Kubla Khan

KUBLA KHAN

                                                                                  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

            Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a well-known English poet, literary critic and philosopher. He was one the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake poets.  His poem represents the culmination of Romanticism in its purest form.  Saintsbury rightly calls Coleridge the high priest of Romanticism.

            Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan was written in 1798 but not published until 1816. It is one of those three poems which have made Coleridge, one of the greatest poets of England, the other two being The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. Coleridge himself describes this poem as the fragment of a dream which he saw when he had fallen asleep after reading the account of Kubla Khan, a great Mangolian ruler, in an old book of travels written by Purchas.

            Kubla Khan is a brilliant achievement in the field of supernatural poetry.  Coleridge beautifully imagines and skilfully describes the palace of Kubla Khan in the poem.  He achieves a remarkable success in making the description lively and complete. The poem begins with the description of the kingdom of Kubla Khan.  The action takes place in the unknown city, Xanadu.  Kubla Khan was the powerful ruler who could create his pleasure dome by a mere order.  Alpha was the sacred river that passed through Xanadu.  The river flowed through the measureless caves to the sunless sea.  There were gardens in which streams were flowing in a zigzag manner.  The gardens had many flowers with sweet smells and the forests had many spots of greenery.

            There was a wonderful chasm sloping down the green hill.  The cedar trees were growing on both sides of the chasm.  The place was visited by fairies and demons.  When the moon declined in the night it was visited by a demon. She was sad for her lover. From the chasm shot up a fountain violently.  It threw up stones.  They were falling down in every direction. The sacred river Alpha ran through the woods and dales.  Then it reached the unfathomable caves and sank noisily into a lifeless ocean with a tumult.  In that tumult, Kubla Khan heard the voices of his ancestors.  They warned him of approaching war and danger.

            In the second part of the poem Coleridge describes the pleasure dome of Kubla Khan.  Its shadow floated midway on the waves.  There was mixed music of the fountains as well as of the caves.  The pleasure dome was bright with sunlight and also had the caves of ice.  Then the poet tells the reader about a vision that he saw.  In his vision, the poet saw an Abyssinian maid playing upon her dulcimer.  The poet wanted to revive her song and music. The music inspired the poet with divine frenzy.  With the divine frenzy the poet would recreate all the charm of Kubla Khan’s pleasure dome.  The poet would be divinely inspired and so people would draw a circle around him and close their eyes with divine fear.  The poet must have fed on honeydew and drunk the milk of paradise.

            Kubla Khan is a poem of pure romance.  All the romantic associations are concentrated in this short poem.  It contains many sensuous phrases and pictures like bright gardens, incense bearing trees laden with blossoms, sunny spots of greenery etc.  Supernaturalism is also a romantic quality. Kubla Khan is a supernatural poem based on a dream.  There are images and expressions in it which are supernatural in character and create an atmosphere of mystery and awe like ‘caverns measure-less to man’ ‘ a sunless sea’ and ‘deep romantic chasm’ Though Kubla Khan is a fragment, it is regarded as a complete piece and is often hailed as the very definition of Coleridge’s poetry.