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85-447: The name presumably comes from the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge : 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. (emphasis added) The south face of the formation is popular with rock climbers and has over twenty multi-pitch slab climbs many of them easy or moderate. This Yosemite -related article

170-453: A Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to Kubla Khan , the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium -influenced dream after reading a work describing Xanadu , the summer capital of the Mongol -led Yuan dynasty of China founded by Kublai Khan (Emperor Shizu of Yuan). Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he

255-604: A Farm House between Porlock & Linton, a quarter of a mile from Culbone Church." The printed preface describes his location as "a lonely farm house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire," and embellishes the events into a narrative which has sometimes been seen as part of the poem itself. According to the extended preface narrative, Coleridge was reading Purchas his Pilgrimes by Samuel Purchas , and fell asleep after reading about Kublai Khan . Then, he says, he "continued for about three hours in

340-474: A Scarf hanged at her back". Her description in the poem is also related to Isis of Apuleius's Metamorphoses, and to John Keats's Indian woman in Endymion who is revealed to be the moon goddess. Charles Lamb provided Coleridge on 15 April 1797 with a copy of his "A Vision of Repentance", a poem that discussed a dream containing imagery similar to those in "Kubla Khan". The poem could have provided Coleridge with

425-412: A complex statement on poetry itself and the nature of individual genius . Literary reviews at the time of the collection's first publication generally dismissed it. At the time of the poem's publication, a new generation of critical magazines, including Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine , Edinburgh Review , and Quarterly Review , had been established, with critics who were more provocative than those of

510-456: A component to the idea of imagination in the poem is the creative process by describing a world that is of the imagination and another that is of understanding. The poet, in Coleridge's system, is able to move from the world of understanding, where men normally are, and enter into the world of the imagination through poetry. When the narrator describes the "ancestral voices prophesying war", the idea

595-661: A coup against their father, until the Emperor's death. Mount Amara was visited between 1515 and 1521 by Portuguese priest, explorer and diplomat Francisco Alvares (1465–1541), who was on a mission to meet the Christian king of Ethiopia. His description of Mount Amara was published in 1540, and appears in Purchas, his Pilgrimes , the book Coleridge was reading before he wrote "Kubla Khan". Mount Amara also appears in Milton's Paradise Lost , where it

680-434: A deep delight 'twould win me, 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 drank the milk of Paradise. According to Coleridge's account,

765-453: A description in Heliodorus 's work Aethiopian History , with its description of "a young Lady, sitting upon a Rock, of so rare and perfect a Beauty, as one would have taken her for a Goddess, and though her present misery opprest her with extreamest grief, yet in the greatness of her afflection, they might easily perceive the greatness of her Courage: A Laurel crown'd her Head, and a Quiver in

850-565: A dome could be positive if it was connected to religion, but the Khan's dome was one of immoral pleasure and a purposeless life dominated by sensuality and pleasure. The reception of Kubla Khan has changed substantially over time. Initial reactions to the poem were lukewarm, despite praise from notable figures like Lord Byron and Walter Scott . The work went through multiple editions, but the poem, as with his others published in 1816 and 1817, had poor sales. Initial reviewers saw some aesthetic appeal in

935-411: A dream which inspired the poem. Coleridge described the circumstances of his dream and the poem in two places: on a manuscript copy written some time before 1816, and in the preface to the printed version of the poem published in 1816. The manuscript states: "This fragment with a good deal more, not recoverable, composed, in a sort of Reverie brought on by two grains of Opium taken to check a dysentry, at

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1020-399: A fragmentary view revealing how the act works: how the poet crafts language and how it relates to himself. Through use of the imagination, the poem is able to discuss issues surrounding tyranny, war, and contrasts that exist within paradise. Part of the war motif could be a metaphor for the poet in a competitive struggle with the reader to push his own vision and ideas upon his audience. As

1105-441: A journey; the folio was heavy and almost 1,000 pages in size. It is possible that the words of Purchas were merely remembered by Coleridge and that the depiction of immediately reading the work before falling asleep was to suggest that the subject came to him accidentally. Critics have also noted that unlike the manuscript, which says he had taken two grains of opium, the printed version of this story says only that "In consequence of

