Images of Creativity in "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Patrick Mooney English 121 February 28, 2000 An examination of the characters that Coleridge presents in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan" and the situations in which they find themselves reveals interesting aspects of Coleridge’s own character that are both similar to and different from the characters named in the titles of these poems. In particular, an examination of these characters with an eye toward Coleridge’s conception of poetic inspiration and success can be fruitful. In "Kubla Khan," Coleridge depicts a powerful character who "did ... a stately pleasure dome decree" ("Kubla Khan" lines 1-2). The fact that Kubla Khan is able merely to decree a pleasure-dome and know that his orders will be executed implies that he is a character of both strong will and great creative power. This faith in himself is not misplaced. The Khan decrees that a pleasure-dome be built and his order is immediately executed: "So twice five miles of fertile ground/ With walls and towers were girdled round" (6-7).

Some aspects of the landscape and the dome echo the hardness implied by the chieftain’s single-minded determination: the fountain "with ceaseless turmoil seething," the "dancing rocks" that are tossed into the air by the fountain, the "ancestral voices prophesying war," and the fact that the sacred river itself is "flung up momently" by the fountain (18, 23, 30, 24). As the Khan’s creation, the dome can reasonably be expected to contain clues to his character, and the characterization of the Khan harmonizes well with these clues about his character given by the pleasure dome: the image of a Mongol chief is one associated with danger, war, and a large amount of strength. All of the aspects of the dome’s landscape so far mentioned are located beneath the ground in the geography that the poem sets up. Above the ground, the Khan’s pleasure-dome is situated in a landscape which also includes "gardens bright with sinuous rills" and "many an incense-bearing tree" — both images which, along with the pleasure-dome, call to mind sensuality and languor (8, 9).

That is, the lower landscape of primal force and dynamic action is covered and concealed by a surface landscape of beauty and permanence. This dichotomy suggests a psychological interpretation of the landscape as a whole: the sensual surface-covering may represent the conscious and rational mind, while the subterranean landscape may represent the unconscious, irrational mind of drives and instincts. The powerful Khan, then, can be seen as a figure who has a connection with both landscapes, and his creation, the dome, "floats midway on the waves" between the two worlds: it protrudes into the surface world of the conscious mind, but its roots extend deep beneath the surface; it is a "sunny pleasure-dome" that has caverns below it that extend so far underground that they becomes "caves of ice" (32, 36). The other object that exists in both poetic landscapes is the fountain that "flung up momently the sacred river" (24). The fountain is located in the chasm that represents the subconscious, but it tosses the sacred river, Alph, up into the sunny landscape symbolic of the conscious and rational world. The fountain is of particular interest because of the two classes of things that it tosses into the air.

The first set of objects that the fountain forces up consists of "fragments" (21). Although these fragments are later described as "dancing rocks," the word "fragment" here calls to mind the fact that the subtitle of "Kubla Khan" describes it as a "fragment." The second thing tossed into the air by the fountain is the water of the sacred river Alph. The name "Alph" suggests the Greek alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet that is frequently associated with beginnings and origins. (For instance, God identifies Himself as "the alpha and the omega" — the beginning and the end — in Revelation 1:8.) Together, the objects flung into the air by the fountain suggest poetic inspiration — and in the context of the symbolic landscape described above, the images seem to describe primally generated fragments of poetry thrown from the unconscious mind into the sunny landscape of rationality. The fountain, that is, is a channel of poetic inspiration, and Kubla Khan is a figure whose strength and focused desire allow him to harness this vehicle of inspiration and make it part of his own creation, the dome. Like the Khan’s dome, Coleridge’s "Kubla Khan" is a creative work.

Like the dome, it exists two levels: a surface, rational level of the literal meanings of the words and the story that they convey and a lower level of symbolism and irrational feelings associated with the texture and sound of the words used. (The patterns of sound quality and texture quality in this poem are complex. The first stanza, for instance, rhymes in the pattern abaab ccdede, and Coleridge frequently alliterates both vowels and consonants to interlock the sounds of various words. The patterns of consonant-alliteration are particularly involved: Coleridge sometimes uses the same sound at the beginnings of two consecutive syllables, even when words are multisyllabic — as in the "miles meandering" of line 25, the "deep delight" of line 43, and the "Xanadu did" of line one.) Unlike the Khan’s dome, however, Coleridge’s poem is not a complete and structured creative work; it is a "fragment." The Khan, for this reason, presents the dreaming poet with an ideal image of a creative figure that, as Coleridge explains in the final stanza, he attempts to emulate.

