Thoughts on "Kubla Khan"

In Biographia Literaraia Coleridge, speaking of the two cardinal points of poetry, nature and the imagination, says, “The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moon-light or sun-set diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of combing both” (LABL 689). Even in his preface to “Kubla Khan,” Coleridge admits to have composed the poem “with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease” (LABL 670). In several ways, “Kubla Khan” can be read in the same regard as a combination of opposites or cognate words that attempt to describe the indescribable. A vision in a dream, the poem’s supposed origins, even hints at the confusing of elements, which abound through contrasting imagery: measureless caverns and measurable fertile ground (ten miles); a “sunless sea” and “sunny spots of greenery” and “a waning moon;” and “A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!” (my emphasis, lines 4-6, 11, 15, 36).  

The poem also concerns itself with direction, angles, distance, and location. The ALPH river, (a cognate word derived from “Aleph?”- the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet signifying infinity) runs downward, away from Khan’s “pleasure-dome” through caves of ice that the poet is unable to measure, to “a lifeless ocean.” If a broad line can be drawn regarding the poem’s direction, it begins with pleasure (the stately dome), moves down to fecund ground, and sinks to a sterile ocean. Does pleasure have a natural purpose? Is pleasure separated and contained inside the dome because it doesn't agree with the fertile grounds?

 The sense of angles and distance no doubt resonate with images such as “deep romantic chasm” and “Huge fragments” (lines 12, 21). Coleridge also concerns himself with shapes. It’s tempting to associate the half-circularity of the pleasure-dome and the waning moon to the three circles weaved around the person at the end of the poem. These rounded/whole images are contrasted with the irregularity of the ice in the caves, as well as the hail-like grain that bursts up from the fountain. There is order and disorder, wholeness and incompletion.  

Norman Fruman in Coleridge, The Damaged Archangel, offers a sexual interpretation of the poem from the perspective that it is a poem embodying several ideas—“the power of art, an Oriental emperor, a wailing woman, an overflowing fountain—” and no single interpretation should be taken as the interpretation (Fruman 395). Nevertheless, the sexual interpretation, as Fruman notes, is grounded in that “opium deadens tactile sensitivity in many users and can lead to impotence. More often, regular use of opium simply diminishes the sexual drive” (Fruman 425). With that in mind, Fruman considers the sexually emblematic imagery: the demon-lover; the earth quickly panting, “the supposition that some kind of sexual encounter is being described;” followed by the bursting fountain, which Fruman asks “is there a more precise definition of sexual ejaculation?” (Fruman 397-98). There are several other examples Fruman offers for a sexual reading: the tabooed sexual terrain as juxtaposed by the words “holy” and “sacred river,” for example, and in the end suggests that “this poem does seem to derive from inner sources and aesthetic procedures so unusual for Coleridge as to justify the belief that the major block of images in the poem did derive from personal fantasies” (Fruman 402).

The poem is indeed perplexing and simultaneously a feast for the imagination and the mind. And I make reference to the sexual interpretation mainly to keep in line with the theme of the class. What can be more natural than sex? That being said, it can be argued that there is a distinction between a natural sexual reading (as exemplified by nature; nature is the one panting and bursting forth fountains), and a non-natural sexual reading, as seen by the woman calling to a demon-lover. The latter can be more properly described as eroticism, which is not natural; it is inventive, creative, and only humans (figuratively speaking) can copulate with demon-lovers, succubi, and incubi. Eroticism is part of the imagination. The sex act is natural, and takes place in nature. Eroticism, because it is human invention, then, can qualify as taboo because not all human inventions are in agreement with other human ideas such as holiness or sacred. Perhaps, this is why the poet has a difficult time with associations of pleasure and holiness, or more explicitly, "holy dread" (line 52). By contrast, it becomes problematic to think of nature (the earth) as bursting with such sexual imagery, yet also contain a "lifeless ocean" (line 28).

 On another note, despite its fragmentary style, as Fruman also notes, there is in fact a sense of order in "Kubla Khan", and evidence that Coleridge consciously produced the poem and altered words for poetic effect. But the ambiguities that abound are probably intentional of the poet’s part. Maybe we’re not supposed to know the meaning of this poem. Maybe the indescribable and the immeasurable attest to the limits of language. Finally, does the pleasure-dome in fact get built? Khan “decree[s]” it to be built, and yes, if the dome casts a shadow on the waves then it can be assumed to exist. But if we contextualize the poem in the vision where it supposedly takes place, and if we think of the line “I would build that dome in air,” as the poet (now only dreaming) but no longer seeing that vision, then can we say the vision was some sort of prophetic warning? Is this why the poem should end with such cautious language as “Beware! Beware!?” For who can eat honey-dew and drink “the milk of Paradise?”