Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Kubla Khan is one of the most popular and appreciated poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge that he wrote in 1797. The poem was first published in 1816 in a pamphlet along with his other poems, Christabel, and The Pains of Sleep. The subtitle of Kubla Khan is "A Vision in a Dream". Coleridge also used another subtitle ‘A Fragment’. Coleridge saw a dream and when he woke up, he began writing his dream in poetic verse. However, he was interrupted before he could complete and by the time he returned to writing, he forgot the rest of the dream, hence, ‘A Fragment.’ The poem is offered as a dream, a poetic dream removed from any intellectual content, but offering the essence of a dream. The enchanting vivacity of its color, artistic beauty, and sweet harmony appear like a dream.
As a child, Samuel Taylor Coleridge got addicted to opium when he used an opium-based medicine Laudanum to get rid of pain due to an injury. He continued using Laudanum to treat depression and stress and failed to get rid of the addiction. One night in 1797, he was suffering pain and to ease it out, he took a dose of laudanum. He fell asleep and had a strange dream about a Mongol emperor named Kubla Khan. Coleridge dreamed that he was actually writing a poem in his sleep, and when he woke up after a few hours, he sat down to write the dream poem. Coleridge had this dream of Kubla Khan (or Kublai Khan) because before he fell asleep, he was reading Purchas, his Pilgrims, a book by Renaissance historian Samuel Purchas. The book briefly describes Xanadu, the summer capital of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. Coleridge mentioned this source of inspiration in his preface to Kubla Khan. Samuel Purchas never visited Xanadu but his description of Xanadu was based on the writings of Marco Polo who visited Xanadu in 1275.
The main theme of the poem is the interaction between nature and man as the speaker highlights the limits of man’s creativity. The poem celebrates the power of human creativity while also recognizing that such creativity is limited, fragile, and quickly lost. The poem’s dreamlike, hallucinatory tone invites the reader to treat the speaker’s descriptions as an allegory for creativity and the human mind. In the poem, he explores the depths of dreams and creates landscapes that could not exist in reality. The “sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice” exemplifies the extreme fantasy of the world in which Kubla Khan lives. While the speaker describes Kubla Khan’s pleasure dome, not everything is pleasurable in the landscape. Along with the harmonious, beautiful, and pleasing aspects of nature, the poem also depicts the dangerous and threatening aspects of nature, which suggests that for Kubla Khan, pleasure constitutes not only natural beauty but also the violent aspects of nature. The speaker suggests that pleasure does not exclude violence, rather, pleasure emerges from the tension between beauty and violence, or chaos. In “Kubla Khan,” nature is characterized by a rough, dangerous terrain that can only be tamed by a male explorer such as Kubla Khan.
Structure of Kubla Khan:
The poem consists of 54 lines set in three stanzas of varying length. The first has 11 lines, the second has 25, and the third has 18. The poem doesn’t follow any strict metrical or rhyming pattern. The poet keeps jumping from one metrical pattern to another at different instances in the poem. However, Coleridge mostly used iambs in the poem, that is, most of the words in the poem are two-syllable units, in which the stress is placed on the second syllable. The poet used iambic trimeter, iambic pentameter, and iambic tetrameter. In the beginning stanza, the speaker describes the rushing of the river to the sea while offering a quick overview of the landscape hence, the lines appear fast-moving and short. The poem goes slow in the mid-section and the lines become longer. The speaker describes the meandering winds and the lines meanders too. In the last part, the speaker rushes to conclude and the lines become short again.
The poem has many rhyming patterns without any regularity or order. In general, metrical patterns and rhyming schemes are used in a poem to offer a specific structure, however, the poet used meter and rhyme in this poem to suggest disorder, chaos, and dreamlike effervescence. The varying rhyming schemes add to the mystical, otherworldly nature of the poem. Coleridge used extended metaphor, simile, alliteration, chiasmus, enjambment, allusion, antithesis, parallelism, and personification in the poem.
