Kubla Khan

BY SA MUEL TAYLO R CO LER IDG E

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

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 eer 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 threshers 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

Kubla Khan

Coleridge (1814)

"Kubla Khan" es un poema de Samuel Taylor Coleridge terminado en 1797 y publicado en

"Christabel, Kubla Khan, y Los dolores del sueo" en 1816.
Segn el prefacio de Coleridge, el poema fue concebido en un sueo, bajo la influencia
del opio y despus de leer una biografa del Gran Kan del Imperio mongol Kublai Khan. Al
despertar, empez a escribir los 300 versos soados hasta que fue interrumpido por un
visitante de Porlock.1 Una hora despus el visitante finalmente se march pero Coleridge solo
lleg a escribir unos ltimos versos antes de olvidar las lneas restantes. Sea o no cierto, lo
ms probable es que el poema, cincuenta y tantos versos rimados e irregulares,
de prosodia exquisita como lo defini Jorge Luis Borges en su ensayo El sueo de Coleridge,
fuera compuesto durante el otoo de 1797, pero permaneci indito hasta 1816 cuando,
gracias a George Gordon Byron, fue puesto a disposicin del pblico.
Considerado una de las principales expresiones del romanticismo, el poema es diferente en
estilo y forma a otros poemas compuestos por Coleridge. Si bien Kubla Khan se subtitula un

"fragmento", carece de los aspectos fragmentarios de otros poemas de Coleridge. En su lugar,

su carcter incompleto representa los aspectos del proceso creativo a travs de su forma y su
mensaje.
La primera estrofa del poema describe la cpula de placer construida por Khan en su
capital Xanad junto a un ro sagrado, el Alfeo, que alimentaba una magnfica fuente y corre
a travs de cavernas inmensurables para el hombre, hacia abajo, hacia un mar sin sol.2 La
segunda estrofa del poema es la respuesta del narrador a la embriagadora cancin de una
doncella de Abisinia, que lo deja incapaz de seguir su inspiracin a menos que pudiera orla
una vez ms.
El palacio un milagro de raro diseo, una soleada mansin de placer con cuevas de hielo
est encerrado por murallas circulares: la imagen de crculo que denota perfeccin se
repite a lo largo del poema, que es en el fondo una glorificacin de la creacin natural en
contraste con la creacin humana.
Borges seala otra simetra en la creacin: seala que en una pgina del Compendio de
historias de Rashid el-Din, que data del siglo XIV se lea que "Al este de Shang-tu, Kublai
Khan erigi un palacio, segn un plano que haba visto en un sueo y que guardaba en la
memoria. As, Un emperador mogol, en el siglo XIII, suea un palacio y lo edifica conforme
a la visin; en el siglo XVIII, un poeta ingls que no pudo saber que esa fbrica se deriv de
un sueo, suea un poema sobre el palacio.
La crtica moderna, con algunas excepciones, ven en Kubla Khan uno de los tres grandes
poemas de Coleridge, junto a La balada del viejo marinero y Christabel. Algunos crticos
argumentan que es nico en la poesa de lengua inglesa y uno de sus ms grandes poemas,
pero otros afirman que est sobrestimado. No es el caso de los contemporneos de Coleridge,
que en su mayora denunciaron el poema tras su publicacin o cuestionaron las declaraciones
de Coleridge acerca de su origen, pero Kubla Khan fue publicado originalmente debido a que
muchos de sus amigos consideraron, tras serles ledo por su autor, que el poema era
maravilloso. No fue hasta aos ms tarde cuando los crticos comenzaron a admirarlo
abiertamente.

KUBLA KHAN SUMMARY

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This poem describes Xanadu, the palace of Kubla Khan, a Mongol emperor and the grandson of Genghis Khan. The poem's speaker starts by
describing the setting of Emperor's palace, which he calls a "pleasure dome." He tells us about a river that runs across the land and then flows
through some underground caves and into the sea. He also tells us about the fertile land that surrounds the palace. The nearby area is
covered in streams, sweet-smelling trees, and beautiful forests.
Then the speaker gets excited about the river again and tells us about the canyon through which it flows. He makes it into a spooky, haunted
place, where you might find a "woman wailing for her demon lover." He describes how the river leaps and smashes through the canyon, first
exploding up into a noisy fountain and then finally sinking down and flowing through those underground caves into the ocean far away.
The speaker then goes on to describe Kubla Khan himself, who is listening to this noisy river and thinking about war. All of a sudden, the
speaker moves away from this landscape and tells us about another vision he had, where he saw a woman playing an instrument and singing.
The memory of her song fills him with longing, and he imagines himself singing his own song, using it to create a vision of Xanadu.
Toward the end, the poem becomes more personal and mysterious, as the speaker describes past visions he has had. This brings him to a

final image of a terrifying figure with flashing eyes. This person, Kubla Khan, is a powerful being who seems almost godlike: "For he on honeydew hath fed/And drunk the milk of paradise" (53-54).

