At the time it was composed, Coleridge was living in southwest England between the towns of Porlock and Linton. Although it was written in 1797, it was not published until 1816, at the request of Byron. When "Kubla Khan" was published, it was included in a volume that contained "Christabel," "The Pains of Sleep" and a re-released version of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
"Kubla Khan" was written early in Coleridge's career. Prior to its composition, the only works that Coleridge wrote were The Watchman (a 1796 antigovernment periodical) and "Poems on Various Subjects" (also written in 1796). In addition to writing "Kubla Khan" in 1797, Coleridge also collaborated with Wordsworth on Lyrical Ballads. For some reason, though, "Kubla Khan" was not included in Lyrical Ballads.
This poem has an interesting story behind it. In 1797, Coleridge was suffering from rheumatism and began taking laudanum to alleviate the pain. The major drawback of laudanum was that it was highly addictive because it was opium dissolved in alcohol. The laudanum produced painful stomach disorders in Coleridge so he began taking it more and more to ease his pains. It was a never-ending cycle that resulted in Coleridge becoming a laudanum addict by 1800.
"Kubla Khan" was based upon a laudanum-inspired vision. One day 1797, Coleridge took a dose of laudanum while relaxing in a chair and reading Purchas's Pilgrimage (a 1613 collection of fantastical accounts of foreign lands). The laudanum made him drowsy, and right before falling asleep, he read a sentence about Kubla Khan that stated, "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." Coleridge slept for three hours, and, during this time, he had a vision of a strange, exotic place. When he woke up, he began to write down his vision, but was interrupted by a resident of Porlock. By the time the visitor left, an hour had passed and Coleridge forgot most of the vision. What he did remember, though, he wrote down, and these recollections became the third part of "Kubla Khan." So, thanks to a dose of laudanum and Purchas's Pilgrimage, Coleridge was able to produce "Kubla Khan."
While reading the preface, I had to question the validity of the poem. Coleridge, himself, writes that "due to a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescibed, from the effect of which he fell asleep in his chair..." (Coleridge 501). Since all his visions occurred when he was under the influence of laudanum, how can he really take credit for the composition of the poem? Most likely, if he had not taken the laudanum, he would not have had these visions. In my opinion, the preface seems to be conveying the message that laudanum will allow a person to write great poetry, but this really takes away from the poet since the poet needs to rely on laudanum (instead of imagination, emotion, etc.) for insiration.
Kathleen M. Wheeler views the preface differently in her chapter "'Kubla Khan' and the Art of Thingifying." Wheeler chooses to examine the third-person narrator of the preface. She is more concerned with finding out who the third-person narrator really is. She writes that Coleridge invented a persona in the preface in order to create "an alternative authority responsible for the views presented" (Wheeler 21). She also writes that this is not the first time Coleridge invented a persona (he did so in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Chapter 13 of the Biographia Literaria). She claims the persona allowed Coleridge to have a certain level of detatchment from hi work.
This is a very valid point and it connects nicely to the point I raised earlier. Since Coleridge was under the influence of laudanum when he had the visions that inspired the poem, he was detatched from reality. What better way to describe these visions than by inventing a persona in the preface who is detatched from him? By the last sentence of the preface the narration switches to first person, which could connect to Coleridge re-entering reality after the effects of the laudanum wore off.
The poem, itself, is a narrative poem divided into three sections with Coleridge as the sole speaker. The first part of the poem (lines 1-11) describes the palace ("pleasure-dome") that Kubla Khan had built. it is important to note that he builds the palace on the bank of the Alph River, but away from the dark caverns that the river flows through. Kubla Khan surrounds this palace with ten miles of beautiful, fertile gardens and rambling brooks. Once the palace is built and the lands are blossoming, Kubla Khan builds a wall around his palace and lands to prevent the destruction of his beautiful creation. At the end of this section, it appears Kubla Khan has achieved his goal of building a beautiful creation away from any forces of danger or destruction.
