Explore Samuel Taylor Coleridge's ''Kubla Khan'' poem. Learn the summary and analysis of the Xanadu poem, understand its meaning, and read about its composition.
Updated: 11/21/2023
Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge | Summary, Meaning & Analysis
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main theme of the poem Kubla Khan?
The main theme of the Coleridge's poem, "Kubla Khan" is the nature of creativity. Coleridge was eager to examine how creativity and imagination led artists like himself to bring works of art into the world.
Is Kubla Khan a finished poem?
Coleridge claimed that he could not finish "Kubla Khan" because he was interrupted by a person from Porlock. When the person left, Coleridge could not remember the end of the poem so published it as an unfinished poem.
Which literary piece inspired the poem Kubla Khan?
Coleridge was reading the travel book, Purchas his Pilgrimage by Samuel Purchas when he fell into an opium-induced sleep. When Coleridge awoke, he wrote the poem "Kubla Khan" which was inspired by the passage he was reading in Purchas' book.
What is the meaning of the poem Kubla Khan?
"Kubla Khan" is about the nature of creativity. In the poem the speaker sees that Kubla Khan has created a pleasure dome in Xanadu that preserves the beauty of nature while shielding the inhabitants from cold, vastness of the outside world. The speaker wishes to create something as well, but they find themselves unable to finish their task.
What is the main idea of Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge?
"Kubla Khan" is a poem that examines the role that imagination and creativity play in art. The poem's speaker wants to create something beautiful like Kubla Khan's pleasure dome in Xanadu, but they are unable to complete their creation.
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ShowSamuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the first poets of the Romantic Movement. Poetry of the Romantic Movement was characterized by a more conversational tone. Romantic poets, such as Coleridge, often explored the themes of human emotion and nature. Coleridge was born to a middle-class family in 1772 and studied at Jesus College, Cambridge before settling into a somewhat turbulent life as a poet, journalist, and speaker.
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Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan" in 1797 while staying at a farmhouse in a town called Porlock. He was in poor health and he had been prescribed opium. After taking opium, he was reading a travel book entitled Purchas his Pilgrimage when he fell into a deep sleep. Upon waking, Coleridge said that he remembered the entirety of his dream and began to write it down exactly as he had dreamed it. In the midst of his writing, however, he was interrupted by a person from Porlock who had come to handle some sort of business. Coleridge did not explain who the man was or what type of business he had come to handle; but, the man's interruption led Coleridge to forget the 200 to 300 lines he had composed in his dream. Coleridge was never able to finish recording the poem that he had dreamt of, but he did publish the unfinished poem which he titled "Kubla Khan" in 1816. Many critics believe that the person from Porlock represents the mundane and quotidian elements of life that interrupt the production of art; a theme which features prominently in"Kubla Khan".
"Kubla Khan" Poem
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
"Kubla Khan" Summary
In "Kubla Khan", Coleridge describes his imagined version of the 13th century Mongolian ruler Kublai Khan's palace. The poem's speaker compares the natural beauty and peaceful setting at the palace with the war and chaos of the outside world. As the poem progresses, Coleridge alludes to his own inability to finish the poem.
Stanza One
The first stanza focuses on the beauty of Xanadu, Kubla Khan's summer palace. Xanadu was a real place, however, Coleridge punctuates the historical setting with an imagined river called the Alph. Right away, the reader is alerted to the theme of imagination-- a common theme in Romanticism. Coleridge took the real palace of Xanadu, and with his imagination, made it into something else entirely. The walled palace of Xanadu "where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree", stands in stark contrast with the outside world that is marked with "caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea". The palace is walled as a form of protection from this dark and vast world that surrounds it.
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Stanza Two
The second stanza is more intense and wild than the first stanza. Coleridge focuses much of the stanza on nature, another favorite theme in Romanticism. The stanza traces the journey of water in the landscape of Xanadu. It begins by describing the source of the Alph River that erupts out of the earth with a violent force: "And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced." This ferocious scene of the earth birthing the river quickly changes tone as the river lazily sprawls, "Five miles meandering with a mazy motion". The now languid river finds its end as it sinks "in tumult to a lifeless ocean". Water is both life-giving and life-threatening. It can be forceful and dangerous or placid and sustaining. Imagination is like the water. It ebbs and flows, it sustains and it threatens.
The stanza ends with Kubla Khan receiving a prophecy of war. This abrupt departure from the natural imagery that dominated the stanza is meant to feel jarring. It is a reminder that the fraught human world is never far from the peace of nature.
Stanza Three
This short stanza revisits the images from the first stanza of the warmth of Xanadu ("sunny pleasure dome") and the coldness of the outside world ("caves of ice"). The stanza feels rushed and chaotic. The natural order has been disrupted by the prophecy of war.
