KUBLA KHAN –BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Sources:- litchart,net, youtube (nibble pop)

About The Poet ( Samuel Taylor Coleridge )
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet , literary critic and philosopher. He was one of the founders of
Romantic Movement in England. Kubla Khan was written in 1798 but not published until 1816. It was then
issued in a pamphlet containing Christabel and The Pains of Sleep. It is one of those three poems which
have made Coleridge, one of the greatest poets of England.
Significance Of Subtitle Of The Poem :-
The subtitle of the poem lets the reader become conscious of the fact that the poem is dreamy in nature
and it is filled with fragments of some sort of vision. According to Coleridge’s Preface to Kubla Khan , the
poem was composed by him one night after he experienced an opium –influenced dream after reading a
work describing Xanadu , the summer palace of the Mongol ruler and the Emperor of China , that is , Kubla
Khan . Hence , the subtitle of the poem is basically a reference to the partial composition of the poem by
the poet while he was in a state of trance due to the consumption of opium. However , the poem remained
incomplete as Coleridge was interrupted by a chance visitor.
Fragment or Full Poem
Kubla Khan presents certain serious problems for the readers as well as critics. On the first reading,
especially without any background knowledge, everyone is bound to ask the question: what is it all about?
Is there any connection between the first and the second part? Is it merely a fragment?
This poem, though written probably in 1797-98, was published for the first time in 1816. Along with a
Preface in which Coleridge calls it a fragment and tells us about his source and method of composition.
Modern critics do not give much credit to the Preface that Coleridge wrote much after the composition of
the poem. They hold the Preface responsible for much of the confusion and mystery that the poem has
given rise to over the years.
What is the position of the modern criticism? For one, it does not consider the poem as a ‘fragment’, as
claimed by Coleridge. For another, it detects an essential unity between the two parts (Lines 1-35, and
Lines 36-54). Further, regarding its theme, there is also a measure of consensus that the poem is about
“the act of poetic creation’’ (Humphry House); Kubla Khan is a poem about poetry (George Watson). In fact
Watson claims it with an assertiveness: “What is Kubla Khan about ? This is. Or ought to be, an established
fact of criticism : Kubla Khan is a poem about poetry. It is probably the most original poem about poetry in
English”. For Graham Hough (The Romantic Poets), what underlies the poem is the theme of Poetic
inspiration.
About poem
Coleridge himself describes this poem as the fragment of a dream, a vision seen perhaps under the
influence of opium-which he saw when he had fallen asleep after reading the account of Kubla Khan in an
old book of travels written by Purchas. Kubla Khan is a brilliant achievement in the field of supernatural
poetry.
Coleridge beautifully imagined and skillfully described what he had imagined about a palace about which
he had read. He has achieved remarkable success in making the description lively and complete. He writes
as if he has seen it before him.
LITERARY CONTEXT
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the leading figures of literary Romanticism, an artistic movement that
began in Europe in the late 18th century and was influential through the mid 19th century. In English
poetry, the Romantics were a small, close-knit group. (In fact Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan" while living
with fellow Romantic poet William Wordsworth in a cottage in rural England!) The Romantics resisted the
rationalism of the European Enlightenment in favor of poetry that elevated the imagination, praised the
sublime power of the natural world, and valorized historical periods like the middle ages, which were not
quite so enamored of modern "reason." The reader can see all of these dynamics at work in "Kubla Khan."
In a sense, the poem is about the creative imagination, with all its incredible powers and limitations. And
the poem explores the imagination by focusing on nature itself. Nature isn't depicted as a space that
follows strict laws, but rather as a space of beauty, power, and violence. The poem also notably turns for
inspiration to a culture beyond Europe, located in the distant past. Coleridge relied for his information
about Kubla Khan on several narratives by early travelers to the Far East, like Marco Polo and Samuel
Purchas. Indeed, according to legend, Coleridge was reading Purchas’s 1613 book Purchas, his Pilgrimes, or
Relations of the World and Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discovered when he slipped into the
opium dream that inspired the poem. Purchas’s text contains language that closely parallels Coleridge’s:
“In Xandu did Cublai Can build a stately Pallace, encompassing sixteen miles of plaine ground with a wall…”
Coleridge’s poem is thus a deeply personal fantasy and a reflection of his culture’s limited knowledge of
Mongolian life. In addition to this general literary context, "Kubla Khan" has a specific story attached to its
writing. According to Coleridge himself, writing in a preface often printed with the poem, Coleridge was
reading Purchas's book when he slipped into an opium dream. Upon waking, Coleridge wrote the first 54
lines of the poem—intending to write several hundred more. However, he was interrupted by a "person
from Porlock"—a neighboring village—who had come on business and kept Coleridge occupied for an
hour. Once the business was finally finished, Coleridge found he could no longer complete the poem.