Summary of Kubla Khan:
Stanza 1 Lines 1-5
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”
The speaker begins by mentioning Xanadu, the real name of a now-ruined site in China on the Mongolian Plateau, which encompasses the once capital city built by Kubla Khan (Kublai Khan), a 13th-century Mongol ruler. The speaker narrates how Kubla Khan ordered a stately pleasure house to be built by the side of the river Alph. Alph is not a real river, rather it declares the beginning of the poet’s vision, or dream. Coleridge chose to name this fictitious river Alph to symbolize nature as the greatest creator, the source of all creations. Alph is a contraction of the Greek alphabet ‘alpha’ which means first, or prime. The speaker describes how this fictional river Alph flowed underground for a long distance through unfathomable caves into a sea where the rays of the sun could not penetrate. The ‘measureless’ caves and ‘sunless sea’ symbolize darkness, or absence of light, or reason. This suggests that the speaker is interested in reason or nature, as much as he is interested in supernatural, mystical, sleep, or death.
Alliteration has been used in line 1 (the sound of K in Kubla Khan) and line 2 (the sound of d in dome and decree).
Stanza 2 Lines 6-11
“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.”
After mentioning the ‘measureless’ caves and ‘sunless sea’, the speaker talks about the exact measurements required for fulfilling the order of Kubla Khan to make the ‘pleasure-dome.’ A piece of fertile land ‘twice five miles’ or 5 miles on the riverside and 5 miles on the other side was enclosed with walls and towers all around. There are gardens and snaky channels of water (sinuous rills) running through. Exotic trees grow here, bearing incense (aromatic fragrances). Ancient forests are present, too, with sunlit clearings.
The speaker offers a contrasting mixture of reality and imagination while describing the ‘pleasure-dome’ in Xanadu. The landscape encloses both, the rational, measurable, and sunlit spots of greenery, and the irrational, immeasurable, deep caves, sunless sea, and dark ancient forests.
In line 9, the speaker describes ‘incense-bearing’ trees blossoming recently in the man-made garden while in line 10, he describes the natural ‘ancient’ forests, suggesting the forests have been for a long time. This inversion of time, or contrast suggests Chiasmus.
Stanza 2 Lines 12-19
“But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:”
While describing the beautiful artificial garden, sunlit spots of greenery, and the natural ancient dark forests, the speaker notices the deep dark chasm (a deep crack or canyon in the ground). The river Alph cascades down the side of one of these hills, cutting a "deep chasm," or canyon, through it. The chasm symbolizes the unfathomable strength of the river flow. The chasm appears clear because the whole of the hill is covered in cedar trees while the canyon is the dividing line. The powerful and violent river adds to the mysterious aspect of the landscape which appears an enchanted place haunted by demons. The chasm adds to the savageness of the area. It is dark and the moon too is waning or diminishing. The place is haunted, dangerous, and beautiful too at the same time. It appears as if the beautiful woman is crying for her lover, who is a demon. The speaker is not introducing any new character in these lines, but he is describing the romantic aspect of this seemingly haunted, dangerous, yet attractive landscape where Kubla Khan has chosen to make his pleasure dome. The river continues to flow and hit the ground, deepening the chasm and as the water falls from the hill, the ground bears it while panting. Though a river, a fountain continuously flows, the speaker describes it as if a new mighty force is generated every new moment. Coleridge personifies the earth as a kind of "seething," "breathing" living thing. The rushing water becomes the sound of its "fast thick pants," as if the earth is really tired and defeated.
Stanza 2 Lines 20-27
“Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,”
The speaker continues to describe the river Alph bursting on the rocks as it falls down the hill. The river is bouncing off the rocks, which splatters the water and reminds the speaker of the clatter of hail, or grain raining down out of the air as it is being separated from the chaff. All this imagery offered by Coleridge is meant to incite a sense of awe and reverence towards the wild natural force symbolized by Alph.
