Kubla Khan written by ST Coleridge is all about imaginations. To explain the romantic elements in the poem, we must know that the preceding age i.e. the Neoclassical Age was considered to be the age of reason. Imaginations were replaced by reality.

The Romantics totally rejected the rationality and logic in literature and particularly in poetry. They rather focused on imaginations and creativity and for that nature was the only solution. Hence they took up the maxims “Art for the art’s sake” and “Return back to nature“.

Kubla Khan as a Romantic Poem is all about the nature and its appreciation. The poem consists of four stanzas and after each stanza, the level of imaginations and creativity goes deeper and ultimately, there is the willing suspension of disbelief.

In the first stanza, the poet appreciates the man-made beauty of City of Xanadu. In the next stanza, he moves to the beauty of divine creativity. In the third stanza, he creates and artefact by combining the Creativity of Kubla Khan and that of Nature- an act of pure imaginations.

In the final stanza, he talks about “a damsel with dulcimer” who is an African. Her music is quite charming. The poet says that by combining all the creativities (in imaginations) he will drink “the milk of paradise”.

Thus the poem is full of imaginations and what the poet experiences is because of his willing suspension of disbelief.

Problem play takes up important issues of the society using the way of conversation between the characters or actors in the play before the audience. These characters express different ideas which clash with each other. These clashing ideas help the audience and the readers to understand the issue and reach a solution on their own.

In Pygmalion by GB Shaw, Professor Henry Higgins makes Cockney speaking flower girl Eliza Doolittle to master English. He succeeds in doing so within six months. Eliza succeeds in learning English and can speak it fluently. However, the rise in her standard because of her language now becomes a problem for her.

She develops the feeling of love for Professor Higgins but the latter remains cold to it. She can neither live with him nor she can go back to flower-selling business. Having no choice she has to marry Freddy, a poor and petty man.

This is what a person who is poor and uneducated feels when he suddenly becomes rich and literate. Hence it is a problem play. The playwright leaves it to the audience to decide what Eliza should have done.