Hence, Coleridge's acknowledgment in the poem's subtitle that it's a "fragment." Some scholars have
called into question the veracity of this story—suggesting, for instance, that the poem's third stanza, was
written later
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
"Kubla Khan" has two relevant historical contexts: the moment in English history, at the end of the 18th
century, when it was written, and the historical moment in the 13th century it describes, when Kublai Khan
was the great Khan of the Mongols and Emperor of China. These two historical moments are quite
different from each other: they are separated by five hundred years and a continent. However, the
separation between them is part of the point for the speaker: because Kublai Khan’s culture is so far
removed from his own, it allows him to imagine life beyond the limitations of European culture. At the
time Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan," European culture was undergoing serious transformations. Although
the leading thinkers of the previous century had prized reason and science, figures across Europe were
calling for a return to the powers of the imagination. And politically, the French monarchy had been
overthrown in 1789, leading to a brief period of revolutionary radicalism that came to a close in 1799, just
after the poem was written. As a result of these intellectual and political transformations, many of the
values and institutions that people had cherished—and assumed were untouchable—like hereditary
monarchy were coming into question. By contrast, Kublai Khan was a leader of the Mongol Empire from
1260 until his death in 1294. He was nominally in charge of the Mongols themselves, although in that
capacity he didn’t wield much power. His real power came from his position as Emperor of China, the first
Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty—a position he assumed in 1279 when the Mongols conquered the Song
Dynasty. He lived long before the 18th century with its political and intellectual clashes.
Summary
The poem begins with the description of the kingdom of Kubla Khan. The action takes place in the
unknown Xanadu (a mythical city). 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. It followed through the
measureless caverns (caves) to the sunless sea. There were gardens in which streams were following in a
zigzag manner. The gardens had many flowers with sweet smells and the forests had many spots of
greenery. The poet gives a beautiful description of the remote and distant land cape of Xanadu.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. Coleridge then gives a medieval tale of love and romance.
When the moon declined in the night it was visited by a woman. She was sad for her lover. Form 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 caverns 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. It was bright with
sunlight and also had caves of ice. Then the poet tells the reader about his vision. In his vision he saw an
Abyssinian maid playing upon her dulcimer. The poet desires to revive their symphony and song. Her music
world inspires with divine frenzy. With the divine frenzy he would recreate all the charm of Kubla Khan’s
pleasure dome. The poet would be divinely inspired 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.
The supreme strength of Coleridge as a poet lay in his marvelous dream faculty; one might say that the
dream faculty lay at the root of his greatness as a poet and his weakness as a man." It is this dream
element which makes Kubla Khan a thing of wonder in English poetry. Actually the poem had its origin in a
dream. One morning Coleridge fell asleep in his chair after taking a dose of opium when he was reading
about Kubla Khan in Purchas' Pilgrimage. In his dream he composed, as he himself believes, about two to
three hundred lines. On awakening, he appeared to have a distinct recollection of the whole and instantly
and eagerly started writing down the lines. When he had written fifty lines he was unfortunately
interrupted by a man who had come to him on some business, and detained by him above an hour. On his
return to his room, he found that the rest of the dream had passed away from his memory and therefore
he could never finish the poem. So the poem is only a dream fragment. In itself the poem possesses the
qualities of a dream. It has no logical consistency of ideas. It is a procession of images expressed in
language of haunting melody. It contains no story, no thought, no moral, no allegory or symbolism. It is
appreciated for its shadowy vision and haunting music.
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: for example 'caverns measure-less to man', 'a sunless sea', 'that deep romantic chasm' etc. Kubla
Khan is a triumph of supernaturalism. It transports us out of the world of everyday life into a world of
wonder and romance.
3. Kubla Khan: Poem Summary 
The poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is in the form of a dream or vision about a grand palace
of a famous ruler of China and its magical surroundings. Coleridge has constructed the poem into two
parts. The first part describes Kubla Khan’s pleasure-dome and its beautiful and mesmerizing setting. While
the second part describes the creative power of a poet and his poetry. 
