Kubla Khan, Essay Example

Although Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” is widely viewed as a fragment, it fulfills Coleridge’s criteria for an “essential” poem. In Biographia Literaria Coleridge states that an essential poem is one to which the reader feels compelled to return again and again. He writes that “the poem […] to which we return with the greatest pleasure [which] possesses the genuine power and claims the name of essential poetry” (Greenblatt,10). Part of the way in which “Kubla Khan” induces readers to return is by being only a partial narrative.
Most people are familiar with the fact that “Kubla Khan” was neverf completed by Coleridge and that it was inspired by a dream. Silhol remarks that “At least partly dictated by a dream, ‘Kubla Khan,’ whose structure, in spite of appearances, is very coherent,” (Silhol, 2006). the structure of the poem incites the viewer to guess how the poem might have ended had Coleridge completed his work. The greatest possibility is that the poem would have told a complete story. I believe the poem would have developed with Kubla Khan being compelled out of his pleasure dome in order to go to war. Then, after winning major victories, he would fall victim to a traitor who brings him a mortal wound in battle. he would then return to the pleasure dome where he died, with his body remaining there until the palace itself was lost in th sands of time. This is the way the narrative would probably have developed.

Coleridge relished dreams and as her remarks, his greatest pleasure was to “carry on my visionary studies in London unannoyed, and that I may converse with my friends in Eternity, See Visions, Dream Dreams, and prophesy and speak Parables unobserved” (Greenblatt,1). this is one reason to belive that the narrative would have also described many exotic locales and even characters because Coleridge was willing to follow the epic idea of his imagination. The diea that the poem, “Kubla Khan” would have spanned the title-character’s whole life is, therefore, a natural assumption to make.

References

Silhol, R. “Kubla Khan”: Genesis of an Archetype. PSYART. (2006). 1 page 2 sources
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/alpha.htm#b (textbook online

Question of essay: “Kubla Khan is a fragment. Had Coleridge finished the poem, how would it end?

Instructions: Half to full page. MLA format with at least two references to the text book. Other sources may be used in addition. Work cited at bottom.

Basic Textbook Citation (please adjust for poem used-MLA):

Greenblatt, Stephan. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. W. W. Norton and Company. New York and London. 9th Edition, Volume 2.