasure-dome as the desire a man has for a fertile woman. Desire is shown in...