3.1 The First Part of ‘Kubla Khan’ by Coleridge
Kubla Khan, one of the greatest oriental kings, once ordered a magnificent luxury palace to be built for him
in Xanadu on the bank of the sacred river, Alph. This sacred river flowed through deep and immeasurable
caves in the hill and then, at last, fell into a dark, subterranean sea. Xanadu was surrounded up to ten
square miles by walls and towers. It had beautiful gardens, winding streams, and trees bearing sweet-
smelling flowers.
There was also a deep mysterious chasm that ran down the slope of  a green hill across a wood of cedar
trees. It was an awe-inspiring place. In fact, it was as holy and bewitched as the one haunted by a woman
wailing for her demon-lover in the dim light of a waning moon. From this chasm, a mighty fountain gushed
forth at short intervals producing an incessant roaring sound. The powerful outburst of water threw up
huge fragments of rocks here and there on the earth. They sounded like the hailstones striking the earth or
the grains spreading when separated from the chaff by a farmer’s flail. 
The sacred river Alph flowed across a five miles long winding course through woods and valleys. Then, it
entered the immeasurable deep caves and finally sank in the dead sea producing a loud noise. In this
tumult of the river, Kubla Khan seemed to hear the voices of his ancestors foretelling him of the impending
wars. The palace was built somewhere midway between mighty spring and the caves measureless to men.
Its shadow seemed floating in the middle of the river. From the palace could be heard the mixed sounds of
the water gushing forth from the spring and the water noisily flowing through the caves. The palace had
sunny domes and caves of ice and its architecture displayed a rare skill or a miracle.
3.2 The Second Part of ‘Kubla Khan’ by Coleridge
Once in a vision, the speaker saw an Abyssinian girl who was playing on a dulcimer and singing a sweet
song in praise of Mount Abora. If it were possible for the speaker to revive the sweet melody and music of
her song, it would fill him with divine inspiration and he would feel enraptured and poetically inspired.
With such divine inspiration, he would write powerful poetry to give a vivid description of Kubla Khan’s
marvelous palace.
The speaker says that his imaginative palace would be so vivid that all the people who would listen to his
songs would see it clearly before their eyes. They would then think of him as a mighty magician and would
ask others to be cautious of his flashing eyes and floating hair. They would weave a circle around him three
times and close their eyes with holy dread. Furthermore, they would say that he had been fed on honey-
dew and the Milk of Paradise and warn one another to keep away from him.
4. Critical Analysis: ‘Kubla Khan’ by Coleridge
Kubla Khan is an edifice of the dream or vision of the poet about a grand palace of a famous ruler of China
and its magical surroundings. It is an examination from a dream-soaked imagination, and at first sight
doesn’t seem to possess any rational viewpoint and logical consistency. It looks like a procession of images,
images colored in rainbow tints and expressed in the language of hunting melody. The poem also seems to
have no story, no moral, no allegory, and nor even any logical consistency of ideas.
However, Kubla Khan is rational as well as logical. Both of its parts are connected to each other in a logical
way. The poem is rich in symbolism, imagery, pictorial quality, and romantic elements. It is, in fact, a poem
of pure romance, in which all the romantic associations—ancient forests, hills, measureless caverns, music
of dulcimer, Milk of Paradise, demon-lover—are concentrated within a short compass to create a sense of
mystery and awe. Besides, the poem also stands by the sheer beauty of its shadowy vision, and by the
power of its wonderful music. 
