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Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
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Biography EssayColeridge is the premier poet-critic of modern English tradition, distinguished for the scope and influence of his thinking about literature as much as for his innovative verse. Active ...
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The English author Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was a major poet of the romantic movement. He is also noted for his prose works on literature, religion, and the organization of society.Born on ...
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Coleridge is the premier poet-critic of modern English tradition, distinguished for the scope and influence of his thinking about literature as much as for his innovative verse. Active in the wake of ...
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a poet, philosopher, and literary critic whose writings have been enormously influential in the development of modern thought. In his own lifetime, Coleridge was renowned t...
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In the essay below, Hewitt identifies two distinctive themes present in "Kubla Khan " which reveal that the "poem as a whole displays a dilemma: it shows that the two extant theor...
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Schneider's study is considered by many scholars one of the most important interpretations of "Kubla Khan" in the twentieth century. In the following excerpt, the critic considers...
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Australian-born Watson is a distinguished critic, editor, and lecturer of English at Cambridge University. He is the author of numerous studies of English Medieval, Renaissance, and Victorian literatu...
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In the following essay, Milne provides an analysis of the symbolism in "Kubla Khan " and postulates that Xanadu is a metaphor of the human mind.
I
Although debate continues over whether ...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1974, Magnuson theorizes that “Kubla Khan” shares many themes and images with Coleridge's “conversation poems.”
Coler...
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In the following excerpt, Hamlin notes that “Kubla Khan” remains a challenge for critics because of its visionary and inspired text, and that while it is a poem that displays the Romanti...
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In the following essay, Milne explores the idea that “Kubla Khan” is a poem about the creative process, focusing on the landscape, the figure of Kubla Khan, and the vision of Xanadu pres...
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In the following essay, Rookmaaker proposes that the key to understanding “Kubla Khan” may lie as much in Coleridge's other writing at the time he composed the poem as it does in ...
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In the following essay, Hewitt suggests that “Kubla Khan” was Coleridge's attempt at evaluating established ideas of poetic creation and ultimately finding them wanting.
Readers c...
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In the following essay, Perkins discusses the importance of the introductory note to “Kubla Khan,” noting that it guides the reader's interpretation of the work from start to fini...
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In the following essay, Wheeler identifies “Kubla Khan” as a poem that reflected the concerns and interests of its age. The critic contends that by the time Coleridge wrote his poem, man...
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In the following essay, Kennard focuses on Coleridge's use of puns in “Kubla Khan.”
Summarizing Coleridge's attitude towards the pun, Sylvan Barnet notes three separate str...
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In the following essay, Chandler discusses various sources that may have inspired Coleridge to write a particular line in “Kubla Khan.”
‘i Would Build That Dome in Air’
In ...
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In the following essay, Hedley discusses “Kubla Khan” as a poem written within the visionary mystical tradition that draws upon the central Christian image of the walled garden.
In his s...
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In the following essay, Bahti examines the language and structure of “Kubla Khan” and notes that it is both a fragment and a whole.
I wrote reflections that, in many ways, were even stro...
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In the following essay, King analyzes “Kubla Khan” in the context of Carl Jung's theory of the structure of the human psyche.
The Age of Enlightenment was one of those recurring p...
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In the following essay, Pearce proposes that Coleridge's notebooks, letters, and early poetry all contain details that are strongly reminiscent of the landscape in “Kubla Khan.”
I...
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In the following essay, Strickland builds upon the thesis that “Kubla Khan” is a mythographic account of its own creation.
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If it has become a critical commonplace that the subject of &...
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In the following essay, Tapscott proposes that Coleridge's vision of Xanadu in “Kubla Khan” closely parallels Milton's Eden before the Fall, both in its description of the ...
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In the following essay, Harding discusses the impact of the Old Testament on Romantic poetry, focusing specifically on “Kubla Khan” as an example.
Coleridge's admiration for the p...
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In the following essay, Bright surveys three ideas as the thematic sources of “Kubla Khan”—that art is spontaneous and unexpected, that art can only flourish in peacetime, and tha...
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In the following essay, Beer interprets “Kubla Khan” as a ferment of competing languages that dramatize the conflicts the author felt.
A close reading of Kubla Khan makes one aware of an...
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In the following excerpt orginally published in the Augustan Review in 1816, the unsigned reviewer remarks on Coleridge's ostensible dream composition of “Kubla Khan” and decries ...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1966, Burke analyzes “Kubla Khan” in the context of Coleridge's other “mystery poems”—including “The Ri...
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In the following essay, Patterson concentrates on the “daemonic” element in “Kubla Khan,” linking the work with a Platonic view of the inspired or “possessed”...
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In the following essay, Hoffpauir surveys critical estimates of “Kubla Khan” since its first publication, arguing that the poem is “imagistically incoherent,” formally ...
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In the following essay, Bahti evaluates “Kubla Khan” as it encapsulates the self-fragmenting quality of Romanticism.
I wrote reflections that, in many ways, were even stronger than their...
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In the following excerpt, Beer offers perspectives on “Kubla Khan” as a work about poetic genius.
A close reading of “Kubla Khan” makes one aware of an irresolution in the ...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1985, Frieden presents a rhetorical analysis of “Kubla Khan” as it both demonstrates and undercuts Coleridge's conversational poeti...
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In the following essay, Ball comments on the ensuing debate over the meaning of “Kubla Khan,” particularly as it reflects on the past, present, and future of literary scholarship and tex...
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In the following excerpted review originally published in Scourge and Satirist in 1816, the unsigned critic launches a diatribe against Coleridge's eccentric literary sensibility occasioned by ...
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In the following review of “Kubla Khan,” originally published in the Edinburgh Review, Moore notes the circumstances of the poem's composition and describes its soporific quality....
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In the following excerpted review, the unsigned reviewer describes “Kubla Khan” as “below criticism.”
The fragment of ‘Kubla Khan’ is declared to have been co...
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In the following excerpt from his book-length study of “Kubla Khan,” Lowes accepts Coleridge's contention that the poem was the product of an unconscious vision, and explicates th...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1961, Bloom views “Kubla Khan” as a work of romantic self-recognition, and of the reconciliation of opposites within the poetic imaginatio...
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In the following essay, Gerber traces a “fundamental dialectic principle” in “Kubla Khan,” featured in a coalescence of references to Kubla and the Roman mother-goddess Cyb...
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In the following essay, Chayes interprets “Kubla Khan” as one of Coleridge's most significant early statements on the process of poetic creation.
In the evolution of “Kubla...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1966, Watson sees “Kubla Khan” as “a poem about poetry” and a premonition of Coleridge's subsequent critical statemen...
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Kubla Khan has been described as `a poem about the act of poetic creation.' Using close textual reference, say to what extent you agree with this statement.
"If a man could pass through Paradise in a...
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Kubla Khan is a poem composed in a state of "reverie", in fact, in its subtitle, it is described as "a vision in a dream" and the preface specifies that it was written in a sleep of 3 hours.
But, al...
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The juxtaposing images of danger with natural beauty was used by Coleridge to compile his thoughts in the poem "Kubla Khan." The effects produced because of this cause the reader to be more at awe whi...
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In "Kubla Khan", a poem written of a dream, Coleridge attempts to portray, not only one, but many visions of Xanadu. By using imagery related to beauty and nature especially, he attempts to enhance h...
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Critical Essay by Regina Hewitt
Is the Poem "Kubla Khan" About the Act of Poetic Creation?