Stanza Four
The fourth and final stanza begins with a new character, a " damsel with a dulcimer" who appears as a muse-like figure to the speaker. She sings of the fictional Mount Abora which the speaker hopes will give him the strength to finish what he has begun. He wishes to "build that dome in air". The dome is not the pleasure dome of Kubla Khan, but rather the speaker's own masterpiece; a masterpiece that will serve as a reminder that art stands apart from the tumult of humanity just as Xanadu stands apart from the frigidity of the outside world. The reader can see a parallel between the poem's speaker and Coleridge, the poet. Like the speaker, Coleridge hoped to find a way to finish his poem "Kubla Khan". He wanted to recapture the verses that he lost when he was interrupted by a person from Porlock.
The poem ends with the speaker imagining what it would be like if he were able to finish his masterpiece. The speaker feels that they are so close to being able to accomplish it and they even imagine what they would do if they could capture their creative vision: "Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread." Coleridge too felt so close to being able to remember his dream, yet in the end, he could not. The poem ends with the image of the speaker having had a taste of what it is like to create, to be god-like in the act of creating, but not being able to bring his creation to fruition.
"Kubla Khan" Meaning
The poem "Kubla Khan" is about the act of creating. The speaker begins the poem in awe of Kubla Khan's pleasure palace, Xanadu. He notes that the pleasure dome both preserves the beauty of nature and exists separately from the cold outside world. The speaker uses the river, Alph as a metaphor for creativity and imagination. The river, like imagination ebbs and flows. Sometimes the speaker feels inspired and sometimes the speaker feels drained of inspiration. The prophecy of war that Kubla Khan receives marks a turning point in the poem. The prophecy interrupts the beautiful nature imagery. The prophecy also symbolizes the problems of humanity and how those problems interrupt artists as they aim to create. Finally, we see the promise of creativity reignited in the character of the damsel with a dulcimer who appears in the last stanza. The speaker feels that they might be able to complete their creation, but ultimately, they can only imagine what it would feel like to have completed the creation, they cannot actually accomplish it.
"Kubla Khan" Themes
Coleridge explores the themes of imagination, nature, and creativity in the poem "Kubla Khan".
- Nature is present throughout the poem but particularly in the form of water. Coleridge explores the beauty of nature within the pleasure dome of Xanadu and the wildness and danger of nature in the world outside of Xanadu.
- Imagination allows Coleridge to build the magical world of Xanadu, a palace that shields its inhabitants from the coldness of the outside world. The poem's speaker draws parallels between their own imagination and the ability to create a pleasure dome.
- Creativity is the central theme of "Kubla Khan". The poem grapples with what it means to create something; whether the creation is a pleasure dome or the poem itself. As the speaker struggles to bring their creation to completion, Coleridge also struggled to complete his creation, the poem "Kubla Khan".
"Kubla Khan" Literary Devices
A number of literary devices can be found in Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan"
- Personification- personification is giving human attributes to a non-human entity: "these dancing rocks".
- Simile- a simile makes a comparison between to unlike things using the word "like" or "as": "forests ancient as the hills", "Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail"
- Imagery- imagery means using descriptive words to create an image: "that deep romantic chasm which slanted, Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!"
- Juxtaposition juxtaposition situates two opposite ideas next to one another in order to show how different they are: "That sunny dome! those caves of ice!"
The poem "Kubla Khan" is an example of the genre of Romantic literature. Romantic literature often focuses on the themes of emotion and nature and uses a natural conversational tone. "Kubla Khan" uses iambic tetrameter meter for most of the poem. The rhyme scheme is complex and adds to the dreamlike quality of the poem. For example, the first stanza has a rhyme scheme of ABAABCCDBDB.
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Coleridge finally published "Kubla Khan" in England in 1816. He was somewhat unsure of whether or not it merited publication because it was ultimately unfinished. However, the famous poet Lord Byron pushed him to publish the poem. Coleridge agreed to have it published as an appendage to another one of his unfinished poems titled "Christabel". Notably, Coleridge included a short explanation of how he had come to write "Kubla Khan" after having taken opium and how the person from Porlock had interrupted him as he wrote. This published explanation has led some to believe that Coleridge offered the story of the person from Porlock as a metaphor for the theme of the poem.
The poem received mixed reviews at the time of publication. Some felt that it lacked a resolution, others found it an interesting examination of dreams. Today, many critics believe that "Kubla Khan" is one of the most important poems of the Romantic Period because of its examination of the generative and destructive powers of imagination.