THEMES
PLEASURE AND VIOLENCE
“Kubla Khan” begins by announcing that it is a poem about “pleasure.” It proposes to describe the Mongol
leader’s summer palace, along with all its luxurious—and, for the speaker, exotic—pleasures. However, the
poem soon takes a curious turn. Instead of describing sumptuous decorations or brilliant jewels, it focuses
mainly on the river that runs through the grounds of the palace. What’s more, instead of describing that
river in pleasant terms, it often focuses on the river’s violent energy. Through these descriptions, “Kubla
Khan” suggests that pleasure and beauty are neither simple nor uncomplicated. Rather, the poem shows
that pleasure and beauty come from the conflict between opposing forces—and that they always contain
some degree of violence and ugliness. The grounds of Kubla Khan’s “pleasure-dome” are not quite as
pleasant as one might expect. True, they encompass “twice five miles of fertile ground” and “gardens
bright with sinuous rills.” But the speaker moves quickly beyond these pleasant places, devoting only six
rather formulaic lines to describing them. Instead, the focus of the poem—and the speaker’s energy—lies
in the poem’s middle stanza, where the speaker describes what happens to those “sinuous rills” (small
streams) when they exit the pleasant gardens. They become a violent river, which has cut a deep gorge
into the earth; its geysers throw up massive boulders. The speaker describes this place in unsettling terms:
it is a “savage place,” “as holy and enchanted / As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted / by woman
wailing for her demon lover!” In contrast to the bright, sunny gardens, the chasm is a haunted, uncivilized
place. As the river continues its journey, the unsettling description intensifies. The river enters
unfathomable caves, where its rushing sounds like “ancestral voices prophesying war.” From the bright
gardens where it runs in little “rills,” the river quickly becomes a powerful and violent force—both “holy”
and terrifying. Given these descriptions, one might think that Khan’s “pleasure” must lie in the bright
gardens at the start of the river’s course. But Khan himself does not seem to take this view. It turns out
that his palace is not in the “gardens bright” where the river is peaceful. Instead, in lines 31-34, the reader
learns that the “shadow of the dome” of Khan’s palace hangs “midway” over the river, so that Khan can
hear “the mingled measure / From the fountain and the caves.” That is, Khan does not want to hear only
beauty or only violence: he wants both. And the pleasure he takes from his palace presumably comes from
his appreciation of the fraught interaction between the two. In carefully describing the geography of the
grounds of Khan’s pleasure dome (and not saying much about the dome itself), the speaker thus makes a
subtle argument about pleasure itself. Pleasure, the poem claims, does not exclude violence. Rather, it
comes from the tension between beauty and chaos; it demands—and includes—both.
CREATIVITY AND REASON
Though the speaker describes the grounds of Kubla Khan’s palace in detail, the speaker also hints that
these physical features are not entirely literal. Indeed, the poem’s dreamlike, hallucinatory tone seems to
invite the reader to treat the speaker’s descriptions an allegory for creativity and the human mind. People
may act like they're in control on the surface, the poem seems to say, but dig a bit deeper and human
beings aren't all that reasonable. And the tension between these two parts of the mind—the rational and
the irrational—is where creativity comes from. To understand how the poem can work as an extended
metaphor, first note how the description of the palace and its grounds focuses on the “sacred river” named
“Alph.” There is no real river called “Alph”; Coleridge invented it for the poem. But the name sounds a lot
like the Greek name for the first letter of the alphabet, alpha. This is an important letter in Christian
theology: in the Book of Revelation, God describes Himself as the “Alpha and the Omega”—the first and
the last, the source of all things and their end. In this sense, the river's name hints that it is symbolically
aligned with God’s creative power—which is both the model for and the source of human beings’
creativity. The speaker then describes the river's course in detail. Along the way, the speaker offers a few
hints that the river is not just a symbol of human creativity: it also provides a map of the human mind,
showing where that creativity actually comes from. The river begins close to Khan's "gardens," which is
important because, at the time the poem was written, gardens often served as symbols of reason: they
represent people's power to organize, dominate, and control nature. In this sense, the river begins with
rationality—the reasonable parts of the human mind. The river ends, however, in icy caverns, "measureless
to man," where "ancestral voices" prophecy "war." This seems like an image of the subconscious—which is
violent, uncontrollable, and unknowable to the rational mind. Between the two elements erupts a "mighty
fountain," which could serve as an image of the meeting point between the rational and the irrational parts
of the human mind. The results of their meeting are spectacular—and strikingly human. In describing the
fountain, the speaker personifies the river, making its bursts sound like "fast thick pants"—the heavy
breaths of an exhausted or passionate person. Furthermore, the fountain throws shards of rock into the
air, which the speaker describes as "dancing." The fountain doesn't just randomly throw rocks into the air,
but rather produces artful, choreographed motion. Together, this all suggests that the speaker sees the
mind as something that is divided, with its two halves in tension—and suggests that creativity emerges
directly from this tension.
