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17 pages 34 minutes read

Kubla Khan

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1816

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Literary Devices

Sensory Imagery

Sensory imagery is one of poetry’s greatest tools. Writers recreate smells, sounds, sights, textures, and tastes with vivid language, inviting the reader into the experience of the poem. Coleridge packs his description of Xanadu with sensory imagery, particularly visual images to show readers the vision that inspired “Kubla Khan.”

The poem opens with a stanza filled with Kubla Khan’s creation: his palace and its surrounding gardens. A great, calm river winds through the green, hilly terrain and the sizable gardens the Khan planted. The sun shines on the historic land (which suggests heat--a tactile image). An olfactory image, or appeal to the sense of smell, occurs in Line 9 as Coleridge references the blooms of “many an incense-bearing tree.” However, a mysterious force lurks beneath the land: the “caverns measureless to man” (Line 4) appearing throughout the poem.

As Coleridge continues into the second stanza, the images turn more mysterious with the introduction of “that deep romantic chasm” (Line 12). Soon comes an auditory image of “woman wailing for her demon-lover” (Line 16)—a ghostly cry that may foreshadow danger. The poet describes the sound of the fountain as the world panting in anticipation or exertion. The fountain creates a dramatic explosion in the chasm, with “Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail” (Line 21) and disrupts the river’s flow. Another important auditory image is the warning from “Ancestral voices prophesying war” (Line 30). Kubla Khan’s beautiful domain may not remain so serene if a battle arrives on his doorstep. Coleridge extends this tension through another visual, tactile image juxtaposing hot and cold: “A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!” (Line 36). 

Coleridge continues his auditory imagery throughout the third stanza. The “damsel with a dulcimer” (Line 37) invites readers into the speaker’s memory of transporting music on this unique stringed instrument. As the speaker attempts to summon the damsel’s song, he draws a final image of himself through emphatic visual and gustatory (or taste-related) imagery. If the speaker possessed the damsel’s power, he imagines he would possess “flashing eyes” and “floating hair” (50). His new supernatural appearance would come from his access to a world beyond, where he can eat “honey-dew” and “[drink] the milk of Paradise” (Line 54). 

Repetition

Poets repeat words, phrases, images, and sound devices to create meaning and musicality in their work. Coleridge employs repetition throughout “Kubla Khan” to magnify its dreamy atmosphere

Coleridge draws special attention to “Alph, the sacred river” (Line 3) several times in the poem and uses the phrase “the sacred river” (Line 24) three times. Similarly, the “caverns measureless to man” (Line 4) appear twice. He mentions them, too, as he repeats his exclamation, “A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!” (Line 36) with a slight variation in Line 47. The water in those caves also receives several mentions, whether as a “sunless sea” (Line 5) or “a lifeless ocean […]” (Line 28). 

Rhyme

Coleridge employs end rhyme throughout the poem. He uses an irregular rhyme scheme amid three stanzas of alternate lengths. However, the rhymes nevertheless create resonance from line to line, image to image, and stanza to stanza. The poet rhymes four lines in the first stanza with “decree” (Line 2), “sea” (Line 5), “tree” (Line 9), and “greenery” (Line 11).

Often, but not always, Coleridge establishes end rhyme between two adjacent lines. For example, he rhymes “seething” (Line 17) with “breathing” (Line 18), followed by the half or slant rhyme of “forced” (Line 19) and “burst” (Line 20). These paired sounds occur most often in the second stanza, with its increased pace and darkening mood

The poem’s titular character appears at the end of Line 1, and words rhyming with “Khan” occur in Lines 3, 4, 26, and 27. Attentive readers will also notice that amidst all end-rhymed words, Coleridge uses similar consonant sounds (a sound device called consonance). Many ending words contain S, R, and N sounds, which mimic the sound of the rushing river through Xanadu and reinforce the poem’s trance-like mood. 

Alliteration

Alliteration describes the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of adjacent words. Coleridge fills his poem with alliteration, the most prominent of which he places in the title, “Kubla Khan.” The opening lines resound with phrases like “dome decree” (Line 2), “river, ran” (Line 3), and “measureless to man” (Line 4). These memorable sounds also enhance the song-like quality of the poem.

Phrases like “woman wailing” (Line 16), “Five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (Line 25), “damsel with a dulcimer” (Line 37), and “he on honey-dew hath fed” (Line 53) fill the poem with soft melodic sounds. Scholars have noted these phrases also mimic the poem’s hypnotic (dreamlike) quality, matching the poem’s content with its style.

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