STANZA I (LINES 1-11)

SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 1-2
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:

Here's the famous opener.

This line gets a lot of work done quickly. It introduces us to the title character (Kubla Khan), and begins to describe the amazing
setting of the poem (Xanadu).

That "stately pleasure dome decree" means that he had a really fancy and beautiful palace built.

We want you to know right away that Coleridge is actually talking about a real place and a real guy.

Kubla Khan was the grandson of the legendary Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan, and he built a summer palace (called Xanadu, in
English) in Mongolia.

Marco Polo visited Xanadu, and helped to start the legend of its magnificence.

We're starting with actual history here, although by Coleridge's time Xanadu is already a bit of a legend.

Keep this little historical nugget in mind, as you read. Does this feel like a real place and a real person? Or does it seem completely
imaginary? Maybe a little of both?

Lines 3-5
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

The speaker begins to describe the geography of Xanadu. He starts by introducing us to the River Alph.

There's certainly no river in Mongolia by this name. Some scholars think that this is an allusion to the river Alpheus, a river in
Greece that was made famous in classical literature.

The name "Alph" might also make us think of the Greek letter "Alpha" which is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and a symbol
of beginnings.

These associations, and the fact that the river has a name at all, really make the Alph stand out in the beginning of this poem.

Notice how Coleridge is already stepping away from history: he is transforming this place, this person, and this story into his own
creation.

"Kubla Khan" is definitely a poem as much about the journeys of the mind and the imagination as it is about the real world.

If this is partly an imaginary landscape, how does the poem's speaker make it look and feel? When he talks about "caverns
measureless to man" we get a sense that this landscape is both huge and unknowable.

That slightly spooky feeling continues when we get to the "sunless sea." That's a pretty gloomy image to start out with, and it casts
a shadow over these first few lines. It also gives us a sense of being in an imaginary landscape, because where else could a sea
always be "sunless" and never bright or cheerful, or any of the other things a sea can be?

Also, check out how much shorter line 5 is than all the others. In a poem where all the lines have a carefully planned length, short
lines stand out and make us take notice. It makes this image just a little lonelier. It also makes this line into more of a dead end, a
stopping place, just like the sea is for the River Alph.

Lines 6-11
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.

Now things become a little more cheerful.

The speaker takes us away from those gloomy, endless caverns, and tells us a little bit about the gardens around the palace.

You might have noticed that the language gets fancy here. A "sinuous rill" (line 3) is really just a twisty stream.

Coleridge often uses beautiful language to illustrate simple underlying concepts.

Here, the speaker is setting up a contrast between the scary, strange caverns and the pleasant, familiar space around the palace.
He describes how the palace is "girdled" (that just means surrounded) by walls and towers. While the caverns were "measureless"
(line 4) this space can be measured very precisely at "twice five miles."

Everything about this place feels safe and happy. It's protected by the walls, it's "fertile," the gardens are "bright," even the trees
smell good ("incense-bearing").

Even though the forests are "ancient" the speaker manages to make them seem comforting too, since he tells us they are
"enfolding sunny spots of greenery" (line 11).

Notice how the idea of "enfolding" echoes the sense of "girdled." The forest wraps around those little sunny spots and keeps them
safe, just like the walls wrap around the palace and keep it safe.

The natural world outside is wild and strange, but within the palace walls things are peaceful and protected.

STANZA II (LINES 12-30)

SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 12-16
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!

Then, just like that, we get pulled back into the wild, slightly scary natural world. The speaker takes us back to the river Alph, which
is beginning to seem almost like a character in this poem.

Xanadu is located in a valley surrounded by hills. The river cascades down the side of one of these hills, cutting a "deep chasm," or
canyon, through it.

The chasm cuts a path "athwart a cedarn cover" which means that the entire hillside is covered in cedar trees. This river is violent
and uncontrollable, completely unlike those poky little rills we heard about it line eight.