THE LIMITS OF CREATIVITY
“Kubla Khan” can be read as an extended metaphor or allegory about the powers of human creativity, with
the river that runs through the grounds of Khan’s palace serving as a map of the human psyche and its
creative powers. However, the speaker remains skeptical about his own capacity to realize that creative
potential. Though the speaker wants to build a pleasure-dome of his own, he only fantasizes about doing
so. Though “Kubla Khan” celebrates the power of human creativity, it also recognizes that such creativity is
limited, fragile, and quickly lost. The speaker begins the description of Khan’s palace by noting that it is a
protected space. The grounds of the palace are “girdled round” with “walls and towers.” If Khan’s palace
and its grounds provide a map to human creativity, they also suggest that such creativity is precious and
difficult to sustain. From the start, then, the poem hints that creativity is something fragile. After the
speaker’s elaborate description of Khan’s palace, he returns to this initial implicit concern with the fragility
of creativity. In a sudden break at the start of stanza 3, the speaker stops talking about Khan’s palace
altogether, and discusses instead a song that he once heard from an “Abyssinian maid.” The speaker
complains that he cannot “revive” the maid’s “symphony and song”; if he could, he “would build that
dome in air.” In other words, the speaker would recreate Khan’s palace here and now, as a kind of floating
city that hovers above the earth. These lines are marked by a deep sense of loss: the speaker knows that
he is capable of constructing Khan’s palace, but he has lost the inspiration to do so. The speaker cannot
recreate or rehear the “Abyssinian maid’s song,” which would inspire the “music loud and long” necessary
to build the palace in the air. These lines contain the poem’s strongest hint that the reader should regard
Khan’s palace as an extended metaphor or allegory, rather than a strictly physical place. The speaker’s wish
makes it clear that the palace is not bound to a specific location or time period, but can rather be rebuilt
anytime and anywhere, as long as sufficient inspiration exists. In this sense, the poem suggests that Khan’s
palace is an image of the fullest achievement of human creativity. But paradoxically, it is just this
achievement that eludes the speaker. Though the speaker has experienced the inspiration necessary to
create the palace (as the very existence of this poem proves), his apparent despair also indicates that
inspiration itself—though priceless—is fragile and fleeting.
SYMBOLS
THE RIVER ALPH
The “Alph” is not a real river: Coleridge invented it for the poem. His invention is particularly notable
because the first two lines of the poem quote almost directly from Samuel Parchas’s 1613 account of
Kublai Khan’s summer palace. The entrance of the Alph into the poem is a radical break from Parchas, an
announcement to the reader that the poem has left this historical account and entered the speaker’s
fantasy. The name that the speaker uses for this invented river is potentially symbolically rich. For one
thing, it is a contraction of the word “alpha,” the first letter of the Greek alphabet. “Alpha” is important to
Christian theology. In the Book of Revelations, for example, God declares “I am the Alpha and the Omega,”
meaning both the beginning of things and the end, the creator and the destroyer. The name of the river
associates it with this creative power, and thus becomes a symbol for creativity itself.
GARDENS
Gardens are a rich and complicated symbol in the history of Western literature. Often they can symbolize
both paradise and temptation, as in the Garden of Eden. In the 18th century, however, when this poem
was written, gardens were highly controlled and cultivated places, featuring intricate patterns and careful
pruning. In this period, gardens most often symbolized wealth and power, the capacity to bend the
landscape to one’s will (or, better, to pay other people to do so!). Perhaps, then, the gardens here reflect
the extent of Kubla Khan's power—his ability to dominate the natural world surrounding the palace.
Gardens also could symbolize rationality: in contrast to the chaos and disorder of the natural world,
gardens—with their calculated layout—bore the stamp of human intelligence, the ability to order and
organize nature in order to make it more beautiful and less threatening. In this sense, the reader may take
the “gardens” in line 8 as a symbol for reason and rationality.
SUNLESS SEA
The speaker spends much of "Kubla Khan" describing the course of the fictional river "Alph," which
terminates in a vast underground sea. It is possible to read this as a literal description of a literal river, but
the poem’s dreamy, hallucinatory tone—and the fact that the river is itself a fantasy, the poet's invention
—encourages the reader to treat the "sunless sea" as a symbol. What it symbolizes will depend in large
measure on the way the reader understands the river itself. If the course of the river represents the
various parts of the human mind—running from organized reason to violent irrationality—then the
'sunless sea" might represent unconsciousness, sleep, or even death. Indeed, in the classical tradition,
there are four rivers in Hell; the reader might imagine the "sunless sea" as the final meeting point of those
rivers, the center of Hell itself. However, if the reader interprets the river as an extended metaphor for
pleasure, then the sunless sea might symbolize satisfaction, satiation, and the end of desire.