1190-439: A mysterious canyon (lines 12–16). A hydrothermal explosion erupted from the canyon (lines 17–19), throwing rubble into the air (lines 20–23) and forming the source of the sacred river Alph (line 24). The river wandered through the woods, then reached the caves and dark sea described in the first stanza (lines 25–28). Kubla Khan, present for the eruption, heard a prophecy of war (lines 29–30). An indented section presents an image of

1275-542: A poem, on the contrasts within the paradisal setting, and its discussion of the role of poet as either being blessed or cursed by imagination, has influenced many works, including Alfred Tennyson's "Palace of Art" and William Butler Yeats's Byzantium based poems. There is also a strong connection between the idea of retreating into the imagination found within Keats's Lamia and in Tennyson's "Palace of Art". The Preface, when added to

1360-480: A poet. Without the Preface, the two stanzas form two different poems that have some relationship to each other but lack unity. This is not to say they would be two different poems, since the technique of having separate parts that respond to another is used in the genre of the odal hymn , as in the poetry of other Romantic poets including John Keats or Percy Bysshe Shelley . However, the odal hymn as used by others has

1445-419: A profound sleep... during which time he had the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two or three hundred lines ... On Awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved." The passage continues with a famous account of an interruption: "At this moment he

1530-420: A review of H. D. Traill's analysis of Coleridge in the "English Men of Letters", an anonymous reviewer wrote in the 1885 Westminster Review : "Of 'Kubla Khan,' Mr. Traill writes: 'As to the wild dream-poem 'Kubla Khan,' it is hardly more than a psychological curiosity, and only that perhaps in respect of the completeness of its metrical form.' Lovers of poetry think otherwise, and listen to these wonderful lines as

1615-428: A slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed." The image of himself that Coleridge provides is of a dreamer who reads works of lore and not as an opium addict. Instead, the effects of the opium, as described, are intended to suggest that he was not used to its effects. According to some critics, the second stanza of the poem, forming a conclusion, was composed at a later date and was possibly disconnected from

1700-507: A stronger unity among its parts, and Coleridge believed in writing poetry that was unified organically. It is possible that Coleridge was displeased by the lack of unity in the poem and added a note about the structure to the Preface to explain his thoughts. The poem's language is highly stylised with a strong emphasis on sound devices that change between the poem's original two stanzas . The poem relies on many sound-based techniques, including cognate variation and chiasmus . In particular,

1785-433: A sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and inchanted As e'er beneath

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1870-446: A term to describe interrupted genius. When John Livingston Lowes taught the poem, he told his students "If there is any man in the history of literature who should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, it is the man on business from Porlock." There are some problems with Coleridge's account, especially the claim to have a copy of Purchas with him. It was a rare book, unlikely to be at a "lonely farmhouse", nor would an individual carry it on

1955-424: 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: 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

2040-753: Is "by some suppos'd / True Paradise under the Ethiop line," where Abyssinian kings keep their children guarded. Mount Amara is in the same region as Lake Tana , the source of the Blue Nile river. Ethiopian tradition says that the Blue Nile is the River Gihon of the Bible, one of the four rivers that flow out of the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis , which says that Gihon flows through

2125-412: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Tuolumne County, California -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Kubla Khan Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a Dream ( / ˌ k ʊ b l ə ˈ k ɑː n / ) is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge , completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in

2210-451: Is a certain aesthetic appeal: he says "we could repeat these lines to ourselves not the less often for not knowing the meaning of them," revealing that "Mr Coleridge can write better nonsense verse than any man in English." As other reviews continued to be published in 1816, they, too, were lukewarm at best. The poem received limited praise for "some playful thoughts and fanciful imagery," and

2295-402: Is about poetry and the two sections discuss two types of poems. The power of the imagination is an important component to this theme. The poem celebrates creativity and how the poet is able to experience a connection to the universe through inspiration. As a poet, Coleridge places himself in an uncertain position as either master over his creative powers or a slave to it. The dome city represents