The speaker seems to be pulled toward this river like a magnet. He could have imagined himself sitting in those gardens, having
someone feed him grapes.

But it's the "romantic" chasm that appeals to him, and gives the poem its life.

Can you feel how excited the speaker is when he talks about the river?

One way Coleridge tips us off to his excitement is with all of those exclamation points. They are all over the place in the first few
lines of this section.

Look at just two examples: "a cedarn cover!"(line 13), "a savage place!"(line 14). The exclamation points really make those images
pop out at you, don't they?

And how about that woman, the demon lover, and that waning moon?

The speaker is using them to let us know just how romantic and spooky the chasm really is.

Our speaker wants us to imagine a woman, maybe even the ghost of a woman, since she haunts this place.

Maybe she has been cursed, or has had a spell cast on her, and she has fallen in love with an evil spirit.

If this woman wanted to scream about her terrible fate, to let out all her sadness and her anger and her longing, where would she
go? She'd go to a place just like this: a lonely, wild canyon, where no one could hear her but the "waning moon" (that just means
the moon is getting smaller).

These images are really intense, and it gives us a little glimpse of a whole new story.

The speaker isn't saying that any of these things are there in the poem; he's saying that this is the kind of place where they would
be at home.

He's coloring the mood of the landscape, not introducing new characters, so don't let the details throw you off too much.

Remember that we're hearing a description of a dream or a vision.

Have you ever been at that moment where you're about to fall asleep and something flashes across your mind? One minute it's
there, and its really intense, maybe as intense as this woman and her demon. Then the next minute it's gone, just like the woman
in this poem.

Lines 17-24
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.

More about this river. Seriously, he really likes it. Apparently it comes rushing down the hillside at every moment ("momently") like a
"fountain."

Of course, rivers don't usually stop moving, so Coleridge doesn't need to tell us that it flows at every moment. However, he wants
us to think of the river not as something continuous, but as something that is created each moment.

The speaker wants us to focus on the wild, rushing, violent excitement of the water.

Coleridge and his poet-friends, the Romantics, loved scenes like this, where the tremendous power of nature is unleashed and we
get to watch.

Coleridge gets so carried away by this scene that he turns the earth into a kind of "seething," "breathing" animal.

The rushing water becomes the sound of its "fast thick pants," as if the earth were really tired from doing a lot of exercise. He really
wants you to hear and almost feel the rushing force of that river.

You can't just dip into an image like this. It's like trying to get a drink from a fire hose.

Coleridge keeps this intensity up line after line, plunging us into the river again and again.

After a while, this turns into a snowstorm of images and analogies.

Apparently the river is bouncing off the rocks, which reminds the speaker of the clatter of hail, or grain raining down out of the air as
it is being separated from the chaff.

We could dig into each one of these images, and we definitely wouldn't want to stop you from looking as closely as possible at
every one of these lines. But we think what the speaker is really after here is a feeling.

Do you feel the rushing of the river, the crash of the water against the rocks?

If yes, then the poem is doing its job. Each image is meant to drive home that feeling of wild natural force.

In a sense these lines are like a symphony a rush of feeling and sound and excitement that's meant to pick you up and carry you
along.

Lines 25-28
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:

Suddenly things calm down a little.

Our favorite river reaches the flat plain of the valley where Xanadu is located, and it begins to "meander with a mazy motion" (line
25).

So, now we've gotten the whole story of the river, from the perspective of someone in Xanadu.

The first glimpse is of the river rushing down a deep canyon cut into a wooded hillside. The water is moving fast and furious, almost
like a waterfall, but not quite so steep. It bounces off rocks and creates a lot of big ruckus.

The river then flattens out and turns into a proper river, flowing gently through Xanadu for five miles until it reaches a bunch of
caves or "caverns."

Nobody knows how deep these caverns are. They are so huge you couldn't possibly measure them. But we do know that they
seem to contain an underground ocean, into which the river flows.
See all those "m" sounds? We call that repetition of the first sound in a word "alliteration."

Coleridge has gotten us all worked up, and now, to show us he can, he slows it all down.

One minute the river's making a "fast thick pant," then it's lazy and murmuring in the woods and dales.

You know how some pop songs start out quiet, build up until they are fast and loud and then quiet down again?

That's what's happening here. The speaker took us up to peak, and now he's taking us down again, circling back to the quiet,
spooky images that started the poem.

