Gema Mellides Rayego

Prof. Cassandra S. Tully

English Literature I
November 21st, 2022

Analysis of Kubla Khan

The poem that I am going to analyze, that belongs to “Christabel: Kubla Khan, a vision; The
Pains of Sleep”, was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1816, so it belongs to the
Romanticism (1798-1832).

Romanticism started in Germany and then expanded to England, the first literary production
were “Lyrical Ballads”, written by Wordsworth and Coleridge and the period finished with the
death of Sir Walter Scott and Goethe. It can not be named as a period at all, because it is an
intermediate time, in which, in England, there are a lot of kings. King George, the Regency with
George Prince of Wales as Regent, and then, his own son, King George IV. In this period, the
expansion of England to the United States began. These last mentioned kings; father and son,
wasted much money during the Napoleon Wars (1803-1815). The last king of the period was
King William IV, George´s brother, because he had died without children.

In the 18th century in Britain the Industrial Revolution took place. There is a growth of a new
middle-class and the high-class started getting poor. The ideological aspects of this period were
the puritan ethics of work, the respect for the “self-made man” principle, importance of
individualism...And a transition from state protectionism to economic liberalism started then. So,
the society started to move by self-interest. There was a technological improvement with the
Spinning Jane weaver, the steam engine, machine of wool cotton…, that made transport and
production easier and faster. In the factories the most important aspect was the specialization.
There were several social problems because of industrialization: in 1799 the combination of
laws, trade unions and associations of workers by assemblies were completely prohibited.
Slavery was abolished in Britain by 1833 but continued to exist until the twentieth century in the
colonies. The lower classes suffered a social strain and took place a collapse of traditional values
and disintegration of rural lifestyle. In the 19th century many labor movements were born, such
as Luddism, trade unionism and Chartism.

Regarding the literary features, there is a new view of the universe (different from the
Neoclassical view that tried to do an imitation in literature); essentially imperfect, but with a lot
of possibilities to grow. A new concept of the human mind also began to emerge it was as an
active principle that creates worlds through the imagination. There is a primacy of intuition,
emotion and individuality. There are different literary elements than in the Neoclassical period,
such as imagination, nature, symbolism, myth and individualism. The poets describe the
compositions as a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”, in which the source of
inspiration is internal, the inner feelings. There is a departure from rules. There are also different
types of poets: goth poets, graveyard, exoticism-antiquarians and the romantic hero. Coleridge is
one of the most important authors of the period.
 “Kubla Khan” is an uncompleted poem that describes a dream influenced by opium.
Coleridge wanted to somehow imitate “Paradise Lost” by John Milton. The dream is about
Kubla Khan (the Mongol emperor of China) and his palace called Xanadu. The author had been
reading a book about it before falling asleep. His dream was interrupted, so he tried to invent the
end.
It is used a colloquial rhythm and rhyme and it can be noticed the Emotionalism of
Romanticism, chaos and the frenzy mind; extreme mental agitation wild excitement or
derangement. As it is a dream, it is really spontaneous and was written very quickly.
The poem uses three separate meters—iambic tetrameter, iambic pentameter, and iambic
trimeter.

It does not follow a traditional form, but to make easier the analysis, it could be divided in
three stanzas or paragrahps. In the first stanza, that goes from the first line to the eleventh, is
found a topography of the universe. The author uses various rhetorical resources, such as
hyperbole (exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally) in line 4
“measureless to man”, also a paradox (combination of contradictory features or qualities) in the
5th line “sunless sea”, and at the end of the stanza we find a comparison “forests ancient as the
hills”. The first stanza can be divided into two sections. In the first lines, the poem rhyme is:
ABAAB and then CCDBDB, so as I have said before, it is not possible to establish a concrete
rhyme scheme or rhythm, and this gives musicality to the composition.

In the second stanza he does a sensual description as if it were a woman´s body. The “chasm”
actually refers to the vulva, it is a metaphor (rhetorical way of describing another object or thing
by suggesting a comparison of it to something else), and it is described at the same time as
wonderful but dangerous, like something mysterious and spiritual that attracts you to the land.
The woman(earth) is also crying for a demon-lover like in a ritual. From lines 19 to 21 we find
the sensual description of the woman that can be as an image of something suddenly exploding,
she is alive; like a war, like the earth was enjoying herself with all this water and rocks explosion
coming off this deep romantic chasm mentioned before. This is an orgasm. In the middle of all of
this fantastic scenery, there is a mythical character, Kubla, that could be the image of the
Romantic hero, and also a palace between the fountain and the caves, everything very chaotic.

Then, the writer was woken up, he tried to continue the dream but it was impossible, so in this
last stanza, he invents and remembers the marvelous dream. The author remember a muse with a
dulcimer, an exotic instrument that may serve as an allusion to the lire, an instrument strongly
associated with the poetic traditions of ancient Greece. The muse was Abyssinian, a dark skin
woman, really exotic and definitely, a satanic woman. She also a witch with powers and,
although he would love to remember her symphony, he is not able. This is a sample of the
fantasies that the English had with the natives of the colonies. If he could have finished it, people
would be scared of Kubla Khan and be aware of his flashing eyes, floating air….

Doing a general analysis and leaving aside the specific analyzes of the stanzas, we find
throughout the poem many examples of alliteration, such as his own name, “Kubla Khan”, in the
third line “the sacred river, run” and many more of them. The poem, itself, is also an extended
metaphor (a metaphor that is delivered over multiple lines or sentences) of the world he is
describing like a woman.

“Kubla Khan” is the perfect example of the imagination in poetry, one of the most important
features of Romanticism. The author shows a great capacity for creativity and makes us want to
always live in our dreams, where everything is possible. The evolution of the poem is
remarkable, how at first the writer is a little nervous and then relaxes. The composition has a
musical rhythm and a lot of female images, all this and the aforementioned, make it a special
poem and one of the most famous of Romanticism in English poetry.