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ABOUT THE POET
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( 1772 – 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets.
1. 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.
[gridled - cut through the bark all the way round a tree.
sinuous - having many curves and turns
Sinuous rills resemble winding river valleys on Earth.]
2. 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.
(Cedarn — is an archaic word meaning wood from a cedar tree.
athwart - from side to side
Waning - the diminishing phase of the moon
Chasm - a deep hole in the ground.
Vaulted - dome shaped.
chaffy- worthless
Flail - thresh or the entrance
Turmoil seething-confused and agitated.)
(There is one simile used in the poem in line 21 such as “huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail.” The fragments have been compared to pieces of hailstorm to show their impacts.)
3. 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!
1. 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.
[gridled - cut through the bark all the way round a tree.
sinuous - having many curves and turns
Sinuous rills resemble winding river valleys on Earth.]
2. 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.
(Cedarn — is an archaic word meaning wood from a cedar tree.
athwart - from side to side
Waning - the diminishing phase of the moon
Chasm - a deep hole in the ground.
Vaulted - dome shaped.
chaffy- worthless
Flail - thresh or the entrance
Turmoil seething-confused and agitated.)
(There is one simile used in the poem in line 21 such as “huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail.” The fragments have been compared to pieces of hailstorm to show their impacts.)
3. 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!
(“Five miles meandering in a mazy motion A common use for alliteration.
dale - a valley
tumult - loud confused noise)
4. 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.
(damsel - young unmarried woman
dulcimer- a sounding board, a musical instrument
Abyssinia is part of the northern half of Ethiopia.
Mount Abora - final resting place of Noah's ark.)
1. What is the theme of the poem .
Kubla Khan summary takes us through the beautiful land of Xanadu through its vivid description. It explores the theme of man along with nature. It’s a highly romantic poem focusing on humans and natural forces beautifully. The speaker envisions the landscape surrounding the Mongol ruler and Chinese emperor Kubla Khan’s summer palace, called "Xanadu," describing it as a place of beauty, pleasure, and violence.
"Kubla Khan" is considered to be one of the greatest poems by the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who said he wrote the strange and hallucinatory poem shortly after waking up from an opium-influenced dream in 1797.
2. What did the emperor ordered his men to do?
In a place called Xanadu, the Mongolian leader Kubla Khan ordered his servants to construct an impressive domed building for pleasure and recreation on the banks of the holy river Alph, which ran through a series of caves so vast that no one could measure them, and then down into an underground ocean. So they created a space with 10 miles of fertile earth surrounded by walls and towers. And in it there were gardens with sunny little streams and fragrant trees, as well as very old forests with sunny clearings in the middle.
3. What is found in deep chasm in stanza 2 ?
There is a moss-covered "deep romantic chasm" in the hillside. The speaker describes the forest around it as "savage" and as "holy and enchanted." It is a place haunted by a "woman wailing for her demon-lover." From the chasm a fountain bursts and continues to gush in intermittent bursts.The speaker feels these bursts as though they are almost alive, breathing and forceful.
4. The poet brings out a lot of contrast in stanza 2 why?
Describing it as a place of beauty, pleasure, and violence. The speaker suggests that these qualities are all deeply intertwined. In contrast to the bright, sunny gardens, the chasm is a haunted, uncivilized place. Between the two elements erupts a "mighty fountain," which could serve as , Often they can symbolize both paradise and temptation, as in the Garden of Eden .
5. What does the poem symbolise?
“Kubla Khan” begins by announcing that it is a poem about “pleasure.” It proposes to describe the Mongol leader's summer palace, along with all its luxuries and, for the speaker it gives exotic pleasures.
From there, the river originates, and it runs for five miles through the forest and the land, reaching all the way to the caves and the sea. In the sounds coming from the river, Kubla Khan hears "ancestral voices" prophesying that war is coming. And the pleasure dome casts a shadow on the waves, where the sound of both the fountain and the caves can be heard. This seems like a strange miracle, and the speaker paints an image of "a sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice.”
6. What does ravens symbolise in this poem?
If we are to consider these caverns as an underworld, then we might say that they symbolize unconscious human brain power or the creative spirit that spurs on the imagination or artistic process.
7. Why is the poem a ‘Fragment’?
The poem was unfinished, according to Coleridge himself, because while he was writing up the vision he'd had he was interrupted by a 'person from Porlock' who caused him to forget the rest of the poem as it had been developing in his head.
8. What did the prophesy of war symbolise?
Although Khan’s gardens initially seem a place of peace and balance, Khan himself hears a different message coming from the distant rumbles of the chasm and the cave. The tumult of the river issues a warning that human creations are not permanent. The voices of his ancestors provide testimony to the fact that the greatest creations of the world eventually come to ruin. Thus, too, the elegant dome is threatened with the destruction of war. Nothing on earth can be perpetuated everything will have a natural end.