To bring this idea home, the speaker repeats the phrase "caverns measureless to man" that we first heard in line 4. Remember that
"sunless sea" in line 5? It's back too, this time as a "lifeless ocean" (line 28).

Different words, same gloomy idea.

Lines 29-30
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

Coleridge could have ended the poem there, with that "lifeless ocean."

In that case, it would have been almost perfectly symmetrical.

But what fun would that be? This is supposed to an intense vision, after all.

Plus, what about Kubla, our title character? It almost seems like Coleridge has forgotten him.

Well now he's back, in the last two lines of this section. As the poem's pace slows down, the "tumult" of the river becomes an echo
of the intense rush we just felt.

Like us, Kubla listens from a distance, and what does he hear? "Ancestral voices prophesying war" (line 30).

This is Genghis Khan's grandson, after all, so he probably spent a lot of time thinking about war, even when he wasn't listening to
rushing rivers.

This new image takes us away from the river, and into the even wilder second half of the poem. Think this is all a little strange
already? Just wait!

STANZA III (LINES 31-54)

SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this poem line-by-line.
Line 31-34
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

Now we rise up and zoom out, looking across the "dome of pleasure" and the shadow it is casting on the ocean.

Coleridge is starting to have fun here, taking all the elements he has introduced so far and scrambling them together.

In just four lines we get the waves, the caves, the fountain, the dome. Everything is mixed up, including the different sounds of the
river, which make a "mingled measure."

All this mingling shows up in the rhyme and the meter of the poem too.

These lines make a good example. Now, they do have an even rhyme scheme. Just look at the last words in each line: pleasure,
waves, measure, caves ABAB.

But this is different from most of the rest of the poem, which uses all kinds of other rhyme schemes. Plus these four lines have a
varying number of syllables.

There really is a kind of music in this poem, but it is strange and irregular, basically, a "mingled measure."

We'll be the first to admit that Coleridge seems to be taking himself pretty seriously here, but if you look around the edges, he's
playing around a little bit too.

Lines 35-36
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

These two quick lines bring up that same obsession with contrasts that we saw with the palace and the river.

In the opening lines, the speaker never said anything about the caves being cold, or the dome being hot, but he goes out of his
way to makes these points here.

Actually there's a whole world of contrasts between the dome and the caverns: Natural vs. man-made, above ground and below
ground, symmetrical and irregular, sunny and frozen.

This is what gives the poem a lot of its energy: opposites clashing together and then making a weird kind of harmony.

Lines 37-41
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.

Now the poem takes a major turn.

Without any warning, the speaker changes the subject. He starts to describe another vision that he once had.

In this vision he sees a girl. He tells us three things about her, in three lines: 1) She was Abyssinian (that's an old way of saying
Ethiopian). 2) She was playing a dulcimer (an instrument with strings that you pluck or hit with a mallet). 3) She was singing about
a place called Mt. Abora (a name that Coleridge made up).

That's a pretty clear description in some ways, but what are we supposed to take away from it? Why does this combination of
images matter? Why does it show up here?

One way to look at these lines would be to dig around and see if there's a kind of code here.

For example, where and what is Mt. Abora?

Some people think the speaker is referring to a real place in Ethiopia, some think it's a biblical reference, and others tie it to a place
that Milton mentions in Paradise Lost.

You could ask the same questions about the other parts of this vision.

Why is she from Ethiopia, what does the dulcimer symbolize?

We think this question is important, but we also think that this part of the poem is also meant to be personal and mysterious.

Coleridge could definitely have been more explicit if he wanted to.

In one sense, though, all dreams and visions are private, and they can't be completely explained. That sense of mystery is part of
what makes this poem beautiful.

Lines 42-48
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,

Now the speaker looks back on the powerful music he heard in that vision.

He can describe it to us, but he can't really get back to experiencing that intense feeling. And yet he's longing for that experience,
for the sense of wonder that disappeared with that vision.

The speaker wants to "revive" the music, to bring it back to life. If he could tap into the power of that vision, he imagines that it
would inspire him, and allow him to create amazing things himself.

The music of the Abyssinian maid would fill him, and he could make his own "music loud and long" (line 45). This music would let
him bring back the spirit of Xanadu, to "build that dome in air" (line 46).

This all sounds pretty strange at first. When you think about it, though, this is a great description of what artists do.

Composers, poets, musicians all build things in the air. They use words or sounds to make their visions come to life.

Even though the speaker says he wishes he could do relive the musical experience, that's actually what Coleridge is doing in this
poem.

