Kubla Khan Flashcards
In which circumstances was the poem written?
Coleridge wrote this poem in ill health and as a consequence under opium.
He was rendered unconscious during the reading of
Purchas’ Pilgrimage, on a line which speaks of a Khan Kubla. The line induced the dream which inspired the poem.
What does the poem speak of?
An unnamed speaker tells of how a named Kubla Khan travels to the land of Xanadu.
The composition of Xanadu;
“A miracle of a rare device”
“Caverns measureless to man”
“Ancestral voices prophesying war”
What does the last stanza of the poem speak of?
The narrator longs to hear the Mount Abora from the voice of Abyssinian maid, whose song will transport him to a land of dreams where he is God.
What demonstrates the sexual nature of the dream?
“Pleasure dome”
“Woman wailing for her demon lover.”
“A mighty fountain”
There are two personifications of the mother figure, which are they?
A sexualised mother nature and the Abyssinian maid.
