Kubla Khan Criticism

The poem “Kubla Khan” or “A Vision in a Dream”, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge was composed in 1797 and then published in 1816 and is one of Coleridge’s most famous and controversial poems of the romantic period. It is also known as the “Fragmentary Vision” and a copy of the manuscript can be seen on exhibit at the British Museum in London. The poem itself has unusual rhythm and rhyme, simile, and symbolism and has been the subject of controversy and discussion among poets for centuries past.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a writer and poet whom greatly influenced other poets. He suffered depression and opiate addiction throughout his life. Coleridge wrote the poem “Kubla Khan”, allegedly after waking from an opiate induced dream. He admitted it was a fragment of a poem because his work got interrupted and he could not finish writing the poem unable to remember the dream entirely.

There has been controversy and criticism over the poem “Kubla Khan” for centuries. Originally, critics in Coleridge’s time did not find the poem even worthy of criticism. According to Poetry Criticism Volume 39, “When first published, many contemporary reviewers regarded the apparent poetic fragment as “nonsense” or “below criticism.” (Gale 119). In later years and through current day, the poem “Kubla Khan” has received much criticism which has made it a popular poem to analyze scholastically. This could be due to the fact that Coleridge’s lifestyle may have influenced the people’s reaction to his work. Notably, Coleridge is now considered a leader of the Romantic poetry movement. As it states in the Poetry Criticism Volume 39, “most critics acknowledge that the juxtaposed images, motifs, and ideas explored in the poem are strongly representative of Romantic ...

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...nd readers with many of the same critical problems that confounded its contemporary reviewers. Its textual history remains unclear, Coleridge's prefatory explanation of the poem's production is often considered dubious, and scholars just can't agree on what it 'means' or if it means anything at all. Most readers interpret 'Kubla Khan' as an allegory for the creative process, relying heavily upon a perpetuated Romantic formulation of the redemptive imagination.

Although Samuel Taylor Coleridge suffered a life of debt and opiate addiction due to neurological and rheumatic pain, he produced great literary work that was ground-breaking and the key development of Romantic poetry. He was highly meditative and also an expert critic on Shakespearean literature. Despite his setbacks, Coleridge’s many accomplishments made him an icon to writers and poets throughout history.