ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -A poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), published 1816. Coleridge composed ‘Kubla Khan; Or, A Vision in a Dream’ in 1797 under the influence of opium. He fell into a reverie while reading a travel account, but his dream of the exotic Orient was interrupted by ‘a person on business from Porlock’.

Detailed explanation-2: -Coleridge has presented ‘Kubla Khan’ as a dream poem so that the reader can also take part in the creative process. Coleridge would have recognized that reading is always a creative act.

Detailed explanation-3: -Most modern critics now view Kubla Khan as one of Coleridge’s three great poems, along with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. The poem is considered one of the most famous examples of Romanticism in English poetry, and is one of the most frequently anthologized poems in the English language.

Detailed explanation-4: -Kubla Khan, in full Kubla Khan; or, a Vision in a Dream, poetic fragment by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1816. According to Coleridge, he composed the 54-line work while under the influence of laudanum, a form of opium.

Detailed explanation-5: -The poem describes Kubla Khan as a powerful ruler who has great command. His authoritativeness lies in the fact that he can order for a pleasure dome to be built on merely one order. This pleasure dome is no less than a miracle as it comprises of caves of ice. What’s miraculous is that it is present in a sunny area.