2380-424: Is difficult to attribute such false verdict to pure and absolute ignorance. Even when we make all due allowance for the prejudices of critics whose only possible enthusiasm went out to 'the pointed and fine propriety of Poe,' we can hardly believe that the exquisite art which is among the most valued on our possessions could encounter so much garrulous abuse without the criminal intervention of personal malignancy." In

2465-474: Is divided into three irregular stanzas, which move loosely between different times and places. The first stanza begins with a fanciful description of the origin of Kublai Khan's capital Xanadu (lines 1–2). It is described as being near the river Alph, which passes through caves before reaching a dark sea (lines 3–5). Ten miles of land were surrounded with fortified walls (lines 6–7), encompassing lush gardens and forests (lines 8–11). The second stanza describes

2550-429: Is found within the form of the poem. The poem's self-proclaimed fragmentary nature combined with Coleridge's warning about the poem in the preface turns "Kubla Khan" into an "anti-poem", a work that lacks structure, order, and leaves the reader confused instead of enlightened. However, the poem has little relation to the other fragmentary poems Coleridge wrote. The first lines of the poem follow iambic tetrameter with

2635-607: Is included in modern editions but lacks both the first and final paragraphs. The book Coleridge was reading before he fell asleep was Purchas, his Pilgrimes, or Relations of the World and Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discovered, from the Creation to the Present , by the English clergyman and geographer Samuel Purchas, published in 1613. The book contained a brief description of Xanadu,

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2720-415: Is part of the world of understanding, or the real world. As a whole, the poem is connected to Coleridge's belief in a secondary Imagination that can lead a poet into a world of imagination, and the poem is both a description of that world and a description of how the poet enters the world. The imagination, as it appears in many of Coleridge's and Wordsworth's works, including "Kubla Khan", is discussed through

2805-582: The Kingdom of Kush , the Biblical name for Ethiopia and Sudan. In fact the Blue Nile is very far from the other three rivers mentioned in Genesis 2:10–14, but this belief led to the connection in 18th and 19th century English literature between Mount Amara and Paradise. The Abyssinian maid is similar to the way Coleridge describes Lewti in another poem he wrote around the same time, Lewti . The connection between Lewti and

2890-462: The Monthly Repertory of English Literature quoted two lines from it in a book review. The poem was set aside until 1815 when Coleridge compiled manuscripts of his poems for a collection titled Sibylline Leaves . It did not feature in that volume, but Coleridge did read the poem to Lord Byron on 10 April 1816. Byron persuaded Coleridge to publish the poem, and on 12 April 1816, a contract

2975-604: The Tatars ruled by Kubla Khan were depicted as uncivilized worshippers of the sun, connected to either the Cain or Ham line of outcasts. In the tradition Coleridge relies on, the Tatar worship the sun because it reminds them of paradise, and they build gardens because they want to recreate paradise. The Tatars are connected to the Judaeo Christian ideas of Original Sin and Eden: Kubla Khan is of

3060-477: The Abyssinian maid makes it possible that the maid was intended as a disguised version of Mary Evans , who appears as a love interest since Coleridge's 1794 poem The Sigh . Evans, in these poems, appears as an object of sexual desire and a source of inspiration. She is also similar to the later subject of many of Coleridge's poems, Asra, based on Sara Hutchinson. Literary precedents for the Abyssinian maid include

3145-645: The Book of Revelation in its description of New Jerusalem and to the paradise of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream . The sources used for "Kubla Khan" are also used in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner . Opium itself has also been seen as a "source" for many of the poem's features, such as its disorganized action. These features are similar to writing by other contemporary opium eaters and writers, such as Thomas de Quincey and Charles Pierre Baudelaire . Coleridge may also have been influenced by

3230-572: The Destroyer , a work which drew on the same sources as Kubla Khan . At both time periods, Coleridge was again in the area of Ash Farm, near Culbone Church , where Coleridge consistently described composing the poem. However, the October 1797 composition date is more widely accepted. In September 1797, Coleridge lived in Nether Stowey in the southwest of England and spent much of his time walking through