He identifies the creation of poetry with "That sunny dome, those caves of ice!" (46). The "Abyssinian maid," not previously mentioned in the vision, awakens within the poet a desire to "build that dome in air" with "music loud and long" (45, 44). She seems to be a sort of muse for Coleridge, a figure who provides creative inspiration with music. This equation of music with the pleasure-dome ties the dome to the poem more strongly than any other symbolic link in "Kubla Khan." The entire fantasy, however, is nothing but that — a fantasy. Coleridge qualifies his ability to "build that dome in air" throughout the last stanza: his ability to do so is dependent on being able to awaken a "deep delight," which in turn depends on his opportunity to "revive within me/ Her symphony and song" (43, 41-42). If that is possible, then he would like to build his own pleasure-dome, the poem, with "music loud and long" (44). All of these requirements, however, are expressed as conditionals — "’twould," "could," and "would," respectively.

This seems to constitute a tacit admission on Coleridge’s part that these conditions are unlikely ever to happen. It seems that the poem, then, is expressive of a feeling that Coleridge has that his poetic gift is, in some fundamental way, flawed and incomplete. This is true whether the poem truly is a "fragment" or (as the well-constructed symbolism seems to suggest) it is actually a complete poetic work: the underlying feeling of despair and yearning remains, and the text points to an interpretation of this as despair over the lack of strong creative ability at the level of Kubla Khan. The figure of the ancient mariner presents an image similar in some ways to Kubla Khan, but the identification of the mariner as a creative figure — in this case, as a storyteller — is simpler and the anxieties about the nature of the creative process are different in nature. The mariner, as a storyteller, is easily comparable with Coleridge. The similarity between the two figures runs deeper than a mere affinity of creative processes, however.

The mariner experiences a force that constrains him to tell his story from time to time: he says that since his experience where he first told his tale to the "hermit good," at an uncertain hour, And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns. ("Ancient Mariner" 514, 583-5). This force is similar to the bursts of inspiration that occur "momently," already identified with Coleridge, that are found in "Kubla Khan" ("Kubla Khan" 19). Coleridge also seems to identify with the mariner in terms of the anxiety that both experience about the nature of their stories. The mariner is clearly anxious in both of the levels of the story in which he is placed.

He is (of course) anxious as a character within the framed narrative in the "Rime," as he has no idea what his eventual fate will be or if he will ever escape alive from the ship, which is a prison from which he is not allowed even the release of death — although it is clear that he desires this escape: he describes the horror of living for a week in the presence of the curse of two hundred dead men’s eyes, saying: "Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, / And yet I could not die" ("Ancient Mariner" 261-2). More importantly, however, the mariner’s anxiety about the story translates to the level of the framing narrative, although for different reasons. In the level of the framing narrative, the mariner experiences anxiety because of the compulsion to tell his tale that he experiences, not because he is unsure of the ending (583-5).

The mariner is also anxious that his tale will be heard — he insists that the wedding-guest listen, despite the fact that the guest has a prior commitment to attend his kinsman’s wedding — and that the wedding-guest should learn its moral, which he repeats twice to lend it emphasis (5-6, 13-14, 612-5). This anxiety about the compulsion to tell the tale and way in which it is to be received are similar to the anxiety that Coleridge seems to have about the Rime’s reception. Coleridge changed the text of "Ancient Mariner" significantly between the first (1798) edition, published in Lyrical Ballads, and the fifth (1817) edition, published in Sibylline Leaves. It is not the alterations in the text itself that change the details of the story that are relevant here, however. Rather, it is the changes in the way that Coleridge contextualizes the poem that are of concern. These changes include a modernization in spelling for words that had previously been spelled in an archaic manner and the addition of a marginal gloss and an epigram.

All of these changes seem to attempt to make the poem easier to understand. The modernization of spelling makes the poem more immediately accessible to the reader; the epigram places the mariner’s story in a cosmological context and starts the reader’s thoughts in a certain direction, which helps Coleridge to control the reader’s interpretation of the poem. The marginal gloss is perhaps the most interesting of the changes between the first and fifth texts of the poem. The set of notes that Coleridge provides cannot be simply explained as a convenience for the reader, although some of them may serve that purpose. Many of these notes, such as the gloss to line 119 ("the albatross begins to be avenged"), the gloss to lines 139-42 (which explains the significance of the albatross-necklace given to the mariner by the other sailors), and the gloss to lines 345-50 (which explains that the spirits animating the dead sailors were "angelic" and not demonic in nature) add additional material not present in the text of the poem itself. The interpretation of Coleridge’s motive most licensed by the text seems to be his desire to control the reader’s understanding of the poem.

In the end, the mariner is an idealized portrait of Coleridge as a poet, just as Kubla Khan is. As a storyteller, the mariner furnishes an example of the compelling nature of the perfect story. Although the wedding-guest wants to leave, and is so torn between hearing the story and attending his kinsman’s wedding that he beats his breast in anguish several times, he is unable to tear himself away from the mariner: "the mariner hath his will" of the guest (16). Just as the mariner experienced a series of terrible events on his voyage, Coleridge’s life was difficult. He struggled with addiction to opium, his marriage was sometimes difficult, and he certainly seems to have questioned the strength of his poetic gift. It is possible that, like the mariner, Coleridge experienced storytelling and creative urges in connection with feelings of guilt and failure and saw the creation of a poem as an act that is fundamentally cathartic and which expurgates guilt.