9. What does it mean to have fed on “honeydew” and “drunk the milk of paradise" in "Kubla Khan”?
For many cultures, especially earlier ones where the majority of people struggled to get adequate amounts of food, paradise was conceived as a place where luxurious foods would be available in unlimited quantity without effort.
Milk and honeydew melon are especially images of luxury from a desert culture -- the paradise imagined in this poem is almost Islamic despite Kubla Khan having been Mongolian. The poet tries to draw a parallelism between paradise and the luxurious life enjoyed by the rulers in Mongolia.
10. Who drunk the milk of paradise?
We assume the narrator is referring to himself. The narrator has had the "milk of paradise." The narrator then points out the all of his observers will "close their eyes 'with holy dread,/ For he on honey-dew hath fed,/ And drunk the milk of Paradise' ”.
dale - a valley
tumult - loud confused noise)
4. 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.
(damsel - young unmarried woman
dulcimer- a sounding board, a musical instrument
Abyssinia is part of the northern half of Ethiopia.
Mount Abora - final resting place of Noah's ark.)
1. What is the theme of the poem .
Kubla Khan summary takes us through the beautiful land of Xanadu through its vivid description. It explores the theme of man along with nature. It’s a highly romantic poem focusing on humans and natural forces beautifully. The speaker envisions the landscape surrounding the Mongol ruler and Chinese emperor Kubla Khan’s summer palace, called "Xanadu," describing it as a place of beauty, pleasure, and violence.
"Kubla Khan" is considered to be one of the greatest poems by the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who said he wrote the strange and hallucinatory poem shortly after waking up from an opium-influenced dream in 1797.
2. What did the emperor ordered his men to do?
In a place called Xanadu, the Mongolian leader Kubla Khan ordered his servants to construct an impressive domed building for pleasure and recreation on the banks of the holy river Alph, which ran through a series of caves so vast that no one could measure them, and then down into an underground ocean. So they created a space with 10 miles of fertile earth surrounded by walls and towers. And in it there were gardens with sunny little streams and fragrant trees, as well as very old forests with sunny clearings in the middle.
3. What is found in deep chasm in stanza 2 ?
There is a moss-covered "deep romantic chasm" in the hillside. The speaker describes the forest around it as "savage" and as "holy and enchanted." It is a place haunted by a "woman wailing for her demon-lover." From the chasm a fountain bursts and continues to gush in intermittent bursts.The speaker feels these bursts as though they are almost alive, breathing and forceful.
4. The poet brings out a lot of contrast in stanza 2 why?
Describing it as a place of beauty, pleasure, and violence. The speaker suggests that these qualities are all deeply intertwined. In contrast to the bright, sunny gardens, the chasm is a haunted, uncivilized place. Between the two elements erupts a "mighty fountain," which could serve as , Often they can symbolize both paradise and temptation, as in the Garden of Eden .
5. What does the poem symbolise?
“Kubla Khan” begins by announcing that it is a poem about “pleasure.” It proposes to describe the Mongol leader's summer palace, along with all its luxuries and, for the speaker it gives exotic pleasures.
From there, the river originates, and it runs for five miles through the forest and the land, reaching all the way to the caves and the sea. In the sounds coming from the river, Kubla Khan hears "ancestral voices" prophesying that war is coming. And the pleasure dome casts a shadow on the waves, where the sound of both the fountain and the caves can be heard. This seems like a strange miracle, and the speaker paints an image of "a sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice.”
6. What does ravens symbolise in this poem?
If we are to consider these caverns as an underworld, then we might say that they symbolize unconscious human brain power or the creative spirit that spurs on the imagination or artistic process.
7. Why is the poem a ‘Fragment’?
The poem was unfinished, according to Coleridge himself, because while he was writing up the vision he'd had he was interrupted by a 'person from Porlock' who caused him to forget the rest of the poem as it had been developing in his head.
8. What did the prophesy of war symbolise?
Although Khan’s gardens initially seem a place of peace and balance, Khan himself hears a different message coming from the distant rumbles of the chasm and the cave. The tumult of the river issues a warning that human creations are not permanent. The voices of his ancestors provide testimony to the fact that the greatest creations of the world eventually come to ruin. Thus, too, the elegant dome is threatened with the destruction of war. Nothing on earth can be perpetuated everything will have a natural end.
9. What does it mean to have fed on “honeydew” and “drunk the milk of paradise" in "Kubla Khan”?
For many cultures, especially earlier ones where the majority of people struggled to get adequate amounts of food, paradise was conceived as a place where luxurious foods would be available in unlimited quantity without effort.
Milk and honeydew melon are especially images of luxury from a desert culture -- the paradise imagined in this poem is almost Islamic despite Kubla Khan having been Mongolian. The poet tries to draw a parallelism between paradise and the luxurious life enjoyed by the rulers in Mongolia.
10. Who drunk the milk of paradise?
We assume the narrator is referring to himself. The narrator has had the "milk of paradise." The narrator then points out the all of his observers will "close their eyes 'with holy dread,/ For he on honey-dew hath fed,/ And drunk the milk of Paradise' ”.
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