INTRODUCTION
Along with “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798)
and “Christabel” (1816), “Kubla Khan” (1816) has been widely acclaimed as one
of Coleridge's most significant works. While Coleridge himself referred to “Kubla
Khan” as a fragment, the vivid images contained in the work have garnered
extensive critical attention through the years, and it has long been
acknowledged as a poetic representation of Coleridge's theories of the
imagination and creation. Although it was not published until 1816, scholars
agree that the work was composed between 1797 and 1800. At the time of its
publication, Coleridge subtitled it “A Vision in A Dream: A Fragment,” and
added a prefatory note explaining the unusual origin of the work. The poet
explained that after taking some opium for medication, he grew drowsy while
reading a passage about the court of Kubla Khan from Samuel Purchas's Pilgrimage. In this dreamlike state, Coleridge related, he
composed a few hundred lines of poetry and when he awoke, immediately began
writing the verses down. Unfortunately, a visitor interrupted him, and when the
poet had a chance to return to his writing, the images had fled, leaving him
with only vague recollections and the remaining 54 lines of this fragmentary
poem. Although many critics have since challenged Coleridge's version of the
poem's composition, critical scholarship on the work has focused equally on its
fragmentary nature and on its place in Romantic writing as a representative
work of poetic theory.
Plot and Major Characters
The poem
begins with a description of a magnificent palace built by Mongolian ruler
Kubla Khan during the thirteenth century. The “pleasure dome” described in the
first few lines of the poem is reflective of Kubla's power, and the description
of the palace and its surroundings also help convey the character and nature of
Kubla, the poem's main character. In contrast to the palace and its planned
gardens, the space outside Kubla's domain is characterized by ancient forests
and rivers, providing a majestic backdrop to Kubla's creation. It initially
appears that there is harmony between the two worlds, but the narrator then
describes a deep crack in the earth, hidden under a grove of dense trees. The
tenor of the poem then changes from the sense of calm and balance described in
the first few lines, to an uneasy sense of the pagan and the supernatural.
There is a vast distance between the ordered world of Kubla's palace and this
wild, untamed place, the source of the fountain that feeds the river flowing
through the rocks, forests, and ultimately, the stately garden of Kubla Khan
Major Themes
Despite
the controversy surrounding the origin of “Kubla Khan,” most critics
acknowledge that the images, motifs and ideas explored in the work are
representative of Romantic poetry. The emphasis on the Oriental setting of
“Kubla Khan” in contrast to the description of the sacred world of the river is
interpreted by critics as commonplace understanding of orthodox Christianity at
the turn of the century, when the Orient was seen as the initial step towards
Western Christianity. Also typical of other Romantic poems is Coleridge's
lyrical representation of the landscape, which is both the source and keeper of
the poetic imagination. Detailed readings of “Kubla Khan” indicate the use of
intricate metric and poetic devices in the work. Coleridge himself explained
that while any work with rhyme and rhythm may be described as a poem, for the
work to be “legitimate” each part must mutually support and enhance the other,
coming together as a harmonious whole. In “Kubla Khan” he uses this complex
rhyming structure to guide the reader through its themes—the ordered rhymes of
the first half describe the ordered world of Kubla Khan, while the abrupt
change in meter and rhyme immediately following, describe the nature around
Kubla Khan—the world that he cannot control. This pattern and contrast between
worlds continues through the poem, and the conflict is reflected in the way
Coleridge uses rhythm and order in his poem. Critics agree that “Kubla Khan” is
a complex work with purpose and structure, and that it is representative of
Coleridge's poetic ideal of a harmonious blend of meaning and form, resulting
in a “graceful and intelligent whole.”
Critical Reception
When Coleridge first issued “Kubla Khan” in 1816, it is believed
that he did so for financial reasons and as an appendage to the more
substantial “Christabel.” The work had previously been excluded by Wordsworth
from the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads and
there is little evidence that Coleridge himself claimed it as one of his more
significant works. In fact, when first published, many contemporary reviewers
regarded the poem as “nonsense,” especially because of its fragmentary nature.
In the years since, the poem, as well as the story of its creation, has been
widely analyzed by critics, and much critical scholarship has focused on the
sources for this work as well as the images included in it. Recent studies of
the poem have explored the fragmentary nature of the poem versus the harmonious
vision of poetic theory it proposes. For example, in an essay analyzing the
fragmentary nature of “Kubla Khan,” Timothy Bahti proposes that the poet uses
the symbol of the chasm to represent the act of creation, and that the struggle
between the fragment and division that generates the sacred river is
representative of the act of creative continuity. Other critics have focused on
“Kubla Khan” as a poem that relates the account of its own creation, thus
stressing its importance as a work that defines Coleridge's theories of poetic
creation. It is now widely acknowledged that “Kubla Khan” is a technically
complex poem that reflects many of its creator's poetic and creative
philosophies and that the thematic repetition, the intricate rhymes, and
carefully juxtaposed images in the work come together as a harmonious whole
that is representative of Coleridge's ideas of poetic creation.
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