In that case, the mariner and Kubla Khan do not present fundamentally different images of Coleridge’s ideal of poetic inspiration, but different aspects of the same image: Kubla Khan is an image of an essentially creative aspect of Coleridge’s poetic function, while the mariner is an image of a broken and essentially conciliatory force. When seen in these terms, it seems that the mariner may be the image with which Coleridge most closely identified himself, but both are symbols of his creative process. References The Bible. Authorized (King James) Translation. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "Kubla Khan" in Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Critical Edition of the Major Works. Ed. H. J. Jackson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, in Seven Parts" (1798 text) in Romanticism: An Anthology, Second Edition. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1998. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

In Seven Parts" (1817 text) in Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Critical Edition of the Major Works. Ed. H. J. Jackson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Space for this page provided by Get your own free home page. This essay copyright © 2000-2007 by Patrick Mooney. Kubla Khan Poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Poem Hunter Kubla Khan Poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Poem Hunter Kubla Khan - Poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge 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. (1/9/2017 3:00:00 PM) tom allport a poem full of adventurous lines that is meant to continue on in many adventurous minds? truly fabulous writing. (Report) Reply (9/25/2016 5:59:00 AM) 'Kubla khan' is a great poem. In the introduction of The Lyrical Ballads (1798) , Wordsworth and Coleridge professed their points of view regarding the nature of lyric poetry and their own practical principle to be employed in their poems.

Wordsworth concerned himself with nature and human nature and Coleridge often wrote dream poems under the influence of opium and the poems also appeared to be fragmentary. Among the marvellous creations - The Rime of the ancient Mariner, Christabel (in two parts) , Kubla Khan are remarkable. Coleridge is an adept master in the realm of supernatural poetry and he is indebted to Spencer and medieval metrical romance. Kubla Khan, a vision in a dream is a fragmentary dream poem. It is about poetry and poetic inspiration. It is the most imaginative of Coleridge's poems. Swinburne observes, Every line of the poem might be subjected to the like scrutiny but the student would be none nearest to the master's secret. The spirit, the odour in it, the cloven tongue of fire that rests upon its forehead, is a thing neither explicable nor communicable. Kubla Khan is about two kinds of poetry. The first 36 lines are about naturalness, palpability and matter of factness of poetry. The second part of the poem is essentially concerned with divine inspiration. The last part is also on the theory of poetic inspiration and creativity.

The first part is concerned with the relation of man to nature. The second part is related to divine aspect of poetry. Herein lies the organic relations between the two parts. Kubla Khan is indeed a forerunner of modern poetry. There is a chain of ambiguous and paradoxical aspects of poetry and philosophy. Its fragmentary nature indicates its modernity. It is, in its depth, a definite comment on the modern world and its separation of head and heart, action and contemplation. Symbolism is the main criterion of Coleridge's poetical craftsmanship. G. Wilson Knight, in his illuminating article, Coleridge's Divine Comedy, has analysed the symbolism of the poem. Kubla Khan, the great oriental king once ordered that a magnificent pleasure dome be built for him in Xanadu as his summer capital. The sacred river, Alph winding its course through immeasurably deep caves ultimately to sink into a dark subterranean sea. A fertile tract of land, about ten square miles in area was enclosed with walls and towers. There are bright gardens and ancient forests forming a vast green spot. Next the poet describes the source of the river, Alph.

There was a deep, mysterious and fearsome chasm that slanted down a green hill. There are many cedar trees. It was a savage, holy and enchanted place, frequented by a woman desperately wandering about under a waning moon in search of her demon lover. A mighty fountain burst forth from this chasm intermittently. Huge rocks are bursting out of it with the sound of hail storm. The noise is tremendous. The Alph comes out of this fountain and flows for five miles through woods and valleys. Then it sinks into the sunless sea with a loud noise. In the midst of this noise, Kubla Khan could hear the ancestral voices predicting a war. The pleasure - dome was a sunny dome. It's shadow fell midway on the river. While standing here, one could hear the mingled noises from the fountain and the caves. In the second part of the poem, the poet gives a picture of a poet caught in poetic frenzy. Here Coleridge is dealing with the theory of poetic inspiration. In one vision, he saw an Abyssinian maid playing on her dulcimer and singing of the wild splendour of Mount Abora.

The pleasure dome for the poet is a miracle of art because it includes 'sunny-dome' and 'caves of ice' - life and death. Coleridge's concept of poetic frenzy is akin to Shakespearean vision. Humphrey House considers the poem a poetic creation about the ecstasy in imaginative fulfilment. The main metaphorical meaning of the poem is hidden in the concluding part. There is no doubt that Kubla Khan is basically a critical commentary on Plato's theory of poetry. There is the concept of madness in Plato's The Ion and Phaedrus again Shakespeare equates the poet, lover and the lunatic in the same category in A Mid Summer Night's Dream. The 'flashing eyes' and 'floating hair' of Coleridge's poem belong to a poet in the fury of creation. So there are verbal resemblances in the versions of Plato, Shakespeare and Coleridge. Socretes in his Ion compares lyric poets to 'Bacchie maidens who drew milk and honey from the rivers'. They acted under the influence of Dionysus.

