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    Anjali Antony
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    Kubla Khan was composed by Coleridge in 1799 after taking opium and falling asleep while reading about Kubla Khan. During his dream, Coleridge wrote around 200 lines of the poem before being interrupted by a visitor. When he tried to write down the rest of the dream later, he was unable to recall it. The poem lacks a consistent narrative but captures the characteristics of a dream through its haunting music and imagery. While some critics argue the construction is faulty, others believe the second part extends the first by describing the act of poetic creation and imaginative fulfillment. Overall, Kubla Khan is considered a demonstration of Coleridge's secondary imagination at work through its mystical river and pleasure dome

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    Kubla Khan Critical​ Analyses

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    Kubla Khan was composed by Coleridge in 1799 after taking opium and falling asleep while reading about Kubla Khan. During his dream, Coleridge wrote around 200 lines of the poem before being interrupted by a visitor. When he tried to write down the rest of the dream later, he was unable to recall it. The poem lacks a consistent narrative but captures the characteristics of a dream through its haunting music and imagery. While some critics argue the construction is faulty, others believe the second part extends the first by describing the act of poetic creation and imaginative fulfillment. Overall, Kubla Khan is considered a demonstration of Coleridge's secondary imagination at work through its mystical river and pleasure dome

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    666 views3 pages

    Kubla Khan - Notes

    Uploaded by

    Anjali Antony
    Kubla Khan was composed by Coleridge in 1799 after taking opium and falling asleep while reading about Kubla Khan. During his dream, Coleridge wrote around 200 lines of the poem before being interrupted by a visitor. When he tried to write down the rest of the dream later, he was unable to recall it. The poem lacks a consistent narrative but captures the characteristics of a dream through its haunting music and imagery. While some critics argue the construction is faulty, others believe the second part extends the first by describing the act of poetic creation and imaginative fulfillment. Overall, Kubla Khan is considered a demonstration of Coleridge's secondary imagination at work through its mystical river and pleasure dome

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    of 3

    A NOTE ON THE ORIGIN OF KUBLA KHAN OR

    KUBLA KHAN AS A DREAM POEM

    Kubla Khan was first published in 1816 and according to


    Coleridge in 1799 in the prefatory lines Coleridge calls of it a
    dream fragment and confesses the he had taken opium before
    dreaming the poem.

    one day in 1799 he took some opium and consequently fell


    asleep in his chair while reading as passage in poses (not sure
    if it is the right word) pilgrimage about Kubla Khan and the
    place that he ordered to be built. During his dream he
    composed two or three hundred lines of poetry on Kubla Khan
    hastily. Scribbling the verse went away, he was interrupted by
    a visitor and when he later returned to the manuscript he could
    recall no more of the dream.

    For the Romantics, imagination is their forte, because they


    think that without it poetry is impossible. Kubla Khan is a
    product of sheer fancy, it is a dream poem, a dream fragment.
    For a born dreamer, the dream faculty lay at the root of its
    greatness as a poet and his weakness as a man.

    The poem had its genesis in his dream, the poem possesses the
    characteristics of the dream. The poem lacks consistency of
    ideas it contains no story and no moral but the dream element
    and haunting music makes it a thing of joy.

    A 20th century critic John Lowes made a detailed study of the


    poets reading and that results in the publication “The Road to
    Xanadu” and how Coleridge had lifted words and phrases from
    the book he had read. Lowes’s discovery does not credit the
    poem, it only substantiates Coleridge’s ability to discern,
    diffuse and dissipate what he had gathered from various
    sources in order to create something fresh and lasting like
    “caves of ice”, “incense bearing trees”, “bright gardens”, and
    “sunny spots of greenery”.

    Some critics have tried to take Coleridge to task for the faulty
    construction of Kubla Khan. The first part gives us the picture
    of a pleasure dome which Kubla Khan ordered to be built in
    Xanadu. It stood on a beautiful place, a wild and savage place.
    The sacred river originated from a hill in the background, it
    meandered for five miles and then fell into a lifeless ocean. In
    the midst of all the tumult Kubla heard from far the ancestral
    voices prophesying war.

    The second part presents an Abyssinian maid playing her


    dulcimer and singing of Mount Abora, if he succeeds in
    recreating the music he could definitely succeed in making
    Kubla’s pleasure dome in the air. And then he would be in a
    frenzy and the people around will look at him in fear.
    Humphrey House (not sure of the surname) and Grough are of
    the opinion that the second part is an extension of the first, the
    first part resents the dream and the second part describes the
    act of poetic creation and the thrill of imaginative fulfilment.

    It is said that Kubla Khan is a poem about the secondary


    imagination and it is a perfect demonstration of its working.
    The sacred river is the secondary imagination it goes where it
    wills. The pleasure dome stands for the concrete world of art
    an thus the whole poem is about the creative part of the poet
    and the artist.

    Kubla Khan is a piece of perfect music, every syllable adds to


    the music of the poem. He achieves wonderful musical effect
    by using ordinary figures of speech like alteration, the poem
    lacks a body of thought but it is a powerful and enchanting
    poem . It is a admixture of imagination, emotion,
    supernaturalism and exquisite melody. The poem is an
    example of pure poetry where pure music and pure imagery
    cooperate to make it a great poem.

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