3315-482: The dark chasm in the midst of Xanadu's gardens, and describes the surrounding area as both "savage" and "holy". Yarlott interprets this chasm as symbolic of the poet struggling with decadence that ignores nature. It may also represent the dark side of the soul, the dehumanising effect of power and dominion. Fountains are often symbolic of the inception of life, and in this case may represent forceful creativity. Since this fountain ends in death, it may also simply represent

3400-414: The dome, the cavern, and the fountain, are similar to an apocalyptic vision. Together, the natural and man-made structures form a miracle of nature as they represent the mixing of opposites together, the essence of creativity. In the third stanza, the narrator turns prophetic, referring to a vision of an unidentified "Abyssinian maid" who sings of "Mount Abora". Harold Bloom suggests that this passage reveals

3485-449: The evidence for a wonderfully inventive action of the mind in sleep; for, whatever were the exciting cause, the fact remains the same". Hall Caine , in his 1883 survey of the original critical response to Christabel and "Kubla Khan", praised the poem and declared: "It must surely be allowed that the adverse criticism on 'Christabel' and 'Kubla Khan' which is here quoted is outside all tolerant treatment, whether of raillery or of banter. It

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3570-401: The final printing in his Poetical Works of 1834. In the final work, Coleridge added the expanded subtitle "Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment". Printed with Kubla Khan was a preface that stated a dream provided Coleridge the lines. In some later anthologies of Coleridge's poetry, the preface is dropped along with the subtitle denoting its fragmentary and dream nature. Sometimes, the preface

3655-458: The first composition of Kubla Khan are slightly ambiguous, due to limited direct evidence. Coleridge usually dated his poems, but did not date Kubla Khan , and did not mention the poem directly in letters to his friends. Coleridge's descriptions of the poem's composition attribute it to 1797. In a manuscript in Coleridge's handwriting (known as the Crewe manuscript ), a note by Coleridge says that it

3740-681: The idea of a dream poem that discusses fountains, sacredness, and even a woman singing a sorrowful song. There are additional strong literary connections to other works, including John Milton's Paradise Lost , Samuel Johnson's Rasselas , Chatterton's African Eclogues , William Bartram's Travels through North and South Carolina , Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth , Mary Wollstonecraft's A Short Residence in Sweden , Plato's Phaedrus and Ion , Maurice's The History of Hindostan , and Heliodorus's Aethiopian History . The poem also contains allusions to

3825-444: The imagination and the second stanza represents the relationship between a poet and the rest of society. The poet is separated from the rest of humanity after he is exposed to the power to create and is able to witness visions of truth. This separation causes a combative relationship between the poet and the audience as the poet seeks to control his listener through a mesmerising technique. The poem's emphasis on imagination as subject of

3910-426: The initial stanza relying on heavy stresses. The lines of the second stanza incorporate lighter stresses to increase the speed of the meter to separate them from the hammer-like rhythm of the previous lines. There also is a strong break following line 36 in the poem that provides for a second stanza, and there is a transition in narration from a third person narration about Kubla Khan into the poet discussing his role as

3995-409: The last was his collection of travel stories), and misquotes the line. The text about Xanadu in Purchas, His Pilgrimes , which Coleridge admitted he did not remember exactly, was: In Xandu did Cublai Can build a stately Pallace, encompassing sixteen miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in

4080-399: The life span of a human, from violent birth to a sinking end. Yarlott argues that the war represents the penalty for seeking pleasure, or simply the confrontation of the present by the past. Though the exterior of Xanadu is presented in images of darkness, and in context of the dead sea, we are reminded of the "miracle" and "pleasure" of Kubla Khan's creation. The vision of the sites, including

4165-474: The line of Cain and fallen, but he wants to overcome that state and rediscover paradise by creating an enclosed garden. The place was described in negative terms and seen as an inferior representation of paradise, and Coleridge's ethical system did not connect pleasure with joy or the divine. However, Coleridge describes Khan in a peaceful light and as a man of genius. He seeks to show his might but does so by building his own version of paradise. The description and