In the final section, the poet speaks of a strange vision of an Abyssinian maid playing on her dulcimer and singing of the wild splendour of Mount Abora. The poet is caught in a mood of poetic frenzy with a paradise vision. The readers of inspiratory poetry will go round the poet three times to protect themselves from his magical frenzy. They will experience a kind of fear as one feels in the presence of God. It is holy fear because thought the poet is a magician, there is nothing evil about his magic. The poet seems to be fed and nourished on honey dew falling from the heaven. He drinks nectar, a sort of magical drink which produces divine inspiration in the form of melodious hymn. (Report) Reply Susan Williams (3/8/2016 3:15:00 PM) Coleridge finds a lot of his dramatic material for his poetry in nature. He sees POWER in the workings of nature. He's totally captivated by that power. He wants to duplicate the lightning strike, the intense winds that blow roofs off of houses, the formation of ice, the rampaging waters of a river in flood stage.

He doesn't want to just duplicate them, he wants his poetry to be them. That is typical opium using Coleridge for you. That's why his poems are so intense, emotional and rooted in the natural world. They definitely are not polite, quiet, regular type poems. Nope. He's wanting to create a riot of emotions instead of restraining it. Kubla Khan is probably the most intense, emotional, strange, power-ridden poem you'll ever read. Bringing all that raging power of nature into this is his not very subtle way to get you to think about love, death, the soul, and strange magnetic men called Kubla Khan. (Report) Reply Savita Tyagi (3/8/2016 6:47:00 AM) I read this poem many times and always wondered why Coldridge named it Kubla Khan. There may be many analysts for it but to me the name itself depicts the drama of life. A warrior's life is made up of war and destruction but there must be time for their softer emotions when they try to take care of this earth and admire all it's beauty. Replica of which they try to create.

This contrast of emotions crafted so skillfully in the images of this poem. Just a fantastic poem to read and read again. (Report) Reply Suresh Mohamed (12/22/2015 12:11:00 PM) An Anecdote goes, when Coleridge was writing Kubla Khan seated in his garden one day, he was experiencing the Muse on full flame, a marvellous training of thought was flowing, which Coleridge was so excitedly trying to note down, but hear a sudden thud on his garden gate and he walked up to find a certain Porlock was asking for direction. After assisting him, he sat down again, but he could not recall that train of thought, however hard he tried. Had Mr. Porlock did not disturb Coleridge, we might have gotten a better version of Kubla khan. Damn you, porlock! (Report) Reply (11/9/2014 11:16:00 PM) this is the poem that i was asked to review in my poetry exam!

ah (Report) Reply Terry Craddock (11/9/2014 7:59:00 PM) This poem still intrigues with the siren call of an incredibly powerful opium dream, I have loved these lines for decades and still long for the missing lines left unwritten by an ill timed strangers knock upon the door. (Report) Reply (11/9/2014 8:10:00 AM) A beautiful poem and it is more meaningful with reference to historical event.I liked it. (Report) Reply Frank Avon (11/9/2014 3:49:00 AM) If I had to choose THE best poem in the English language (and what a difficult task that would be!) , I would choose this one. I had to grow into it, however; at one time I thought it was very nearly a nonsense poem, crazy like a dream. But over the years, it has become more and more meaningful. It deals conclusively with Coleridge's favorite theme: the Imagination, its working and its importance.

Its subtlety and yet its accessibility, its intricate form and yet is quotability and simple syntax, its two dramatic parts which at first seem almost unrelated yet turn out to be complementary and perfectly unified - all of these aspects of the poem contribute to its overall quality. And, by the way, don't believe a word of Coleridge's excuse that it is incomplete. It is, indeed, complete and perfectly unified. It's readable and pleasurable without consulting any secondary sources, but if you want to know the sources of some of Coleridge's imagery and get a sense of what these images might have meant to him personally, consult John Livingstone Loewe's 'Road to Xanadu.' Also read the passage in the 'Biographia Literaria' which has to do with C's view of the 'commanding genius' and the creative (or imaginative) genius. Kublai Khan, of course, is the archetype of the 'commanding genius, ' one who hopes to create (or restore) an Eden, or Paradise on earth; the 'I' of the second part has the prospect of representing the creative (or imaginative) genius.

The 'damsel w/ the dulcimer' is, as it were, his Muse, or his imaginative mind. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, 'I' would build the Eden that Kublai Khan envisioned, but without its flaw ('that deep romantic chasm, ' 'a savage place') and without its being subject to the ravages of time ('Ancestral voices prophesying war') . With 'music loud and long, ' or with poetry or one of the other arts, he would call forth 'that dome in air, / That sunny dome') . Of course, the general public is always suspicious of the creative genius, rejecting him/her and attempting to restore common-sense order of things: For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. But even in their plaint they indirectly point to the success of his mission: the milk and honey of the Promised Land, the Paradise (the closing word of this complete, carefully crafted, imaginatively engrossing work of art) .

