The Riches of the Forgotten

Upon reading Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, I was immediately struck by Coleridge’s expansive imagination and the poem’s peculiar context and framing. The preface was extremely confusing to me at first since I was not sure who was actually speaking, but after it became clear that Coleridge was reflecting on his own experience, I was still a bit confused as to why he framed the poem as an exploration of “psychological curiosity” rather than on the “grounds of any supposed poetic merit”. I suppose this was somewhat resolved when I understood that Coleridge felt that this was only a “fragment” of the whole piece that he wanted to write, but prefacing it that way still seemed oddly defensive. Then again, it seems many of the romantics were facing extremely harsh criticism, so it seems natural to assume that stance.

After making it into the beginning of the poem, the divide in Coleridge’s language in the eight to ten scattered lines “of exception” and the rest of his attempt to recollect his transporting dream was stark. Most obvious at first was the difference in rhyme scheme, but perhaps even more pronounced than the shift in rhyme was the shift in tone; the first stanza seems to flow quite naturally, and while the second is in no way bulky or unwieldy, it felt a bit more calculated. As Coleridge contrasts the confining walls of the pleasure-dome with the measureless caverns through which the river flows it immediately feels as if the poem is trying to work on me. This impressing tone continues throughout the rest of the poem, by no fault, though noticeably different from the loose, flowing, dream-like, language of the first stanza. This not-so-subtle shift made me think about the conception of this poem and if the story really is true, what this poem would have been if Coleridge was not interrupted by the man form Porlock – honestly I’m not sure if it would have been nearly as engaging. To me the most interesting parts of this poem seem to stem from what Coleridge cannot remember, and the way that he fabricates his dream as a medium for poetic expression.