DEEP ROMANTIC CHASM
In contrast to the "gardens" that appear in line 8, the "deep romantic chasm" that the river enters at the
start of stanza 2 is not a human-made space, carefully organized and planned. It thus does not reflect or
represent human rationality. Instead, it serves in the poem as a sort of gateway into a different space—one
where nature itself rules and organizes the world according to its own principles. The "deep romantic
chasm" should thus be understood in opposition to the "gardens": where they might symbolize reason and
rationality, the "deep romantic chasm" symbolizes the entrance to a different part of the mind, one that is
less controlled, more violent and irrational. It is a transitional space between the two, a channel that
connects them.
FOUNTAIN
The "fountain" that appears in line 19 is a bit hard to visualize: the river seems to turn into a kind of geyser,
its violent energy forcing a jet of water and rock out of the chasm. If the reader takes the river itself to
represent the human mind, then the fountain that bursts forth seems like a dramatic expression of that
mind. Indeed, the speaker personifies the fountain, comparing it to a person’s rough "breathing" in line 19.
The river seems fully human here, less a physical space than a symbolic representation of the body as it
struggles to make sense of all the complex thoughts coursing through it. In this sense, the fountain might
be a symbol for the expression/eruption of that struggle—representing a passionate burst of creative
language, maybe even poetry. Similarly, in line 23, summarizing his description of the fountain, the speaker
describes the rocks it flings into the air as "dancing." The metaphor personifies the rock—and does so in a
specific, suggestive way. The fountain produces a movement that strongly resembles human art, the
choreography of bodies in space. In this sense, the speaker strongly suggests that the reader should
understand the fountain as a force of creativity.

ANCESTRAL VOICES
The “ancestral voices” that Kubla Khan hears in the “tumult” of the river are a complex symbol. Literally
speaking, they refer to the history of the Mongols, a history marked by conquest and bloodshed. But since
the culture and history of the Mongols is not the poem’s main concern, their symbolic character is what is
most important here. As a symbol, these voices can be understood on several levels. On the one hand,
they represent the violence of the river’s rushing course through its gorge. But since the river itself can be
interpreted as an image of the human mind, these voices can thus also symbolize the violent urges that
course through people's psyches. The speaker locates these violent urges in the past: they are “ancestral.”
But he also notes that they predict the future: they are “prophesying.” In this sense, the speaker implies
that violence cannot be escaped: even if these voices are “ancestral,” they know full well what to expect in
the future. Violence, the speaker subtly suggests, is just part of being human.
HONEY-DEW
When the speaker mentions honey-dew in the second-to-last line of “Kubla Khan,” he invokes a symbol
with an important history. In the Book of Exodus, when the Israelites are wandering in the desert, they are
fed by God with “manna,” which falls from Heaven, keeping them from starving. According to some Biblical
interpreters, the food that they ate was honey-dew, a sugary substance secreted by some insects as they
feast on leaves. In other words, the speaker is claiming that he has eaten food directly from God. The
“honey dew” thus serves as a symbol for holy inspiration and nourishment. In this sense, it is closely linked
to the “deep romantic chasm” the speaker mentions in line 12—a place the speaker describes as “holy.”
The “honey-dew” too is holy, and a symbol of the speaker’s close connection with the ultimate creative
power: God Himself. This symbol is reinforced in the next line, where the speaker claims to have drunk the
“milk of paradise”—presumably a beverage available only in Heaven and another testament to the
speaker’s intimacy with God’s creative capacity.
4.1 Kubla Khan: A Poem About Life and Its Complexities
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a poem about life and its complexities. The pleasure dome,
indeed, dominates the poem. Besides, the setting of the poem is also carefully and vividly described by the
poet. There is a description of a sacred river Alph that runs through ‘caverns measureless to man’ down to
a sunless sea. The area through which it flows is, however, full of beautiful gardens, aromatic trees,
winding streams, and ancient forests. 
4.2 River: A Metaphor of Life
In the poem, the river symbolizes life. It runs, through Nature, towards a ‘lifeless sea’—death—which in
some sense corresponds to life. In the background there is a hill, down the slope of which there is a ‘deep
romantic chasm’. The poet has called this ‘romantic chasm’ a ‘savage place’, as holy and enchanted as the
one where a woman cries for her demon-lover under a waning moon. Here the poem evokes supernatural
elements. The river in its origin so beautifully blends the sacred, romantic, and demonic suggestions. This
part of the poem evokes mystery and awe by blending romance with savage and demonic with sacred.