(Report) Reply Aftab Alam Khursheed (11/9/2014 3:11:00 AM) This poem is dream of STC yet Kubla Khan the Mongol Ruler established his kingdom in China..words are dreaming words very interesting this poem unlike Ancient Mariner very tough in its code AM is about the French Revolution and this is... lovely and famous poem of STC (Report) Reply Kevin Patrick (11/9/2012 10:54:00 PM) years ago I had a collection of romantic and victorian poetry this poem was in it, when I read it I could not help but think how similar it was to the lyrics to the RUSH song of the same name, and then I realized Neal Peart stolle it almost verbatum from this. Well he stole a masterful poem and turned it into a well crafted song.

But Rime of the ancient Mariner is still the best work Coleridge EVER wrote (Report) Reply Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” | Lisa Hager Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Posted on 5 February, 2014 by Lisa Hager Hi Dr. Hall’s English 215 Students! I’m looking forward to discussing Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with you next week! As you read these two poems, take a look at some of the digital resources that I’ve collected below to help you understand the cultural contexts of these poems as well as their continued influence in our own time. To hear the poem read by American poet Robert Kelly, click here: About the poem In the preface to Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep (1816), Coleridge descibes the composition of “Kubla Khan”: Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and The Vision of Sir Launfal (by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and James Russell Lowell). Published by Sampson Low, 1906. In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire.

In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in ‘Purchas’s Pilgrimage:’ ‘Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto: and thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.’ The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved.

At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter: Then all the charm Is broken—all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth! who scarcely dar’st lift up thine eyes– The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon The visions will return! And lo! he stays, And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once more The pool becomes a mirror. Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had been originally, as it were, given to him. but the to-morrow is yet to come.

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep. 2nd ed. William Bulmer, London, 1816. (Reproduced in The Complete Poems, Ed. William Keach, Penguin Books, 2004) Opium The “anodyne” that Coleridge mentions above is opium, a drug that was commonly prescribed for various illnesses throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in England. History of Opium Brief timeline of opium trade from 3400 B.C. to 1996: General history of the opium poppy from the U.K’s Kew Gardens: For more information on opium trade in the eighteenth-century British empire, take a look at this presentation: Xanadu John Speed, “The Kingdome of China,” 1626. The poem gives us a detailed description of Kublai Khan’s summer palace, Xanadu.

Coleridge’s vision of this place is based on Samuel Purchas’ Purchas, his Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World and Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discovered, from the Creation to the Present, which in turn was based on the account by the famous explorer Marco Polo. The Wikipedia page on the poem has excerpts from both of these texts. . Pop Music Franky Goes to Hollywood, the band well-known for the song “ Relax ,” used Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” as the inspiration for the their song “Welcome to the Pleasuredome.” Film On the slightly wacky side of life, Xanadu is also the name of a 1980 film starring Olivia Newton John (who also played Sandy in the movie version of Grease) and Gene Kelly, in which a Greek muse helps an artist create a disco roller rink. The film also included a song by the same name, “ Xanadu .” Here’s the trailer for the film: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner As you read the poem for the first time, here are a few images and other media to consider.

Also, since much of the poem involves lengthy descriptions of intense winter storms (with which we are all too familiar in Wisconsin), I encourage you have something warm to drink, like hot chocolate or tea, while you read this poem. A ghost ship grounded ashore is covered in ice. Photograph by L & A Schaul. From National Geographic Education. A statue of the Ancient Mariner, with the albatross around his neck, at Watchet, Somerset. Illustrations Gustave Doré (a popular engraving artist of the day) illustrated the poem. The poem with illustrations can be viewed here: Film Again, on the slightly wacky side of life, check out this 1977 experimental film by Larry Jordan which uses Dore’s engravings and is narrated by Orson Welles. Part One Kubla Khan - Poems | Academy of American Poets Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets.

For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization. browse poems & poets sign up to receive a new poem-a-day in your inbox sign up read this poet's poems Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a leader of the British Romantic movement, was born on October 21, 1772, in Devonshire, England. His father, a vicar of a parish and master of a grammar school, married twice and had fourteen children. The youngest child in the family, Coleridge was a student at his father's school and an avid reader. After his father died in 1781, Coleridge attended Christ's Hospital School in London, where he met lifelong friend Charles Lamb. While in London, he also befriended a classmate named Tom Evans, who introduced Coleridge to his family. Coleridge fell in love with Tom's older sister, Mary.

