Background and Point of View. In the introduction to "Kubla Khan," Samuel Taylor Coleridge says he received inspiration for the poem while sojourning at a farmhouse in southwestern England in the summer of Here is what happened.
And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall. Kublai became emperor of China in and proclaimed the establishment of his own Yuan dynasty in His capital was Ta-tu present-day Beijing , but he maintained a summer residence in southeastern Mongolia at K'ai P'ing, also known as Shang-tu or Shangdu and, in Coleridge's poem, as Xanadu. After Marco Polo visited Xanadu in , he wrote,.
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Coleridge dreams about the great Mongolian ruler Kubla Kublai Khan's construction of a stately palace in Xanadu. Upon awakening, he begins writing a poem about the dream. He says walls and towers enclose the Khan's palace and grounds, made up of "twice five miles" line 6 of land abounding with gardens and winding streams, as well as trees with fragrant blossoms.
Down from Xanadu the sacred river Alph runs through caverns on its way to the sea. A ravine that opens into these caverns cuts a path through cedar trees on a green hill. The ravine reveals a dark and foreboding underworld, like a place where a woman wails "for her demon-lover" line From this chasm a fountain bursts intermittently, sending up huge rock fragments. Through the chasm runs the sacred river, Alph, down to the "lifeless ocean" line In his palace, Kubla hears--through the din of the tumbling waters and the spewing fountain--the voices of ancestors foretelling war.
Coleridge’s Kubla Khan Poem – Meaning and Significance
One may conclude from the historical background that this part of the poem refers to the time when the Kubla begins to prepare for the battles that would make him emperor of China and the founder of its Yuan dynasty. The shadow of the palace casts itself down upon the waves, a shadow that will soon cast itself figuratively over all of China as Kubla Khan extends his sovereignty.
How strange it is that the sun bathes the palace while ice encrusts the caves below. At this point in writing his dream poem, Coleridge receives a visitor, who occupies him for an hour. By the time Coleridge returns to his writing, he has forgotten the rest of his dream. Consequently, he ends the poem by comparing his dream to a song he heard a woman sing, a song which he has also forgotten.
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. The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; 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 consciousness of effort.
Kubla Khan Poem by Coleridge, Meaning and Significance
On awakening 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. And what is noteworthy here is the fact that the final part of the supposedly incomplete poem is precisely about this issue of poetic inspiration and composition:.
It is as if the poem, and the poet, cannot get beyond these phrases summoning the world of Xanadu but unable to recreate it in any true sense. The Sepulchre of Safdarjung picture credit: Tarunpant , via Wikimedia Commons. Create a free website or blog at WordPress. And what is noteworthy here is the fact that the final part of the supposedly incomplete poem is precisely about this issue of poetic inspiration and composition: Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered from crippling bouts of anxiety and depression.
The first issue of this short-lived journal was published in March , but it had ceased to be published by May of that year.
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It was the longest work and it drew more praise and attention than anything other than poems in the volume. In the autumn of , Coleridge and Wordsworth also left for a stay in Germany. Coleridge soon spent much of his time in university towns. He continued to pioneer these ideas through his own critical writings for the rest of his life, sometimes without attribution. Coleridge died in Highgate, London on 25 th July as a result of heart failure. This was compounded by an unknown lung disorder, possibly linked to his use of opium. Hence, it can be considered to be the expression of one of the central tenets of the Romantic movement itself.
This physical world is what inspires the poet to offer a prayer to Nature, and it is also the church where that prayer is offered. A poem like this, which is composed of 14 lines, is generally called a sonnet. A sonnet is usually divided into an eight-line unit known as an octet, and a six-line unit known as a sestet. The octet and sestet can together form a single stanza which is the case in this poem , or appear as two separate stanzas.
Here the 14 lines are divided into meaningful segments for the purposes of this summary, in order to make the poem easier to follow and understand.