He uses his words to transport us, like he says on line 48: 'And all who heard should see them there."

Line 49-54
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.

But this vision isn't just about a dome. When the speaker calls up Xanadu, he also calls up a strange spirit, and this other creature
is a lot scarier than the palace, the caverns, or the ocean.

You know in those horror movies when a bunch of kids say a magic word three times and call up an evil creature? That's pretty
much the idea here.

The speaker imagines that his vision has become so real that it can actually scare people, and make them cry out "Beware,
Beware!" (line 49).

He describes a terrifying figure, complete with "flashing eyes" and "floating hair" (line 50).

This creature is so scary that you have to perform rituals to protect yourself from a demon: "Weave a circle round him thrice" (line
51).

Who is this weird spirit?

The speaker doesn't say, exactly. He might be talking about himself.

Maybe his song and his vision have become so powerful that he has turned into a kind of god, eating "honey-dew" and drinking
"the milk of Paradise" (line 54).

Maybe these images are reference the opium Coleridge took, which made this vision possible in the first place.

Or maybe this is a final vision of Kubla Khan, turned into some kind of strange new creature.

What really sticks with us though, is that super-intense image, made even more exciting by its mysterious description.

THE RIVER ALPH

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Symbol Analysis
This big, dramatic river takes over most of the first half of the poem. Our speaker is a fan he seems to be constantly drawn back to the river.
Descriptions of the river largely focus on how powerful it is. It gives us the poem's main images of the force and excitement of the natural
world. While other places may be quiet or safe or calm, the river is noisy, active, and even a little dangerous. It is also always moving, traveling
across the poem and across the landscape from the peaceful gardens to the faraway sea.

Line 3: The river is specifically introduced here, the only time its name is mentioned. The name Alph may be an allusion to the
Greek river Alpheus. This connects us to a whole world of classical literature, art and history that was important to English poets.

Lines 21-22: Here the river surges up in a huge fountain, and it's so strong that it tears up pieces of rock and throws them along
with it. The speaker wants us to understand this power, so he uses a simile, comparing the rocks to "rebounding hail." For added
emphasis, he offers another simile in the next line. This time the comparison is with the process of "threshing." When you harvest a
grain like wheat, you need to separate the part you can eat from the part that covers it, which is called the chaff (that's why he calls
the grain "chaffy" in line 22). In Coleridge's time, you would do this by beating the grain with a tool called a "flail." This would loosen
the chaff and make it easy to remove. So when you hit that grain, it would bounce and tumble around like the rocks in the raging
River Alph.

Line 25:This poem has little moments of alliteration all over the place, but this is a big one. All the major words in this line start with
"m." The murmuring sound of these words picks up the lazy, slow-moving feeling of the river at this moment in the poem.

THE OCEAN

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Symbol Analysis
When it shows up in the poem, the ocean is a gloomy, mysterious and far-away place. Nothing in particular happens there, except that it marks
the end of the river. It's a dead-end, a place where there is no life or light. The other settings in the poem tend to be active and alive. The forest
is sunny, the river is noisy, the dome is warm, even the caves are deep and icy. The ocean, however is just an empty, open space. It might
make us think a little bit of the Underworld, a place where things simply end.

Line 5: Our first image of the ocean emphasizes the absence of light. It's a place where no sun shines, far away from the "sunny
spots" we will see in line 11. The alliteration of the two "s" sounds also adds to the sense of mystery and emptiness, and gives this
short line a slithery, sinister, sound.

Line 28: Here it is the absence of life that becomes the most important part of this image of the ocean.

Line 32: In this line, the ocean is a blank canvas. The shadow of the palace floats on it, but we don't have any sense that it has a
life of its own.

XANADU - A.K.A. THE

PLEASURE DOME

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Symbol Analysis
This might sound a little more exciting than it really is. As far as we can tell, it just means a big, especially nice palace, with pretty gardens all
around it. The dome is a safe, sunny, happy place. In the poem, it stands for all the majesty and the triumph of mankind, since it's the house of
an emperor. However, when it is compared to the power and the immensity of nature, it might not seem so big after all.

Line 1: This is the only time the name of the palace is mentioned. This dream version of Xanadu is an allusion to a real historical
place, built as a summer palace in what is now called Inner Mongolia. Marco Polo visited it, starting a legend that filtered all the
way down to Samuel Coleridge in England.

