"Kubla Khan" : Key info
"Kubla Khan" is a notable literary work by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A complete discussion of this literary work is given, which will help you enhance your literary skills and prepare for the exam. Read the Main texts, Key info, Summary, Themes, Characters, Literary devices, Quotations, Notes, and various study materials of "Kubla Khan".
Key info
“Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is one of the most famous Romantic poems. This poem is very famous for its vivid images and its exploration of the creative mind. Coleridge uses wonderful imagination to create a dreamlike palace of Kubla Khan and its surroundings. The poem is often regarded as a fragment and a dream poem. Because Coleridge wrote it after waking up from a vivid dream about this palace. But he was interrupted by a visitor and could not complete the poem. So, it becomes a fragment.
Key Facts
- Poet: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Written: 1797, published in 1816
- Full Title: Kubla Khan: Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment
- Genre: Romantic Poem
- Form: The poem consists of 3 stanzas with a variable meter—iambic tetrameter, pentameter, and trimeter. This variation creates a dream-like flow. The rhyme scheme is also irregular and changes throughout the poem.
- Structure: “Kubla Khan” is considered a fragment, as Coleridge claimed he wrote only the first 54 lines after waking from an opium-induced dream. The poem was left unfinished due to an interruption by a visitor. Coleridge mentioned it in the preface.
- First Published: 1816
- Location: The poem is set in Xanadu, a fictional place based on the historical Mongol emperor Kublai Khan’s palace in Shangdu (the Yuan dynasty’s summer capital).
- Inspiration: Coleridge wrote the poem after reading a travelogue by Samuel Purchas about Kublai Khan’s palace. He fell into a dream and composed the lines.