Coleridge's father had always wanted his son to be a clergyman, so when Coleridge entered Jesus College, University of Cambridge in 1791, he focused on a future in the Church of England. Coleridge's views, however, began to change over the course of his first year at Cambridge. He became a supporter of William Frend, a Fellow at the college whose Unitarian beliefs made him a controversial figure. While at Cambridge, Coleridge also accumulated a large debt, which his brothers eventually had to pay off. Financial problems continued to plague him throughout his life, and he constantly depended on the support of others. En route to Wales in June 1794, Coleridge met a student named Robert Southey. Striking an instant friendship, Coleridge postponed his trip for several weeks, and the men shared their philosophical ideas. Influenced by Plato's Republic, they constructed a vision of pantisocracy (equal government by all), which involved emigrating to the New World with ten other families to set up a commune on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.

Coleridge and Southey envisioned the men sharing the workload, a great library, philosophical discussions, and freedom of religious and political beliefs. After finally visiting Wales, Coleridge returned to England to find that Southey had become engaged to a woman named Edith Fricker. As marriage was an integral part of the plan for communal living in the New World, Coleridge decided to marry another Fricker daughter, Sarah. Coleridge wed in 1795, in spite of the fact that he still loved Mary Evans, who was engaged to another man. Coleridge's marriage was unhappy and he spent much of it apart from his wife. During that period, Coleridge and Southey collaborated on a play titled The Fall of Robespierre (1795). While the pantisocracy was still in the planning stages, Southey abandoned the project to pursue his legacy in law. Left without an alternative plan, Coleridge spent the next few years beginning his career as a writer. He never returned to Cambridge to finish his degree. In 1795 Coleridge befriended William Wordsworth , who greatly influenced Coleridge's verse.

Coleridge, whose early work was celebratory and conventional, began writing in a more natural style. In his "conversation poems," such as "The Eolian Harp" and "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," Coleridge used his intimate friends and their experiences as subjects. The following year, Coleridge published his first volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, and began the first of ten issues of a liberal political publication entitled The Watchman. From 1797 to 1798 he lived near Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, in Somersetshire. In 1798 the two men collaborated on a joint volume of poetry entitled Lyrical Ballads. The collection is considered the first great work of the Romantic school of poetry and contains Coleridge's famous poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." That autumn the two poets traveled to the Continent together. Coleridge spent most of the trip in Germany, studying the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Jakob Boehme, and G. E. Lessing. While there he mastered the German language and began translating. When he returned to England in 1800, he settled with family and friends at Keswick.

Over the next two decades Coleridge lectured on literature and philosophy, wrote about religious and political theory, spent two years on the island of Malta as a secretary to the governor in an effort to overcome his poor health and his opium addiction, and lived off of financial donations and grants. Still addicted to opium, he moved in with the physician James Gillman in 1816. In 1817, he published Biographia Literaria, which contained his finest literary criticism. He continued to publish poetry and prose, notably Sibylline Leaves (1817), Aids to Reflection (1825), and Church and State (1830). He died in London on July 25, 1834.

Selected Bibliography Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision; The Pains of Sleep (1816) Fears in Solitude (1798) Lyrical Ballads, with a few Other Poems (1798) Poems (1803) Poems on Various Subjects (1796) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Oxford Authors (1985) Selections from the Sybilline Leaves of S. T. Coleridge (1827) Sibylline Leaves: A Collection of Poems (1817) Sonnets from various authors (1796) The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1969) The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1912) The Devil's Walk: A Poem (1830) The Literary Remains in Prose and Verse of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1839) The Poetical Works of S. T.

Coleridge (1828) Prose A Moral and Political Lecture (1795) Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character (1825) Biographia Literaria, or Biographical Sketches of my Literary Life and Opinions (1817) Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1973) Conciones ad Populum, or Addresses to the People (1795) Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (1841) Essays on His Own Times; forming a second series of "The Friend," (1850) Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive Theory of Life (1848) On the Constitution of Church and State (1830) Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Selected Letters (1987) Seven Lectures upon Shakespeare and Milton (1856) Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835) The Friend: A Literary, Moral, and Political Weekly Paper (1810) The Friend; A Series of Essays (1812) The Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1895) The Notebooks

 of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1957) The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1949) The Plot Discovered, or an Address to the People Against Ministerial Treason (1795) The Statesman's Manual, or The Bible the Best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight: A Lay Sermon (1816) Unpublished Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1932) Zapolya: A Christmas Tale (1817) Drama Remorse, A Tragedy, in Five Acts (1813) The Fall of Robespierre.

An Historic Drama (1794) Periodicals Somerset: Walking with Coleridge and the Person from Porlock | adcochrane Somerset: Walking with Coleridge and the Person from Porlock Alex Cochrane / August 2, 2016 Trees, sea marsh, coast – Porlock Walk in parts of Devon and Somerset and you walk the footsteps, opium dreams and Romantic poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Exmoor, the Quantock Hills, the coastal path, old stone farmhouses, combes, brooks, dramatic cliffs: all inspired him as he conceived and wrote his finest poems, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kublai Khan. (You can click on images marked with STC in captions for Coleridge poetry quotes that accompany the images) Coleridge was revolutionary, not just in his politics and poetry but also in his epic walks. At the time walking was an unavoidable chore for poor people, not a pleasure or choice. He walked to explore, to observe nature, to think about his work and perhaps also battle his depression.