Line 2: Let's talk for a second about this "dome." What are we supposed to see in our heads when Coleridge uses that word? We'd
guess that it's not meant to be just a dome hovering in space or an empty shell. The dome is his way of referring to the legendary
palace of Xanadu. When you use one feature of a thing to refer to the whole, that's called metonymy.

Line 31-32: This comes up in a few places, but here the dome is a symbol for the work of mankind, set against the natural world.
The "shadow of the domeon the waves" contrasts a building with the wild, unknowable power of nature - a major theme in this
poem.

THE CAVERNS

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Symbol Analysis
The caverns are huge, frightening, cold, and fascinating to our speaker. They appear in the poem for just a moment at first, as the place the
river passes through. As things move along, however, we start to see that these caverns are important in this poem. They are the opposite of
the warm, happy palace. They are dramatic, freezing, underground, and represent everything the pleasure dome is not.

Line 4: The phrase, "caverns measureless to man," is a good example of hyperbole. The speaker could say that the caverns are
"really deep" or "you can't see the bottom." Instead, the depth of the caverns is exaggerated to an infinite point, adding to the
feeling of mystery. In the real world, any cavern could eventually be measured, no matter how deep. So what and where are these
strange caves?

Line 27: Here we see the caverns again, described in exactly the same way: "measureless to man." The repetition of this phrase
emphasizes their importance and drives home their sense of mystery and depth.

Line 47: When they are contrasted with the sunny dome like this, the caves of ice becomes a symbol of the forces of nature that lie
under and surround the works of man. We keep mentioning this because Coleridge keeps pushing it into view. The clash of these
forces is one of the main points of this vision.

THE WOMAN AND HER

DEMON LOVER

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Symbol Analysis
This one comes and goes fast, but it's a really powerful image. The line calls up feelings of supernatural power, romance and excitement. A
waning moon and the spooky chasm all help set a scene that is wilder and more foreign than what we've already seen in the poem.

Line 16: There could be a whole other poem or even a novel in here, built around the image of this wailing woman. We get just a
taste of the drama of her story, but it helps to set the mood of this landscape. Check out the way that adding the word "demon"
changes and deepens this image. If she was just wailing for a plain old "lover," that would be sad, but not nearly so strange and
exciting.

ANALYSIS: FORM AND METER

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Rhyming Iambic Meter

Iambic just means that the poem is made up of lots of two-syllable units, in which the stress is placed on the second syllable. The lines also
rhyme, although maybe not in the ways you'd expect.
"Rhyming Iambic Meter" makes the form and meter sound simpler than it really is. Coleridge could have sat down to write a standard iambic
poem. If that were your project, there are a few ways to use rhyme and meter to let your readers know that's what you're doing. Ideally, your
lines would all have the same number of iambic syllables. If they had four, we would call it "iambic tetrameter" if they had five, "iambic
pentameter," and so on. But Coleridge didn't make this a normal poem. Check out the first section. Lines 1-7 have 8 syllables each, and lines
8-11 have 10 each, so it's a mix of tetrameter and pentameter.
Who cares exactly how long the lines are? Well, you might have been more likely to notice if you lived in the early 19th Century. You'd be more
used to reading poets likeAlexander Pope, who would rather chew off his arm than jump around like this in a poem. But we're willing to bet that
you noticed this change in a subtle way, even if you didn't stop to count the syllables.
Think about the effects Coleridge can create with this technique. In the short lines at the beginning of the section, he's giving us a quick
overview, and describing the rushing of a river to the sea. Then, as the poem slows down, the lines get longer too, and as we wind along those
"sinuous rills," we start to feel the poem meandering a little too. When the setting changes in line 31 and the poem shifts gears, the lines get
shorter again, back to the eight-syllable length. So the line lengths are a little weird at first, but when we look closer there's some logic to them.
Same goes for the rhyme it isn't regular. Sometimes Coleridge loops back and picks up a rhyme he hasn't used in a while, creating a kind of
echo in the poem. Remember that Coleridge is describing a drugged out dream here. Would it make sense to write it like a nursery rhyme? He
creates strange music, where the different parts fit together in unexpected and beautiful ways.

