What does Kubla Khan truly mean?
What does Kubla Khan truly mean? Kublai Khan, Kubla Khan, Kublai Kaan (noun) Mongolian emperor of China and grandson of Genghis Khan who completed his grandfather's conquest of China; he establish...
Can "Kubla Khan" be described as an incoherent poem?
No, " Kubla Khan " is not an incoherent poem; it is a fragment. According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he experienced the poem in a vision while he was in an opium-induced sleep.
Is Kubla Khan a fragmentary poem?
Kubla Khan is also related to the genre of fragmentary poetry, with internal images reinforcing the idea of fragmentation that is found within the form of the poem.
What was Kubla Khan famous for?
“Kubla Khan” Themes
- Pleasure and Violence
- Creativity and Reason
- The Limits of Creativity
What is the meaning of Kubla Khan?
Coleridge composed his poem, ‘Kubla Khan’, in a state of semi-conscious trance either in the autumn of 1797 or the spring of 1798 and published in 1816. The whole poem is pervaded by an atmosphere of dream and remains in the form of a vision. The vision embodied in Kubla Khan was inspired by the perusal of the travel book, Purchas His Pilgrimage. Coleridge had taken a dose of opium as an anodyne, and his eyes closed upon the line in the book, “At Zanadu Kubla Khan built a pleasure palace.” But this opened his creative vision, and the poem of about 200 lines was composed in this state of waking dream. On being fully awake, he wrote the poem down. The theme of the poem is unimportant. It describes the palace built by Kubla Khan, the grandson of Chengis Khan, the great rule of central Asia.
What is the pleasure house of Kubla Khan?
The pleasure-house of Kubla Khan was a very romantic and beautiful palace. The poet here says that the reflection of the pleasure-dome fell between the fountains mingling with the echoing sound coming out of the caves created for the onlooker an illusion of really rhythmical music.
How many lines are there in the poem "At Zanadu Kubla Khan built a pleasure palace"
But this opened his creative vision, and the poem of about 200 lines was composed in this state of waking dream. On being fully awake, he wrote the poem down. The theme of the poem is unimportant.
What is the musical effect of the poem?
The musical effect of the poem is unsurpassed. The main appeal of the poem lies in its sound effects. The rhythm and even the length of the lines are varied to produce subtle effects of harmony. The whole poem is bound together by a network of alliteration, the use of liquid consonants, and onomatopoeia.
Who wrote the poem "Enfolding sunny spots of greenery"?
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. In these lines from the poem Kubla Khan, the poet Samuel Tayler Coleridge narrates how Kubla Khan ordered a stately pleasure house to be built and what was subsequently done to get it built.
Which ruler ordered the erection of a magnificent pleasure palace on the banks of the sacred river?
Kubla Khan ordered the erection of a magnificent pleasure palace on the banks of the sacred river ‘Alph’ which flowed underground for a long distance through unfathomable caves into a sea where the rays of the sun could no penetrate.
Who wrote Kubla Khan?
‘Kubla Khan’ is perhaps the most famous unfinished poem in all of English literature. But why the poem remained unfinished, and how Samuel Taylor Coleridge came to write it in the first place, are issues plagued by misconception and misunderstanding. How should we analyse this classic poem by one of the pioneers ...
Where did Kubla Khan come from?
Coleridge described the origins of the poem in his preface to the 1816 collection in which ‘Kubla Khan’ first appeared: In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire.
What is Kubla Khan's genesis?
Three things surrounding the composition and publication of ‘Kubla Khan’ are immediately eye-catching and interesting. First, the poem’s genesis was supposedly in an opium-induced dream Coleridge experienced in 1797.
Did Coleridge have a copy of Kubla Khan?
Purchas’ book, for example, was a rare and rather unwieldy tome, and Coleridge was unlikely to have had a copy with him at his farmhouse just before he wrote ‘Kubla Khan’.
Who encouraged Coleridge to write Kubla Khan?
Third, Coleridge didn’t bother to publish ‘Kubla Khan’ for nearly twenty years, until a later Romantic poet, Lord Byron, encouraged him to do so in 1816. ‘Kubla Khan’ is like a fantasy novel in terms of the grandness and opulence of its imagery and the sense of war and the clash of empires that lurks at the margins of the poem (Kublai Khan, ...
Who was the Mongol ruler who drank the milk of Paradise?
For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. A brief summary of the poem first, then: the speaker tells us that in Xanadu (also known as Shangdu, the summer capital of Kublai Khan’s Yuan empire), the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan (1215-94) ordered a majestic pleasure-dome to be built, ...
Is Kubla Khan chant-like?
The reasonably regular iambic tetrameter rhythm of ‘Kubla Khan’ is almost chant-like, but this chant will not succeed in magically causing anything to appear.
What is Kubla Khan?
Along with “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Khan” is one of Coleridge’s most famous and enduring poems . The story of its composition is also one of the most famous in the history of English poetry. As the poet explains in the short preface to this poem, he had fallen asleep after taking “an anodyne” prescribed “in consequence of a slight disposition” (this is a euphemism for opium, to which Coleridge was known to be addicted). Before falling asleep, he had been reading a story in which Kubla Khan commanded the building of a new palace; Coleridge claims that while he slept, he had a fantastic vision and composed simultaneously—while sleeping—some two or three hundred lines of poetry, “if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or conscious effort.”
What is the rhyme scheme of Kubla Khan?
The first stanza is written in tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAABCCDEDE, alternating between staggered rhymes and couplets.
What is Kubla Khan's pleasure dome?
The first three stanzas are products of pure imagination: The pleasure-dome of Kubla Khan is not a useful metaphor for anything in particular (though in the context of the poem’s history, it becomes a metaphor for the unbuilt monument of imagination); however, it is a fantastically prodigious descriptive act.
What did Coleridge take to fall asleep?
As the poet explains in the short preface to this poem, he had fallen asleep after taking “an anodyne” prescribed “in consequence of a slight disposition” (this is a euphemism for opium, to which Coleridge was known to be addicted).
Overview
Critical response
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 the poem, but considered it unremark…
Poem
The poem 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–…
Composition and publication
Kubla Khan was likely written in October 1797, though the precise date and circumstances of 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 m…
Sources
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, the summer capital of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. Co…
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, the summer capital of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. Co…
Style
According to Coleridge's account, the poem is an incomplete fragment. Originally, he says, his dream included between 200 and 300 lines, but he was only able to compose 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 is found within the form of the poem. …
Major themes
One theory says that "Kubla Khan" 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 the imagination and the second stanz…
Musical settings
Excerpts from the poem have been put to music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Granville Bantock, Humphrey Searle, and Paul Turok; and Charles Tomlinson Griffes composed an orchestral tone poem in 1912 (revised 1916).
Canadian rock band Rush refers to the poem directly in the 1977 song Xanadu, in which the narrator searches for a place called "Xanadu" that he believes will grant him immortality.