Coleridge: Kublah Khan

Tiffany Simon

Not much was said about this is lecture, but I did my paper on it so i thought i would fill in the gaps.

this poem was written after an opiate dream. Coleridge fell asleep right after reading a line in Purchas's Pilgrimage which said "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". When Coleridge awake he wrote down all the things which he could remember but in the process was called away on business and was unable to remember the rest of his dream upon return. because of this the poem is not finahsed and the true meaning cannot be figured out.

Another theory is that Coleridge was asked by Byron to write a poem about Orientalism and critiquing the British looks on foreigners which could be just so by using sexual imagery. if read closely it is evident that there are many sexual images throughout the poem which could be Coleridge writing a poem that seems to be beautiful but underneath all of this beauty is the savageness of sex. thus showing how underneath all of the properness of the British there is also a savageness which makes them no better than people from the east.