ANALYSIS: SPEAKER

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We think the speaker of this poem sounds like he's trying to impress a crowd. He would be right at home at a circus or a magic show. He could
even be a con artist, performing card tricks on the street. He knows he has to draw his audience in right away, and make his pitch fascinating.
The speaker doesn't waste any time because he doesn't want to lose us. His descriptions are fast and dramatic at first. He paints a picture that
enchants us and pulls us in. Once he's got us, he can slow his patter down, or speed it up as he sees fit. He can tell us about his strange
visions, but he's always careful to add some verbal fireworks. He repeats himself for dramatic effect ("That sunny dome, those caves of ice!"
[line 47]), just like you would if you were preaching, entertaining, or trying to sell something to a crowd. He's confident, even a little showy, but
he's also got one eye on the crowd, making sure we're with him. He never lets the energy drop.

ANALYSIS: SETTING

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Where It All Goes Down

Xanadu, during the reign of Mongol emperor Kubla Khan
Coleridge has a lot to say about the setting of this poem. He devotes many lines to describing the landscape, the caverns, and the sea. That
works for the first half of the poem, but then that Abyssinian maid shows up, and then there are the flashing eyes, and the milk of a paradise.
All this new stuff makes it hard to believe we're still in the same place as the river and the palace. Maybe we need a setting that can
encompass this whole experience.
So here's what we think: This poem could take place in a kid's bedroom. Remember that age when you were really excited about faraway
places and legends and monsters? Imagine Coleridge as your cool uncle who told you amazing, spooky bedtime stories. "Kubla Khan" is sort
of about a person and a place, but it's really more about how you can create those things with words alone. That's the heart of the bedtime
story. You didn't need pictures or movies or a plane or any other props. Coleridge needed sleep and sickness and drugs in order to have this
vision. But the amazing thing about this poem is that he can recreate this experience without any of those things. He just needs the sound and
the texture of words. So, imagine yourself tucked in on a rainy night in winter, just a candle lighting the room, listening to Coleridge build
castles with his words.

ANALYSIS: WHAT'S UP WITH

THE TITLE?

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The main title of this poem is just plain "Kubla Khan." It's a pretty great name, isn't it? Sounds tough, mysterious, and exotic. We're willing to
bet that Coleridge wanted that name to echo in a big way, to call up associations and feelings. It sets a tone for the poem, since the title
transports us to another place and time before we even get started. But there's another piece. The full title is: "Kubla Khan Or a Vision in a
Dream. A Fragment."
All of a sudden, Coleridge is giving us a much more detailed description of the poem itself. The famous back-story, (as told by Coleridge), is
that he wasn't feeling well one night. So he took some opium (a drug), and had this strange dream. We think this really explains a lot about this
poem. Do you feel how hard he works to describe an altered state? The meter, the rhyme the subject matter are all trying to make you feel
what it's like to see things that aren't normally there. Letting you know that it's not only a dream but also "a vision in a dream" leaves you extra
prepared for the weirdness that's coming.
Last of all, how about "A Fragment?" Apparently Coleridge dreamed about writing several hundred lines, and when he woke up, he started
writing them down. He was interrupted, in the middle of writing, and when he came back, he had forgotten the rest. What about this poem
might make it seem like a fragment? Does it seem finished to you?

Xanad
Para otros usos de este trmino, vase Xanadu (desambiguacin).
Sitio de Xanad

Nombre descrito en la Lista del Patrimonio de la Humanidad.

Coordenada
s

422135N 1161045ECoordenadas:

42213

5N 1161045E (mapa)
China

Pas

Tipo

Cultural

Criterios

i, ii, iii

N.

1389

identificaci
n

Regin

Asia y Oceana

Ao de

2012 (XXXVI sesin)

inscripcin

[editar datos en Wikidata]

Aunque Matteo Ricci y Bento de Gis ya haban demostrado que Cathay es simplemente otro nombre para China, el cartgrafo ingls John Speeden 1626 continu
con la tradicin de mostrar Cathaya, el Reino jefe del gran Cam al noreste de China. En su mapa, coloc Xandu al este de la metrpolis de Cathayan como Cambalu

Xanad, Xanadu, Zanadu o Shangdu (Shngd en pinyin) era la capital

de verano delImperio mongol de Kublai Kan, imperio que ocupaba gran parte de Asia.