4250-461: The metaphor of water, and the use of the river in "Kubla Khan" is connected to the use of the stream in Wordsworth's The Prelude . The water imagery is also related to the divine and nature, and the poet is able to tap into nature in a way Kubla Khan cannot to harness its power. Although the land is one of man-made "pleasure", there is a natural, "sacred" river that runs past it. The lines describing

4335-452: The middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure, which may be moved from place to place. This quotation was based upon the writings of the Venetian explorer Marco Polo who is widely believed to have visited Xanadu in about 1275. Marco Polo also described a large portable palace made of gilded and lacquered cane or bamboo which could be taken apart quickly and moved from place to place. This

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4420-498: The narrator's desire to rival Khan's ability to create with his own. The woman may also refer to Mnemosyne , the Greek personification of memory and mother of the muses , referring directly to Coleridge's claimed struggle to compose this poem from memory of a dream. The subsequent passage refers to unnamed witnesses who may also hear this, and thereby share in the narrator's vision of a replicated, ethereal, Xanadu. Harold Bloom suggests that

4505-455: The nearby Quantock Hills with his fellow poet William Wordsworth and Wordsworth's sister Dorothy (his route today is memorialised as the " Coleridge Way "). Some time between 9 and 14 October 1797, when Coleridge says he had completed the tragedy Osorio , he left Stowey for Lynton . On his return journey, he became sick and rested at Ash Farm, located near Culbone Church and one of the few places to seek shelter on his route. There, he had

4590-567: The original dream. After its composition, Coleridge periodically read the poem to friends, as to the Wordsworths in 1798, but did not seek to publish it. Coleridge's friend, the author Mary Robinson wrote a response to the poem titled, "To the Poet Coleridge," which was first published in the October, 17, 1800 edition of The Morning Post , and was later included in her Poetical Works compilation in 1806. In 1808 an anonymous contributor to

4675-421: The pleasure dome itself with music (lines 42–47). Those who heard would also see themselves there, and cry out a warning (lines 48–49). Their warning concerns an alarming male figure (line 50). The stanza ends with instructions and a warning, to carry out a ritual because he has consumed the food of Paradise (lines 51–54). Kubla Khan was likely written in October 1797, though the precise date and circumstances of

4760-419: The pleasure-dome reflected on the water, surrounded by the sound of the geyser above ground and the river underground (lines 31–34). A final un-indented couplet describes the dome again (lines 35–36). The third stanza shifts to the first-person perspective of the poem's speaker. He once saw a woman in a vision playing a dulcimer (lines 37–41). If he could revive her song within himself, he says, he would revive

4845-574: The poem began to emerge when Coleridge's contemporaries evaluated his body of work overall. In October 1821, Leigh Hunt singled out Kubla Khan as one of Coleridge's best works, praising the poem's evocative, dreamlike beauty. An 1830 review of Coleridge's Poetical Works similarly praised for its "melodious versification," describing it as "perfect music." An 1834 review, published shortly after Coleridge's death, also praised Kubla Khan 's musicality. These three later assessments of Kubla Khan responded more positively to Coleridge's description of composing

4930-563: The poem describes Kublai Khan's pleasure dome built alongside a sacred river fed by a powerful fountain. The second stanza depicts the sacred river as a darker, supernatural and more violent force of nature. Ultimately the clamor and energy of the physical world breaks through into Kublai's inner turmoil and restlessness. The third and final stanza of the poem is the narrator's response to the power and effects of an Abyssinian maid's song, which enraptures him but leaves him unable to act on her inspiration unless he could hear her once again. Together,

5015-429: The poem emphasises the use of the "æ" sound and similar modifications to the standard "a" sound to make the poem sound Asian. Its rhyme scheme found in the first seven lines is repeated in the first seven lines of the second stanza. There is a heavy use of assonance and alliteration , especially in the first line: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan". The stressed sounds, "Xan", "du", "Ku", "Khan", contain assonance in their use of