The tourist board does not hesitate to exploit the literary connections; adding to the scourging arguments of those hostile to the branding and heritage takeover of British countryside. But that’s merely a layer to the network of ancient paths used for centuries by walkers, poets, saints, farmers, hunters and villagers. Yes there’s cider in quaint wood-beamed pubs and cream teas in National Trust thatched cottages. But there’s also mysterious old springs covered in green lichen that once slaked the thirst of wandering saints. There are tiny churches in the woods, rising out of the valleys with overgrown forgotten graves and boards on the walls so worn the writing has disappeared. You push through soaking waist-high bracken watched by brown, semi-wild Exmoor ponies. You walk, slightly disconcerted, along the tops of dramatic cliffs that dive down to tiny coves before climbing, wearily, back up again. It is something to walk these same paths as all those before you in time, to see the same things that inspired such poetry, to feel the joy of words yet understand their limits.

Sister’s Fountain: deep in the woods, said to give Joseph of Arimathea some refreshment when on his way to Glastonbury Beautiful water feature at Lynton STC: Combe, East Lyn River, Somerset STC: Woods, Coleridge Way Church graveyard: Parish St John the Evangelist Counitsbury Porlock in Somerset Omens in the Valley of Rocks We sleep in the Valley of Rocks with its steep curves of heathland topped by strange rock formations. A sunset floods the valley with a surge of vivid green light. The prevailing winds are captured in the twist and bent of stubby trees. There’s the noise, like fighting with sticks, of the satanic looking goats as they semi-fight with their horns, and then nimbly walk the cliffs, carefree of disaster only a false step away. Night draws in and the lights of Wales twinkle on the other side of the channel. Faraway needles of fire flare from the steelworks. A shadow of a ship silently slips by. I lie with the night breeze caressing my face and ruffling my hair. Sleep does not come but the rain does, soft at first and then impossible to ignore.

We beat a dignified retreat to a shelter, appropriately called Poet’s Shelter. We stretched out along the benches and fall sleep. We are woken by a crash of thunder and violent rain sweeping halfway into the shelter. It is a premonition, perhaps even an announcement. My phone bleeps with a message coming through from the real world. Brexit. Coleridge would have shrugged his shoulders at this latest convulsion in Europe. In his time Europe was burning with fevered radicalism and dangerous ideas; fuelled by war, the terror and adrenaline of the French Revolution and independence in America. He would have eaten his breakfast and discussed everything over a walk. And so did we. STC: View from the Coleridge Way over the Bristol Channel and into Wales – click for some Coleridge verse! View from a sleeping bag: sunset at the Valley of Rocks Tree along the Coleridge Way, Somerset STC: Statue of the ancient mariner at Watchet Harbour, Somerset Cliff scenery on the South West Coast Path near Lynton Church graveyard: Parish St John the Evangelist Counitsbury STC: Falls, pools and dells.

East Lyn River, Somerset The Person from Porlock One day in 1797 a man left Porlock and walked to a farmhouse where an ill Coleridge was staying. Coleridge had taken opium and fallen asleep for a few hours, half-dreaming half-hallucinating of Xanadu, the summer palace of the Chinese emperor Kublai Khan. In his dream he composed three hundred lines of poetry and when he awoke began writing them down. A poem of a poem in a vision of an opium dream. He wrote 54 lines and then the Person from Porlock knocked on the door and broke the spell. When Coleridge returned to his work the remaining lines “had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast”. The strange hallucinatory lines of Kublai Khan was eventually regarded as great romantic poetry, infamous for the drugs and the mystery surrounding its composition. Who was the Person from Porlock? It could have been Coleridge’s doctor who supplied him with opium, or his friend and fellow-poet Wordsworth. Another suggestion is that the person never existed.

Coleridge simply got stuck; or he invented the person to justify the fragmented nature of the poem; or the fragment reflects the limit of imagination to truly reflect reality. Ambiguous meanings morph and spiral into a circle. Whatever the case the Person from Porlock was born and has never stopped visiting; often representing a mundanity or a disruptive influence on the creative process. The person appears in Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse, Lolita and The Sandman. The poet and novelist Robert Graves wished the person had interrupted more poets. Douglas Adams has the person as a time-traveller, distracting Coleridge from accidentally revealing alien information that could threaten life on Earth. But the person is more than just a visitor to artists and creatives. Who hasn’t drifted through vivid daydreams or narcotic reveries, shining in their brilliance and colour, only to emerge into a greyer, flatter reality? Who has not stumbled through a sluggish working day after soaring through weird and wonderful dreams of the night before, their memory fading but their mood still lingering? In this respect our friend from Porlock visits us all.

Share this: Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Poet | Academy of American Poets Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization. browse poems & poets read this poet's poems Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a leader of the British Romantic movement, was born on October 21, 1772, in Devonshire, England. His father, a vicar of a parish and master of a grammar school, married twice and had fourteen children. The youngest child in the family, Coleridge was a student at his father's school and an avid reader. After his father died in 1781, Coleridge attended Christ's Hospital School in London, where he met lifelong friend Charles Lamb.

