NCERT Book Class 12 English (kaleidoscope) Poetry 4 Kubla Khan

4
Kubla Khan
Or
A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment
S.T. Coleridge was imaginative even as a child.
He studied at Cambridge. In 1797, he met
Wordsworth; the two belonged to the first
generation of Romantic poets. Coleridge was
responsible for presenting the supernatural as
real and Wordsworth would try to render
ordinary reality as remarkable and strange.
Byron, Shelley and Keats belonged to the next
generation of Romantic Poets.
The genesis of this poem was a vision seen by
Coleridge in a trance-like state of mind. He tried
to capture its essence but an interruption caused S.T.Coleridge
an irreparable break in his poetic flow. 1772-1834

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.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
* Kubla Khan founded the Mongol dynasty in China in the thirteenth century.
* You will notice that this poem is incomplete. There is a reason behind this. In 1797, when
Coleridge fell ill, some medicine was prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in
his chair while reading about Kubla Khan. In the three hours of profound sleep, he had a
wonderful dream. On awakening he distinctly recollected it, and began to write it down,
when he was interrupted by a chance visitor. The poem thus remained incomplete.