Whereas, the pleasure-dome is a symbol of the materialistic nature of man around which his life
(symbolized by a river) revolves before falling down into a sunless sea.
The following lines describe the ‘ceaseless turmoil’ as if the earth-mother breathing in ‘fast, thick pants,’
the fountain ‘forced’ out at short intervals, the fragments of hail striking on the earth, and the ‘chaffy grain
beneath the flail.’ This description creates an impression of power, anguish, and tumult, the dynamics of
birth and creation. Then, the river flows in a zigzag manner which refers to the complexities of human life.
It finally reaches the ‘caverns measureless to man’—infinity and nothingness—and sinks with a great
tumult which is death agony. So, the river is a metaphor of life, the birth-death time stream. 
The tumult can also be such principles and forces that drive man to his end. Thus, through the description
of an oriental monarch’s architectural exploits, the poet finds its way to create a symbolic and universal
panorama of human existence. The dome of the palace rises high up to the glare of the sun. Its top is warm
in sunshine, while its ground-floors are like caves of ice. It creates a sharp contrast between a person’s
physical  and spiritual life. Though, human beings are physically gleaming, but inside they are spiritually
dead and cold hearted. This cold-heartedness gives rise to destructive forces such as war.

4.3 ‘Kubla Khan’ by Coleridge: A Poem About Poetic Potentialities

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is also a poem about poetic potentialities. The first part of the
poem is a transcript of the vision so far as the waking mind retained it. The poet presents the pleasure-
dome and the river with all its mesmerizing setting. While the second part of the poem is an attempt to
realize the vision to give it a concrete form. It describes the act of poetic creation and the ecstasy of
imaginative fulfilment. The poet talks about the creative power and potentialities of poetry which can build
such a dome in the air. He imagines that if he could revive the damsel’s celestial symphony he would erect
with his song an aerial fabric similar to Kubla Khan’s pleasure-dome. His hearers would be wonderstruck at
his inspired appearance.
The poem shows that when inspiration comes to the poet’s heart from above and he becomes wild with
joy. His hair starts streaming to the wind, and his eyes become rolling in a fine frenzy.  A composer of lyrical
poetry composes his admirable songs in a state of divine insanity like the Korybantes, who lose all control
over their reason in the enthusiasm of the sacred dance. And during this supernatural possession, the
composer is excited by the rhythm and harmony which he communicates to men. A poet can’t compose
anything worth calling poetry until he becomes inspired. Thus, the poem is about the possibilities and
potentialities of the creative power of a poet.
The two parts of the poem thus reflect life and its representation through an act of poetic creation. They
also represent respectively the experience of the dreaming mind and its reaction in the waking
mind. Kubla Khan in spite of  its fragmentary character seems to be complete in itself. 
5. The Pictorial or Descriptive Quality of ‘Kubla Khan’ 
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Colreigde contains a striking pictorial and descriptive quality. Some of the
poem’s images are highly sensuous and suggestive. These images include: 
5.1 The Image of River in ‘Kubla Khan’ by Cloeridge
Among the pictorial or descriptive images of the poem include the image of the river. The river Alph flows
in a zigzag course of five miles through ancient forests and valleys. Then it flows through the caverns and
sinks in tumult into the sunless sea which represents the infinity of death. This image of the river and sea is
highly pictorial and bizarre.
5.2 The Image of Fertile Ground and Chasm
The second image is of the fertile ground of ten miles surrounded by walls, towers, and with brightly lit
gardens, winding streams and flowery trees. The third image is that of the chasm on the slope of hills
covered with cedar trees. The poet describes this scene to be fit for a woman crying for a demon-lover.
This simile gives the first supernatural touch to a dreamy situation. It associates an unusual worldly scene
with supernatural elements.
5.3 The Image of Fountain and River
The fourth pictorial image is that of the fountain-and-river. It brings motion into stillness of the precious
descriptions. The slow, falling rhythm of the earlier lines changes into a fast or rising rhythm. We are made
to hear and feel the movement of a mighty fountain gushing forcefully out of the chasm on the slope. The
sound of the words is aptly in agreement with the picture described (that is, the words are onomatopoeic).
Seething (bubbling out), in fast thick pants (gasps), half-intermitted bursts—are the words whose sound is
suggestive of the shaky and noisy movement of the water. 