Hallazgos arqueolgicos concluyen que la ciudad estaba situada en la actual provincia

deMongolia Interior, en China. La ciudad tena tres partes: la ciudad exterior, la ciudad
interior y el palacio, donde Kublai Kan permaneca en verano. Se cree que el palacio de
Xanad era la mitad de grande que la Ciudad Prohibida, en Pekn. Los restos modernos ms
visibles son las murallas en tierra, as como la plataforma circular de ladrillo en el centro de la
ciudad interior.
En 2012, la UNESCO declar el sitio histrico de Xanad como parte del Patrimonio de la
Humanidad.1
ndice
[ocultar]

1 Significado

2 Referencias a Xanad

3 Vase tambin

4 Referencias

Significado[editar]
Los kanes mongoles abrieron el imperio a los viajeros occidentales, permitiendo a
exploradores como el veneciano Marco Polo (que la visit en 1275) comunicar las maravillas
de oriente a los europeos.
Xanad se ha convertido en una metfora de la opulencia, gracias sobre todo al poema Kubla
Khan de Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

En Xanad por decreto de Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree;

Una gran cpula se construa;

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Donde Alef, el ro sagrado, corra

Through caverns measureless to man

A travs de cavernas desmedidas para el hombre

Down to a sunless sea.

Hacia un mar sin sol.

Referencias a Xanad[editar]
Xanad es un nombre muy utilizado para evocar un lugar de lujo y misterio o exuberancia. Por
ejemplo, para bautizar lugares imaginarios o establecimientos.

Era el nombre del palacio del Ciudadano Kane en la pelcula homnima de Orson
Welles.
Era el nombre de la comuna hippie en la pelcula En el nombre del padre.

Es el nombre de una cadena montaosa en Titn (satlite de Saturno).

El proyecto Xanad fue un modelo de hipertexto global diseado por Ted Nelson en
1960.

Se alude en el poema sinfnico El domo del placer de Kublai Kan de Charles

Tomlinson Griffes.

El descenso de Xanad es una novela de Harold Robbins

Es el ttulo de una cancin del grupo canadiense de rock progresivo Rush, compuesta
para su quinto lbum "A Farewell to Kings" en1977.

Es una conocida cancin del grupo Electric Light Orchestra junto a Olivia NewtonJohn, llegando a alcanzar la octava posicin de las listas inglesas en 1980.

'La leyenda de Xanadu" (The legend of Xanadu) es una cancin del grupo Dave Dee,
Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich [1] que alcanz la primera lista de xitos en el Reino Unido en
1968

Madrid Xanad es uno de los centros comerciales ms famosos de las afueras

de Madrid.

Es el nombre de un planeta en el relato "Hacia un mar sin sol" recopilado en el libro

"La Dama muerta de Clown Town" Seores de la Instrumentalidad II, del escritor de
ciencia ficcin Cordwainer Smith.

Es nombrado en la cancin "Mis gafas" de La Orquesta Mondragn

Es nombrado en la cancin Estallando desde el ocano del grupo Sumo: "And in old
Pekin / And in Katmandu / And in Xanadu / I'm bursting out of the ocean / I'm bursting out
of the ocean".

Es el ttulo de una pelcula musical de [[1980] protagonizada por Olivia Newton-John y

alude a la cancion del mismo nombre].

Es el nombre de un casino de Las Vegas en la novela Los tontos mueren, de Mario

Puzo.

Es el ttulo de una cancin de Illya Kuryaki and the Valderramas.

Es el ttulo de una cancin de Boom Boom Kid.

Era el pas del que proceda Mandrake el mago.

En la serie de anime Shakugan no Shana se le da este nombre a un paraso creado

por el "Dios de la Creacin".

En el videojuego RPG Final Fantasy XIII-2 el casino perdido en el continuo espaciotiempo posee este nombre slo en la versin con dilogos en espaol.

En el videojuego Touhou Project, el enemigo final del modo Fantasma de la sptima

instalacin, Yukari Yakumo, usa una carta llamada "Espritus Malignos 'Xanad de Rectas
y Curvas'".

En el dibujo animado Los Padrinos Mgicos, el hada ms ruda de todas ayud a

construir Xanad, pero Cosmo la convirti enPittsburgh.

Es un truco de Zoo Tycoon para conseguir Unicornios.

El grupo de K-Pop Girls' Generation menciona a Xanad en su cancin 'Reflection' del
segundo lbum japons como: Estoy en la zona, cayendo, como una ilusin de Xanad
Es un tema de Los Natas, del disco Livin' la Weeda Loca

Vase tambin[editar]

Karakorum, primera capital mongola fundada por Genghis Khan, construida en piedra
por Ogedei Khan en 1220

Shangri-La, ciudad mtica creada por el escritor britnico James Hilton (1900-1954) en
su novela Lost horizon (1933).

Shambhala

Xanadu (Titan)