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Kubla Khan In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan,” Coleridge is writing about the process of becoming inspired to where his imagination can put together all the necessary pieces to form an art. He says that art is only a fragment of a much larger idea, which so happens to be the plane of creativity or one’s own “pleasure dome.” Even though this dome is Coleridge’s dreaming interpretation of paradise, the poem is visionary as it taps into the power of creativity and imagination. The fact that this poem was inspired by a drug-induced dream is one thing, but the dream aspect is more important. Coleridge is relentless in his attempt to recreate his hallucination in order to produce his form of art for others to enjoy. If you actually think about living in the world today without imagination or art, one would have to be a machine due to not be affected by all of the depressing events that go on in the world. This poem goes to show that true artists crave for readers to open up their minds a little more, even if it’s for only a couple of minutes. Coleridge also proves that by adding a little imagination, you are not only able to recreate anything, but you can fine tune things to however you want them. By having the dream’s location called Xanadu, Coleridge is giving us the readers, our first piece of evidence that this poem actually takes place in a delusional land. He is also telling us he has quite the imagination and those reading his work should use theirs too. By setting his poem in a dream, Coleridge gives himself a supernatural power to where he can create or destroy anything he chooses at any given time. But in the first stanza, he is just describing his land of paradise for the readers: 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/ Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree…(Lines 1-8.) Through out this first stanza, Coleridge uses several apparent biblical references in “Alph,” “gardens,” “tree,” and even “river.” The word Alph refers to Alpha, or the beginning.
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