While in London, he also befriended a classmate named Tom Evans, who introduced Coleridge to his family. Coleridge fell in love with Tom's older sister, Mary. Coleridge's father had always wanted his son to be a clergyman, so when Coleridge entered Jesus College, University of Cambridge in 1791, he focused on a future in the Church of England. Coleridge's views, however, began to change over the course of his first year at Cambridge. He became a supporter of William Frend, a Fellow at the college whose Unitarian beliefs made him a controversial figure. While at Cambridge, Coleridge also accumulated a large debt, which his brothers eventually had to pay off. Financial problems continued to plague him throughout his life, and he constantly depended on the support of others. En route to Wales in June 1794, Coleridge met a student named Robert Southey. Striking an instant friendship, Coleridge postponed his trip for several weeks, and the men shared their philosophical ideas.

Influenced by Plato's Republic, they constructed a vision of pantisocracy (equal government by all), which involved emigrating to the New World with ten other families to set up a commune on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. Coleridge and Southey envisioned the men sharing the workload, a great library, philosophical discussions, and freedom of religious and political beliefs. After finally visiting Wales, Coleridge returned to England to find that Southey had become engaged to a woman named Edith Fricker. As marriage was an integral part of the plan for communal living in the New World, Coleridge decided to marry another Fricker daughter, Sarah. Coleridge wed in 1795, in spite of the fact that he still loved Mary Evans, who was engaged to another man. Coleridge's marriage was unhappy and he spent much of it apart from his wife. During that period, Coleridge and Southey collaborated on a play titled The Fall of Robespierre (1795). While the pantisocracy was still in the planning stages, Southey abandoned the project to pursue his legacy in law.

Left without an alternative plan, Coleridge spent the next few years beginning his career as a writer. He never returned to Cambridge to finish his degree. In 1795 Coleridge befriended William Wordsworth , who greatly influenced Coleridge's verse. Coleridge, whose early work was celebratory and conventional, began writing in a more natural style. In his "conversation poems," such as "The Eolian Harp" and "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," Coleridge used his intimate friends and their experiences as subjects. The following year, Coleridge published his first volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, and began the first of ten issues of a liberal political publication entitled The Watchman. From 1797 to 1798 he lived near Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, in Somersetshire. In 1798 the two men collaborated on a joint volume of poetry entitled Lyrical Ballads. The collection is considered the first great work of the Romantic school of poetry and contains Coleridge's famous poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." That autumn the two poets traveled to the Continent together.

Coleridge spent most of the trip in Germany, studying the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Jakob Boehme, and G. E. Lessing. While there he mastered the German language and began translating. When he returned to England in 1800, he settled with family and friends at Keswick. Over the next two decades Coleridge lectured on literature and philosophy, wrote about religious and political theory, spent two years on the island of Malta as a secretary to the governor in an effort to overcome his poor health and his opium addiction, and lived off of financial donations and grants. Still addicted to opium, he moved in with the physician James Gillman in 1816. In 1817, he published Biographia Literaria, which contained his finest literary criticism. He continued to publish poetry and prose, notably Sibylline Leaves (1817), Aids to Reflection (1825), and Church and State (1830). He died in London on July 25, 1834.

Selected Bibliography Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision; The Pains of Sleep (1816) Fears in Solitude (1798) Lyrical Ballads, with a few Other Poems (1798) Poems (1803) Poems on Various Subjects (1796) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Oxford Authors (1985) Selections from the Sybilline Leaves of S. T. Coleridge (1827) Sibylline Leaves: A Collection of Poems (1817) Sonnets from various authors (1796) The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1969) The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1912) The Devil's Walk: A Poem (1830) The Literary Remains in Prose and Verse of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1839) The Poetical Works of S. T.

Coleridge (1828) Prose A Moral and Political Lecture (1795) Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character (1825) Biographia Literaria, or Biographical Sketches of my Literary Life and Opinions (1817) Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1973) Conciones ad Populum, or Addresses to the People (1795) Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (1841) Essays on His Own Times; forming a second series of "The Friend," (1850) Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive Theory of Life (1848) On the Constitution of Church and State (1830) Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Selected Letters (1987) Seven Lectures upon Shakespeare and Milton (1856) Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835) The Friend: A Literary, Moral, and Political Weekly Paper (1810) The Friend; A Series of Essays (1812) The Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1895) The Notebooks

 of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1957) The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1949) The Plot Discovered, or an Address to the People Against Ministerial Treason (1795) The Statesman's Manual, or The Bible the Best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight: A Lay Sermon (1816) Unpublished Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1932) Zapolya: A Christmas Tale (1817) Drama Remorse, A Tragedy, in Five Acts (1813) The Fall of Robespierre.

An Historic Drama (1794) Periodicals

Question: Who wrote the poems Kublai Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Answer: Samuel Taylor Coleridge