Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Kubla Khan

This poem was written in a 1816 and is Coleridge’s most prominent work. The poem also has the title A Vision in a Deam, A fragment. The origin of this poem is interesting it came to coleridge in a dream. He was reading about a place that Khan Kubla had commanded to be built and fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke he wrote this poem. It is believed that a visitor interrupted Coleridge and when he returned to this poem the images that had percolated his dreams had vanished, thus the alternate title A Fragment. The poem begins with an intimate description of a place. It describes the walls and the surrounding areas. It is evident that this is not a real place because the Coleridge writes “Through caverns measureless to man/Down to a sunless sea.” Coleridge creates an entie world through his poem. In the beginning Coleriged leads the reader to believe that this is a harmonious place, but the poem takes a turn when he writes “Woman wailing for her demon-lover” This implies that this magical land could be a prison, a place of punishment. It is a woman wailing for her demon lover. This can be seen as her having been in sin. She wants something that is sinful and evil, something out of the ordinary but because she is entrapped she cannot have her desire and she is forced to suffer.

Notice that the man (her demon-lover) is nowhere to be found. The focus is on the woman. Another image in the middle of the poem that is interesting is a “sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice.” Sunny and pleasurable would indicate that this place is tolerable, almost like a vacation spot, but then in that same sentence Coleridge writes “caves of ice.” These images give two different emotions. One is warm and comforting, the other is isolated and cold. Coleridge creates a world of confusion with his words, I don’t particularly care for his style, but I do like the way he switches from third person to first person. It makes the work more personable, which understanding that the writer is not always the eye, this some how makes me feel closer to the work, like I am the one gaining power through him.