As the water falls, it begins to ease and settle, and then the river "meander with a mazy motion." The whole imagery suggests that the water is falling fast and furiously down the hill into the chasm. The river is rushing down a deep canyon cut into a wooded hillside. It appears the hill is not too high and that is why the water bounces off rocks and creates a tumultuous, chaotic atmosphere, and then the river flows gently, meandering through wood and dale until it reaches the caves of immeasurable dark, deep caves. Momently, miles, meandering, mazy, motion, measureless, all shows alliteration.
Stanza 2 Lines 28-36
“And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!”
The river flows gently for a while and then it falls or sinks down into the ‘sunless’, ‘lifeless’ ocean. The speaker hasn’t mentioned the protagonist yet but now he does. He hears the echoing of the tumultuous river as it falls down the hill and then observes it sinking down the lifeless ocean and this reminds him of the violent wars of the past as he hears "Ancestral voices prophesying war.” Kublai Khan was the grandson of Genghis Khan. Obviously, he had seen a lot of violence and war. This voice, that Kubla Khan hears, suggests that chaos, tumult, or violence can be a necessity to create something grand such as the ‘pleasure-dome’ decreed by Kubla Khan.
The speaker then describes the ‘pleasure-dome’ which appears to cast a shadow on the river as it falls down the hill to the chasm to meet the lifeless ocean. The speaker says that the reflection of the pleasure-dome fell between the fountains mingling with the echoing sound coming out of the caves creating for the onlooker an illusion of really rhythmical music. The top of the building was warm because it was open to the sun while the low-lying chambers were chilled with never-melting ice. The poem continues to express the deep contrast between the dome and the caverns: Natural vs. man-made, above ground and below ground, symmetrical and irregular, measurable and immeasurable, sunny and frozen.
Stanza 3 Lines 37-44
“A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer, she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,”
Coleridge mentioned in the preface that he was interrupted while writing the poem after he finished the first two stanzas. He was forced to go away from his writing desk and by the time he returned back, he had lost the memories of his vision. The speaker then mentions yet another dream he once had. In this vision, he introduces a muse, an Abyssinian damsel playing the dulcimer, an ancient instrument with strings that are plucked or hit with a mallet to produce music. The girl was playing music on her dulcimer while singing about Mount Abora. It is another fictional name (just like the river Alph) that can be considered as an allusion to Mount Amara, a place that John Milton mentioned in Paradise Lost. The music in his dream was so enchanting that he still remembers how it made him feel. Though he describes the music, he can't really get back to experiencing that intense feeling, yet he longs for it. He wishes to experience the same hypnotic effect of that music. Why does the speaker wish to experience the same enchanting effect of the music of the damsel with a dulcimer?
Stanza 3 Lines 45-54
“That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.”
The speaker wants to revive the music from his vision and bring it back to life because he believes that music is so enchanting and powerful that if he hears it again, it will inspire him, and he will be able to create his own amazing things. He will make loud and long music and then he will reproduce the ‘pleasure-dome’ of Kubla Khan in the air. He wishes to recreate the sunny dome on the icy rocks and caves. All those who will hear the music will be able to see the pleasure-dome of the speaker too. However, despite the enchanting atmosphere of the ‘pleasure-dome’ it has its own dread and chaos. Those who could see it will warn others about the demon that haunts the dome. The onlookers will warn others while describing this strange terrifying creature with "flashing eyes" and "floating hair." They warn that anyone hearing the song of the Abyssinian damsel must perform a ritual to avoid the demon who has fed the honey-dew and has drunk the milk of Paradise. Who is this terrifying figure? Is he the same demon-lover for whom the woman in the speaker’s dream was wailing? Or is he the speaker, and hence, the poet Coleridge himself in effect of opium? Or maybe the demon is Kubla Khan, the violent grandson of violent Gengiz Khan, who has turned into a strange ferocious creature declaring war against the sane world.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
