Tuesday, December 23, 2014

How can we summarize the poem "Kubla Khan" in about 200 words?

Stanza 1 alludes to the Mongol monarch's 'pleasure-dome' decreed to be built in a plot of fertile land in his summer capital, Xanadu. It was Kubla's earthly paradise, an enclosure made secure by walls & towers, with a 'sacred river', Alph, meandering through light & shade to dissolve into a 'sunless sea' underground.


Stanza 2 dwells on the ever-green hills around where the river originates in the form of 'a mighty fountain' from the womb of 'a deep romantic chasm'. Coming overground, the river runs five miles in 'a mazy motion' to merge into the 'lifeless ocean' through 'caverns measureless to man'. The river, a symbol of life itself, has great commotion at both ends--birth & death. Kubla's dome stands high as 'a miracle of rare device', reconciling the warmth of the sun on the exterior, and the coldness of ice in its exterior.


Stanza 3 shows a geographical switch as the poet refers to the 'Abyssinian maid' who sang a song about Mount Abora--a natural paradise on earth--in his vision. If the poet could revive the vision, the maiden's song could have inspired him to build a dome 'in air'. The poet, in his divine frenzy, could have been, a spontaneous maker of a dome in the realm of art.

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