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote the poem "Kubla Khan" after waking from an opium-induced nap. Coleridge said that he had dreamed of Xanadu and composed 200-300 lines of poetry in his dream. He began to write the poem down but was interrupted by a person from Porlock who came to handle some kind of business. The interruption caused Coleridge to forget the remainder of the poem. The poem sat unfinished from 1797 until he finally published it in its unfinished form in 1816.
"Kubla Khan" takes place in Xanadu, a pleasure palace walled off from the cruel outside world. The speaker explains that a fictional river, Alph, pours out of its source and runs through Xanadu and into the ocean. The river provides an example of how creativity and imagination flow through a creator. The poem then turns when Kubla Khan receives a prophecy of war which can be likened to the person of Porlock interrupting Coleridge's writing. The poem's speaker endeavors to complete his creation, as Kubla Khan has completed his pleasure dome of Xanadu; but he finds that he is unable to complete it. The poem stands as an example of the creative process.
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Video Transcript
Introduction to Kubla Khan
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Hello, I was just reciting Kubla Khan, which was one of the most beloved Romantic poems of all time. Not only is it awesome, but there's an awesome story of how it was made.
Writing the Poem
In Coleridge's time, it was super popular for doctors to prescribe opium for everything. If you have a headache... opium! If you're depressed...opium! If you're getting something amputated...probably opium. Doctors didn't really understand that it had the potential to really get you seriously addicted to it. Coleridge would develop a really bad addiction by the end of his life.
In 1797, Coleridge was still just a recreational user. As you might learn if you take a psychology course, Coleridge was just abusing drugs but he wasn't dependent on them yet. But he was reading a book about Xanadu, which is strange to me because there was a house at my college called Xanadu and I was horrified to learn that even the people who lived in it had no idea that it was the location of Kubla Khan's summer palace. Okay, I was just horrified that they didn't wonder about it; I had to look that up on Wikipedia, but it really is a dorm that you could live in...
Anyway, Coleridge was reading about Marco Polo's journey to Xanadu. Yep, that Marco Polo. That's where Kubla Khan, who was the grandson of the Mongol conqueror, Genghis Khan, set up shop to rule China from this place. He got really into it; Kubla Khan got really into ruling China but Coleridge got really into reading about Kubla Khan.
Then he took some opium, as he was wont to do, and he went to sleep. He had some really cool dreams. Later on, these dreams would become nightmares; when he was in the dependent stage of his drug problem, his dreams were not good. So, he had this wonderful dream about Xanadu, about Kubla Khan's summer palace. He claimed that he composed a complete 200-300-line poem about Xanadu all in his sleep. Then he got up and started writing it.
The problem is when he wakes up, he only gets about three stanzas in until he's interrupted by a mysterious person from Porlock, which makes him forget the rest of it and then he has to stop.
Coleridge gets interrupted, doesn't finish it, and shelves the poem for nearly 20 years thinking it's not good enough and it's not complete. But then a friend found it and pushed him to publish it, and he included it in his collection from 1816, Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep.
A Person from Porlock
As for that person from Porlock who interrupted him and made him forget the rest of the poem, he's actually one of literature's greatest mysteries. No one really knows who it was. Porlock is just a village in England, near where Coleridge was living at the time.
But since Kubla Khan has become such a significant poem that everyone is, rightfully, really into, this person from Porlock has kind of risen in stature because he's theoretically the reason why it's not longer and even better and more glorious.
Some people think that it might have been Coleridge's doctor, who was prescribing him the opium in the first place. That'd be a bit ironic. Some people think that Coleridge just made the whole thing up. It's like, 'Oh, yeah, my essay is going to be 10 pages long. I dreamed it all out, but then the person from Porlock ate 9 pages of it.' Sure. F. It might just be all a myth.
Still, this Porlock figure - the interrupter of creativity - gets referenced all over the place. He come up in Lolita; a person checks into a hotel under the pseudonym A. Person, Porlock, England. It comes up all over the place always as this symbol. He also has a Facebook page and a Twitter page. It's always as this symbol of interrupted creativity. So, a side legacy of the Kubla Khan poem is this reference to this mysterious figure.
That's a lot of background on the poem but it's interesting stuff. Now we're going to get to the poem itself, which as you might remember, is a lot shorter than it should have been so it should go pretty quickly.
The Poem: Stanza 1
It begins with a description of Xanadu, which again is Kubla Khan's summer capital. It's a stately pleasure-dome (those are the lines that I read in the very beginning), which basically means a fancy palace. Coleridge describes its walls and towers…girdled round, its gardens bright with sinuous rills and forests as ancient as the hills. It sounds pretty plush and pretty great.