5100-496: The poem in a dream, as an additional facet of the poetry. Victorian critics praised the poem and some examined aspects of the poem's background. John Sheppard, in his analysis of dreams titled On Dreams (1847), lamented Coleridge's drug use as getting in the way of his poetry but argued: "It is probable, since he writes of having taken an 'anodyne,' that the 'vision in a dream' arose under some excitement of that same narcotic; but this does not destroy, even as to his particular case,

5185-412: The poem is an incomplete fragment. Originally, he says, his dream included between 200 and 300 lines, but he was able to compose only the first 30 before he was interrupted. The second stanza is not necessarily part of the original dream and refers to the dream in the past tense. Kubla Khan is also related to the genre of fragmentary poetry, with internal images reinforcing the idea of fragmentation that

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5270-600: The poem), the Abyssinian maid is singing of Mount Amara, rather than Abora. Mount Amara is a real mountain, today called Amba Geshen , located in the Amhara Region of modern Ethiopia , formerly known as the Abyssinian Empire . It was a natural fortress, and was the site of the royal treasury and the royal prison. The sons of the Emperors of Abyssinia, except for the heir, were held prisoner there, to prevent them from staging

5355-527: The poem, suggesting that these themes were on his mind. All of these details have led to the consensus of an October 1797 composition date. A May 1798 composition date is sometimes proposed because the first written mention of the poem is in Dorothy Wordsworth's journal of October 1798, where she mentions "carrying Kubla to a fountain". October 1799 has also been suggested because by then Coleridge would have been able to read Robert Southey 's Thalaba

5440-482: The poem, but considered it unremarkable overall. As critics began to consider Coleridge's body of work as whole, however, Kubla Khan was increasingly singled out for praise. Positive evaluation of the poem in the 19th and early 20th centuries treated it as a purely aesthetic object, to be appreciated for its evocative sensory experience. Later criticism continued to appreciate the poem, but no longer considered it as transcending concrete meaning, instead interpreting it as

5525-406: The poem, connects the idea of the paradise as the imagination with the land of Porlock, and that the imagination, though infinite, would be interrupted by a "person on business". The Preface then allows for Coleridge to leave the poem as a fragment, which represents the inability for the imagination to provide complete images or truly reflect reality. The poem would not be about the act of creation but

5610-521: The poem. Most modern critics now view Kubla Khan as one of Coleridge's three great poems, along with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel . The poem is considered one of the most famous examples of Romanticism in English poetry, and is one of the most frequently anthologized poems in the English language. The manuscript is a permanent exhibit at the British Library in London. The poem

5695-412: The power of the poetic imagination, stronger than nature or art, fills the narrator and grants him the ability to share this vision with others through his poetry. The narrator would thereby be elevated to an awesome, almost mythical status, as one who has experienced an Edenic paradise available only to those who have similarly mastered these creative powers. In the tradition from which Coleridge drew,

5780-584: The previous generation. These critics were hostile to Coleridge due to a difference of political views, and due to a puff piece written by Byron about the Christabel publication. The first of the negative reviews was written by William Hazlitt , literary critic and Romantic writer, who criticized the fragmentary nature of the work. Hazlitt said that the poem "comes to no conclusion" and that "from an excess of capacity, [Coleridge] does little or nothing" with his material. The only positive quality which Hazlitt notes

5865-447: The printed version of the poem couldn't capture the power of the recited version. Kubla Khan was published with Christabel and "The Pains of Sleep" on 25 May 1816. Coleridge included the subtitle "A Fragment" to defend against criticism of the poem's incomplete nature. The original published version of the work was separated into 2 stanzas, with the first ending at line 30. The poem was printed four times in Coleridge's life, with

5950-405: The river have a markedly different rhythm from the rest of the passage. The land is constructed as a garden, but like Eden after Man's fall, Xanadu is isolated by walls. The finite properties of the constructed walls of Xanadu are contrasted with the infinite properties of the natural caves through which the river runs. The poem expands on the gothic hints of the first stanza as the narrator explores

6035-443: 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, 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

