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Kubla Khan, or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment. is a famous poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which takes its title from the Mongol and Chinese emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty. Coleridge claimed he wrote the poem in the autumn of 1797 at a farmhouse near Exmoor, England, but it may have been composed on one of a number of other visits to the farm. It also may have been revised a number of times before it was first published in 1816.

The poem's opening lines are often quoted, and it introduces the name Xanadu (or Shangdu, the summer palace of Kublai Khan):

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.

Coleridge claimed that the poem was inspired by an opium-induced dream (implicit in the poem's subtitle A Vision in a Dream), but that the composition was interrupted by the person from Porlock. Some have speculated that the vivid imagery of the poem stems from a waking hallucination, albeit most likely opium-induced. Additionally a quote from William Bartram is believed to have been a source of the poem. There is widespread speculation on the poem's meaning, some suggesting the author is merely portraying his vision while others insist on a theme or purpose. Others believe it is a poem stressing the beauty of creation.

One opinion states that the poem is perhaps most famous for its closing lines (lines 53–54), where Coleridge is likely referring to himself attaining paradise through his poem:

For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

However, it is important to remember that inspiration for this poem also comes from Marco Polo's, Il Milione, description of Shangdu and Kublai Khan, which appeared in Samuel Purchas' Pilgrimage,, Vol. XI, 231. By declaring himself emperor, the historical Kublai aligned himself to the Chinese divine right, the Mandate of Heaven, and therefore gained absolute control over an entire nation. Between warring and distributing the wealth his grandfather Genghis Khan had won, Kublai spent his summers in Xandu (better known now as Shangdu, or Xanadu) and had his subjects build him a home suitable for a son of God. This story is described in the first two lines of the poem, “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/A stately pleasure-dome decree” (1-2). The end of the third paragraph gives us another close-up view of Kubla. At his home, Kublai had on hand some ten thousand horses, which he used as a means of displaying his power; only he and those to whom he gave explicit permission for committing miscellaneous acts of valour was allowed to drink their milk. Hence the closing image of “the milk of Paradise.” (54)

External links

• Full text of the poem
• Coleridge's note and other notes about the poem
• "Kubla Khan" and the Embodied Mind, a detailed analysis of the poem
• One Candle, a Thousand Points of Light, an exploration of the poem's role in propagating the Xanadu meme
• Kubla Khan Set To Music, analysis & a musical approach to the themes of the poem for students & teachers of English

• 1816 works
• British poems