We also learn about where Xanadu is:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
This is notable because although Xanadu is a real place, there is no Alph river. It does not exist. Coleridge made it up. This is interesting because he's kind of openly saying that while Xanadu is real, it's a place of his imagination; he's kind of re-making it in his head. Imagination is a key element or key idea for Romantic poetry - this idea of recreating things in the mind and the artist's imagination. So, he's really calling attention to that with this inclusion of this fictional river.
There's also an interesting dichotomy here: between the positive, warm images of Xanadu, all those gardens bright, incense-bearing trees and whatnot, and then the outside world, with has caverns measureless and sunless sea.
There's clearly a hierarchy here; there's nice things on the inside and there's nasty things on the outside.
The Poem: Stanza 2
So, then we get to Stanza 2 where Coleridge seems entranced by the landscape outside of Xanadu and the river that runs through it. He describes it as:
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
In those three lines, we got three important facets of Romantic poetry: imagination celebrated, nature and mysticism.
The Romantic poet's awe of the majesty and power of nature you can see throughout this stanza and those lines and also in these next lines when he's describing this river.
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail
Look at all those strong, dramatic words: chasm, ceaseless, turmoil. It's is not a lazy stream; it's not like the lazy river at the water park. It's kind of this fantastic, almost impossibly theatrical river.
The second stanza ends with a turn. We follow this river down to that lifeless ocean and then we learn:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
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We're all caught up in this amazing river; there are all these words describing how great it was, but, then we realize that this poem is supposedly about Kubla Khan and not just about the natural world. But that's an interesting thing; a lot of it is about the natural world, which is a Romantic trope that Kubla Khan is sort of represented and kind of shoved aside in favor for these images of nature.
Just a quick reminder, he is Genghis Khan's kid. He ruled in the 13th century mainly and he wasn't really renowned for peace. He had lots of war. That's those voices prophesying war. That's what they're talking about.
The Poem: Stanza 3
Then we get to Stanza 3 and this is a weird little segment where Coleridge brings back the juxtaposed images of Xanadu and the surrounding natural scenes:
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
He's repeating his language, with the pleasure dome, the fountain and the caves. When it's presented here, it's all kind of jumbled together on top of each other. It's not really separated anymore. It kind of gets to be a weird celebration of creativity, this idea that you're remixing what he's already done and putting it all on top of each other. It might also be meant as an image foreshadowing war or for something that's going to disrupt the scenery of Xanadu and mix everything up. It could also just be the opium. We'll never really know what Coleridge's intentions were with all of this.
The Poem: Stanza 4
We get to the final stanza and we get a more significant change in the tone and the content of the poem. We've got:
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she play'd
Singing of Mount Abora.
Who is this and where did she come from? We're not really sure. It seems we might not be able to figure it out until Coleridge tips his hand a little bit about what this might be. He goes on and he says:
Could I revive within me,
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
So the poem starts with him talking about his vision of Xanadu, and changes near the end to this other vision of a damsel with a dulcimer. Most people think that this last stanza was probably written after the person from Porlock interrupted him, because what Coleridge was talking about in this last line is his forgotten 300-line poem.
He had this vision, and if he still had it, he'd build the pleasure dome. And it would be amazing! You'd see! If only that person from Porlock hadn't interrupted.
So, the poem itself kind of becomes the palace - this lost vision that ends up being a metaphor for the poem about Kubla Khan's palace that Coleridge forgot when he was interrupted.
We're back to that celebration of the imagination that we saw introduced with the introduction of that phony river. But it's important that it's the imagination in the context of nature; we saw all that natural imagery throughout the poem.
And you can see that Coleridge is in love with his own creativity. So much so that he's really angry that he can't finish it, that he can't remember what the rest of it was because he knows it was good. And, at the same time, he's praising the awesomeness of nature, so it's praising nature and also praising man's ability to create in and out of nature. So, it's a very complicated but kind of beautiful statement that he's really making about this.
The poem ends with more of the same: just how great the poem would have been if he remembered all of it.
Lesson Summary
Just to sum things up: Coleridge wrote Kubla Khan after an opium-induced dream. It was supposed to be a lot longer than it was, but a person from Porlock came and interrupted him. Dog ate his homework, I guess.
The poem basically talks about the wonderful palace at Xanadu, which was Kubla Khan's summer palace, how awesome it is and how awe-inspiring the natural world is around it. Then also about how the poem was forgotten. It's about creativity, nature, the mind and how the mind can forget. And that's Kubla Khan.
Lesson Objectives
After watching this lesson, you should be able to:
- Describe how Coleridge came up with the idea for Kubla Khan and how he was interrupted while writing it
- Explain the meaning and Romantic imagery of the poem
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Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge | Summary, Meaning & Analysis
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