The use of the breathing image when the disturbed earth looked like a person breathing heavily. His chest
rising up and coming down, makes us imagine the scene quite clearly. Another image is of the flinging up of
the rocky stones by the rushing water which is like rebounding hail or the grains thrown up by the
thresher. These two similes have made the violent movement of the water strikingly vivid.  
5.4 The Image of the Movement of River
The fifth image is one of the mazy, zigzag movement of the sacred river falling into a ‘lifeless’ or still ocean.
The poet calls the river ‘holy’ because traditionally they are the source of life. In the noise of the fountain
and the river, Kubla Khan hears the voices of his forefathers prophesying war. Hearing mysterious and
unexplainable voices is the second strong supernatural element of the poem. Then there is a pictorial
presentation of Kubla Khan’s palace in the sea waves, shaking with the waves.

5.5 The Image of ‘A Damsel with a Dulcimer’ and Poet’s Frenzy

The sixth image is of the poet’s vision of the ‘damsel with a dulcimer’ within his dream. Now it is a
compound image, with a multi-dimensional quality. We can visualize the picture of the poet on the one
side and the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) girl with the dulcimer on the other. Then, along with the poet, we can
also enjoy the music of the dulcimer and the song of the girl without even hearing them. 
The poet presents himself as frenzied with joy, with flashing eyes and floating hair in the act of listening to
the girl’s song. People are afraid of him and say that he has had heavenly food. He can see Kubla Khan’s
palace as he listens to the Abyssinian girl’s song. All this description has a supernatural significance in the
poem. The girl is from an African country and symbolizes the poet’s inward desire to be in touch with the
exotic (the foreign and the unusual).
6. Theme, Style and Atmosphere of ‘Kubla Khan’ by Coleridge
The major theme of Kubla Khan is the effects of the dream of the romantic and mysterious on the poet’s
mind or the whole being. Then, there is the theme of man’s interaction with nature and the power of the
poet’s imagination. The imagery and symbolism of the poem, as discussed above, strongly bring out these
themes. The poem belongs to the dream territory of art; it is a dream and conforms to the laws of dream-
logic, producing a sense of satisfaction by its delicate suggestiveness. Its precision and clarity, use of highly
emotive and suggestive words, and musical effect present the conjunction of pleasure and sacredness. 
The poem possesses a dreamlike atmosphere, with dim light or brightness. The river flows through caves
and enters a ‘sunless sea’, a ‘lifeless ocean.’ Moreover, the ‘shadow’ of Kubla Khan’s palace in the waves is
dim, in outline. The icy caverns are at the center of the poem with their flashy appearance not allowing the
eyes to see anything clearly. In the poem, we do have the ‘sunny’ spots of greenery’ and the ‘green hill,’
but nowhere does the sun shine brightly. 
In a nutshell, Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge leaves a magical and mesmerizing effect on the
readers which they keep on enjoying for long in their ideas and feelings.  
FORM
“Kubla Khan” doesn't have a set form—nor does it follow a traditional form like the sonnet or the ballad.
On a basic level, there are three stanzas. The first has 11 lines, the second has 25, and the third has 18. The
poem meanders, wandering between different rhyme schemes and meters over the course of its 54 lines.
Indeed, the poem uses three separate meters—iambic tetrameter, iambic pentameter, and in line 5,
iambic trimeter. There isn't always a clear reason why the speaker switches between these meters.
Similarly, the poem will establish an intricate rhyme pattern, only to switch immediately to a new one. In
most poems, formal elements like meter and rhyme serve established rules, to create a sense of order and
regularity. In “Kubla Khan” they do just the opposite: they underline how disorderly the poem is, how
changeable, and how irregular. Because the poem flirts with order only to abandon it, the reader has a
sense that the poem is always on the verge of establishing a definite rhythm and rhyme scheme—but it
pulls away, toward some fresh, new poetic pleasure. (The major exception will be the poem’s final stanza,
where the speaker sticks to one meter exclusively, iambic tetrameter—though the rhyme scheme
continues to be irregular throughout.) As a result, the poem’s unusual and irregular form closely mimics
the poem's subject. It certainly feels like a vision made up of fragments. One might interpret the poem’s
form as an image of the wandering, sometimes violent, river it describes. Or one might take it as an image
of Kubla Khan’s pleasure palace, with its dense mix of both beauty and violence. The poem doesn't insist
on one interpretation or another. In its formal strangeness, the poem encourages the reader to develop
their own interpretation of its structure.