6120-468: The sounds a-u-u-a, have two rhyming syllables with "Xan" and "Khan", and employ alliteration with the name "Kubla Khan" and the reuse of "d" sounds in "Xanadu" and "did". To pull the line together, the "i" sound of "In" is repeated in "did". Later lines do not contain the same amount of symmetry but do rely on assonance and rhymes throughout. Though the lines are interconnected, the rhyme scheme and line lengths are irregular. One theory says that "Kubla Khan"

6205-410: The stanzas form a comparison of creative power that does not work with nature and creative power that is harmonious with nature. Coleridge concludes by describing a hypothetical audience's reaction to the song in the language of religious ecstasy. Some of Coleridge's contemporaries denounced the poem and questioned his story of its origin. It was not until years later that critics began to openly admire

6290-608: The summer capital of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. Coleridge's preface says that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's Pilgrimage : Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall. Coleridge names the wrong book by Purchas (Purchas wrote three books, his Pilgrimage , his Pilgrim , and his Pilgrimes ;

6375-624: The surrounding of Culbone Combe and its hills, gulleys, and other features including the "mystical" and "sacred" locations in the region. Other geographic influences include the river, which has been tied to Alpheus in Greece and is similar to the Nile. The caves have been compared to those in Kashmir. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man      Down to

6460-453: The tradition provide a contrast between the daemonic and genius within the poem, and Khan is a ruler who is unable to recreate Eden. The dome, as described in The History of Hindostan , was related to nature worship as it reflects the shape of the universe. Coleridge believed in a connection between nature and the divine but believed that the only dome that should serve as the top of a temple

6545-496: The voice of Poesy itself." Dulcimer The word dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments . The word dulcimer originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of this instrument are found in many cultures, including: In the Appalachian region of the U.S. in the nineteenth century, hammered dulcimers were rare. There,

6630-455: Was composed "in the fall of the year, 1797." In the preface to the first published edition of the poem, in 1816, Coleridge says that it was composed during an extended stay he had made in Somerset during "the summer of the year 1797." On 14 October 1797, Coleridge wrote a letter to John Thelwall which, although it does not directly mention Kubla Khan , expresses many of the same feelings as in

6715-457: Was drawn up with the publisher John Murray for £80. The Preface of Kubla Khan explained that it was printed "at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity, and as far as the author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits." Coleridge's wife discouraged the publication, and Charles Lamb , a poet and friend of Coleridge, expressed mixed feelings, worrying that

6800-617: 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!      A damsel with a dulcimer      In a vision once I saw:      It was an Abyssinian maid      And on her dulcimer she play'd,      Singing of Mount Abora.      Could I revive within me      Her symphony and song,      To such

6885-425: Was interrupted by "a person on business from Porlock ". The poem could not be completed according to its original 200–300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron , it was published. The poem is vastly different in style from other poems written by Coleridge. The first stanza of

6970-591: Was said to "have much of the Oriental richness and harmony" but was generally considered unremarkable. These early reviews generally accepted Coleridge's story of composing the poem in a dream, but dismissed its relevance, and observed that many others have had similar experiences. More than one review suggested that the dream had not merited publication. One reviewer questioned whether Coleridge had really dreamed his composition, suggesting that instead he likely wrote it rapidly upon waking. More positive appraisals of

7055-546: Was the "sumptuous house of pleasure" mentioned by Purchas, which Coleridge transformed into a "stately pleasure dome". In terms of spelling, Coleridge's printed version differs from Purchas's spelling, which refers to the Tartar ruler as "Cublai Can", and from the spelling used by Milton, "Cathaian Can". His original manuscript spells the name "Cubla Khan" and the place "Xannadu". In the Crewe manuscript (the earlier unpublished version of

7140-452: Was the sky. He thought that a dome was an attempt to hide from the ideal and escape into a private creation, and Kubla Khan's dome is a flaw that keeps him from truly connecting to nature. Purchas's work does not mention a dome but a "house of pleasure". The use of dome instead of house or palace could represent the most artificial of constructs and reinforce the idea that the builder was separated from nature. However, Coleridge did believe that

7225-408: Was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock... and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purpose of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away." The " person on business from Porlock " later became

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