Arts & Culture

Kubla Khan

poem by Coleridge
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Also known as: “Kubla Khan; or, a Vision in a Dream”
In full:
Kubla Khan; or, a Vision in a Dream

Kubla Khan, poetic fragment by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1816. According to Coleridge, he composed the 54-line work while under the influence of laudanum, a form of opium. Coleridge believed that several hundred lines of the poem had come to him in a dream, but he was able to remember only this fragment after waking.

The poem begins with these well-known lines:

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:
Britannica Quiz
Poetry: First Lines
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.

and concludes:

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.

Because of the exotic imagery and rhythmic cadence of the poem, early critics decided that it should be read simply as a reverie and enjoyed for its vivid and sensual qualities. After studying Coleridge’s mythological and psychological interests, later critics held that the work had a complex structure of meaning and was basically a poem about the nature of human genius.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.