The first section basically expands upon the sentence Coleridge read in Purchas's Pilgrimage. This section is infused with picturesque images of nature. While reading this section, one can visualize the "gardens bright with sinuous rills," (8) and the "sunny spots of greenery" (11) throughout the palace grounds. These images, in turn, convey a sense of peace and tranquility to the reader. There is a definite connection between Kubla Khan's lands and the Garden of Eden. Both are beautiful and peaceful. It is almost as if Kubla Khan has created a second Garden of Eden.
The second part of the poem (lines 12-36) begins by describing the chasm that is located on the palace rounds, but away from the actual palace. In line 14, Coleridge makes use of juxtaposition when he describes the chasm as both "[a] savage place" and "holy and enchanted." This is a very sublime description of the cavern because it appears beautiful and scary at the same time.
This sublime description of the chasm could, quite possibly, be a metaphor for love in Coleridge's life. Coleridge married Sara Fricker, the sister of Robert Southey's fiancee, in 1795. From the beginning, the marriage was an unhappy one. By 1800, the rift between them increased when Coleridge fell in love with Sara Hutchinson, the sister of Wordsworth's fiancee. Therefore, the sublime description of the chasm could illustrate the beauty of love and also its underlying destructive power.
By line 18, though, the chasm begins to take on a human aspect (personification) when Coleridge describes it as "breathing." In the next line, an explosion of water issues forth from the chasm and sends debris throughout the palace grounds. Coleridge even uses spondees in line 21 to emphasize the destructive power of the flying debris. The destruction caused by the chasm even alters the course of the Alph River and sendes it through the palace's grounds with a "mazy motion." The alternating metaphor in this line also emphasizes the new, meandering course of the river. This "mazy motion" of the river is another connection to the Garden of Eden. The river is slithering through the palace grounds just like the serpent slithered the Garden of Eden. Also, destructive forces from within destroy both the Garden of Eden and Kubla Khan's palace.
In his essay, "'Kubla Khan':; Proto-Surrealist Poem," Kenneth burke also connect Kubla's gardens to the Garden of Eden; however, he views the river differently from me. According to Burke, the river "is not just depicting in general the course of life and death, plus connotations of rebirth. Rather, the poem is tracing in terms of imagery the very form of thinking (which is necessarily integral with a time process, inasmuch as the form of thinking must unfold through time)" (Burke 41).
Burke explains this statement by explaining that the river interweaves both the streams of time and conciousness. Since the poem discusses destruction, the destruction can only be a general kind of destruction. Burke claims poets only write about what they know since Coleridge never experienced destruction, the destruction he described must be a different kind of destruction. Therefore, the destruction Coleridge described was the death of time and thought. Burke goes on to state that "both time and thought continually hurry to their 'death' yet are continually 'reborn,' since the death of one moment is incorporated in the moment that arises out of it, and the early stages of a thought process are embedded in its fulfillment" (Burke 43).
Burke's idea is a very interesting one, and, I must admit, while I too viewed the poem as being about creation and destruction, this is one idea I did not pick up on. It makes very good sense, though, since the river continually weaves its way throughout the entire poem.
In his book, Coleridge, Richard Holmes writes that this river image arose out of Coleridge's poem "The Brook." According to Holmes, "Coleridge's poem 'The Brook' was never written in the form he planned. But the controlling image of the river or stream occupied him throughout these months, and eventually emerged in 'Kubla Khan'" (Holmes 161).
The destruction of the palace grounds by the chasm is ironic because, in the first part of the poem, Kubla Khan surrounds his palace with a wall to keep out destructive forces; however, the palace is destroyed from within the walls by the very earth it is built upon. No matter how hard he tried, Kubla Khan could not prevent his palace from being destroyed because creation and destruction go hand-in-hand. By the end of this section, Kubla Khan stands amid the ruins of his palace and hears "[a]ncestral voices prophesying war" (30). From what has happened to his palace, it appears this war is the war between the forces of creation and destruction. The spondee at the end of this line emphasizes the power of the forces of destruction.