Kubla Khan By Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Line by line explanation

 

Introduction

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the major literary figures of the Romantic movement in England, as a poet his reputation stands on primarily three works, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Christabel,” and “Kubla Khan.” All three were composed between 1797 and 1800; however, “Kubla Khan” was not published until 1816. At that time, Coleridge subtitled it “A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment” and added a prefatory note explaining the unusual origin of the poem. This preface describes how Coleridge, after taking some opium as medication, grew drowsy while reading a passage about the court of Kubla Khan in Samuel Purchas’ s Pilgrimage, a seventeenth-century travel book recounting the adventures of early explorers. Soon he fell into a deep sleep which lasted about three hours. During this period, he composed from 200 to 300 lines of poetry based on the vivid images in his dream. When he woke, he remembered the entire poem and immediately began to write it down. Unfortunately, however, a visitor interrupted him, distracting him for about an hour. When Coleridge returned to his writing, the vivid images had fled, leaving him with only vague recollections and the fifty-four lines of this poetic fragment.

However, whether whole or fragment, dream or not, the poem examines issues of vital importance to Coleridge’s creativity and the function of the imagination. 

When the poem begins, Kubla Khan orders the construction of an architectural marvel, his pleasure-dome; he locates his grand palace by a sacred river, one of nature’s wonders. The poem continues by contrasting human creativity with the power of the natural world. The final stanza provides still another illustration of the process of creation, as the poet struggles to revive his poetic vision. 

 

Detailed Analysis

At the outset Coleridge introduces Kubla Khan, ruler of the Mongol Empire in China during the thirteenth century AD. His kingdom symbolized wealth and mystery to Europeans ever since Marco Polo first wrote about his travels there; throughout the poem, Coleridge builds a sense of Exoticism and the aura of mystery. The second line emphasizes Kubla Khan’ s power as he orders a fitting palace for himself. 

 

The opening images of the poem bear striking similarities to the following quotation from Purchas’s Pilgrimage, which Coleridge said he was reading immediately before he drifted into his deep sleep.

Khan chooses to build this dome on the site of a sacred river, which Coleridge calls the AIph. Although no river with this name exists, the name itself suggests or has the connotation of a beginning. This is because Alph is so similar to Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, which has as an alternate meaning, beginning. Coleridge, like many other poets, likes to experiment with language and invent words to provide added guides to meaning. Critics have also identified the AIph with such different rivers as the Nile, the Alpheus river in Greece, and the fourth river to flow out of the Garden of Eden. Note that the word river is always accompanied by the adjective “sacred” Since rivers and water are life-giving, the sacred river may be seen as a symbol of life. 

After the river leaves the area where Kubla Khan creates his kingdom, it flows beyond man’s reach into a series of underground caverns. “Measureless to man” conveys not only caverns that man cannot physically map, but areas that are beyond the reach of his full comprehension. The river has as its ultimate destination the sunless sea, a place without light and life and a complete contrast to the earlier impression of the river.

Coleridge returns to the construction of Khan’s kingdom. Ten miles of land, which are exceptionally fertile, are enclosed behind a wall with towers to protect it. The pleasure dome is not a public sight available to anyone who wishes to visit. It is a private domain.

 

Here another image of garden is introduced with brightly colored flowers and sweet smelling trees, watered by numerous winding brooks that branch off from the sacred river. These gardens are set among ancient forests, which have been there as long as the land itself. The river and forests provide an ageless backdrop for Khan’s dream. Later on he describes the deep crack in the earth hidden under the grove of cedar trees.

 

This is indeed not an artificial or manmade place. It is a  blessed spot that exists beyond man’s understanding. When holy and enchanted are joined together in this description, they convey a sense of the pagan and the supernatural.

 

Coleridge uses a simile to show the distance of this site from Khan’s imposing gardens. The waning moon describes that period as the moon decreases from full, so less and less of it is visible. Thus, this mysterious chasm is compared to a spot haunted by a woman crying in anguish, as the moon’s light diminishes, for her demon lover.

The power of the fountain that pours forth the river is apparent as huge boulders are tossed up with the water. Two similes are used to illustrate this force. In the first, the huge boulders are compared to hail. The second makes them seem even lighter. A thresher is a person or machine who separates the useful, heavier part of a kernel of grain from its lighter, useless shell or chaff. When the grain is hit with a flail, the kernel drops down immediately into a container; the chaff is blown away by the wind.

After the rocks leave the chasm, they are described again, using a gentler metaphor, as “dancing rocks.” This phrase is also an example of personification, where inanimate objects are given human characteristics. After its tumultuous beginning, the river slowly takes a wandering path through the gardens.

 

Although Khan’s gardens initially seem a place of peace and balance, Khan himself hears a different message coming from the distant rumbles of the chasm and the cave. The tumult of the river issues a warning that human creations are not permanent. The voices of his ancestors provide testimony to the fact that the greatest creations of the world eventually come to ruin. Thus, too, the elegant dome is threatened with the destruction of war.

The poem returns back to the part of this earthly paradise which Kubla Khan had constructed, the pleasure-dome; however, in these lines, it is not seen directly, merely as a shadow. This is how Coleridge ends the first part of the poem by describing Kubla Khan and his world.  He harmonized opposing forces, sun and ice, in his miraculous dome, which has since vanished without trace.

The poet himself becomes the subject as the poem moves from Kubla Khan’s physical creation to the poet’s vision as he recounts seeing a young girl playing a stringed musical instrument in a dream. The poem shifts from third person to the first person.

Coleridge again invents or adapts names to create a sense of mystery or the exotic. The maid in the vision, like Kubla Khan, is from a foreign place. Abyssinia is another name for Ethiopia. Mount Abora, like Alph, is a name that Coleridge created. However, several critics note its similarity to Mount Amara in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Here, the poet describes the power of successful poetic vision; not only can he renew his vision, but he has the power to convey it to all who hear or who read his words.

All of those around the poet are wary of him because he is caught up in a kind of enchantment or madness during his vision. His eyes glitter in a frenzy of creativity. This creativity, like that of the sacred river, comes from tumult. He is viewed with “holy dread” because he has drawn his vision from a place similar to the chasm described earlier, a place sacred and enchanted, pagan yet blessed. The idea of the poet being “possessed” by his vision is not new with Coleridge. The Greeks believed that creativity was often a type of momentary madness or rather impulse of the moment.

 

The phrase ‘Honey-dew’ in the concluding stanza refers to the sweet honey-like substance that certain flowers, such as honeysuckle, produce in the summer. Another word for this liquid is nectar, known as the food of the gods. With this words, the poet fulfills his dream and feel the taste of paradise.