Teaching Coleridge’s Kubla Khan
*This lesson gives students a context for understanding the origins, contradictory nature of the imagery, and fragmented nature of the Romantic poem, Kubla Khan.
Before students arrive, place an index card on each desk. When class begins, ask students to answer the following questions on one side of the index card. Allow three – four minutes for this.
1. What comes to mind when you hear the word “artist”?
2. What kind of person is an artist?
Then ask students to flip the card over. On the reverse side, have them write whatever comes to mind as they listen to a song. Play the song “Marco Polo” from Loreena McKennitt’s album, The Book of Secrets.
Note: “Marco Polo” connects with Kubla Khan on several levels. It was inspired by McKennitt’s trip to Venice and her knowledge of Marco Polo’s accounts of his voyage east, just as Coleridge was inspired by a similar account. It includes fragments of a Sufi melody that McKennitt encountered in her travels (perhaps like the melody of Coleridge’s “Abyssinian maid”). Most students will “see” the desert or jungle, eastern or middle-eastern style dancing, charmers luring snakes out of baskets – all images that are stereotypes (a point worth emphasizing to students) of how Westerners and Europeans of the past traditionally viewed the foreign, the exotic, the unfamiliar Middle East. The idea is very important to understanding Kubla Khan.
The song lasts for 5 minutes, 15 seconds. When it’s over, discuss the experience. Ask students to share what they’ve written on their index cards. Share some background information about the song (including some of the unfamiliar instruments used, like the hurdy-gurdy), and use the references to Marco Polo as an entry point to Kubla Khan. Read to students Coleridge’s explanatory note to the poem, explaining its origins and failure to fulfill his intentions for it.
Read the poem again, and listen to a recording of it, if one is available. Note the three sections of the poem, which will be used to structure discussion of it.
For the first section (lines 1-11), ask a student to draw a picture on the board of what Kubla Khan’s pleasure-park would look like and ask students about similar places in our own world.
Then move on to lines 12-36. Read the lines again and ensure that students can picture what is described in lines 17-28: the formation and path of the river. To examine the imagery of this section, put two columns on the board, labeled “light / positive” and “dark / negative.” Students go to the board and write words or phrases from lines 12-36 in the appropriate column, according to their connotations. Some words like “enchanted” may end up in both columns. When the lists are complete, ask students to consider the effects of the imagery:
How can a place be all of these things at the same time? In two or three words, how can we describe this place? Usually, students will conclude this place is both beautiful and dangerous at the same time. Discuss this paradox and why people are drawn to this combination.
To transition to the final section of the poem (lines 37-54), remind students of Coleridge’s description of the writing of the poem and ask if they have had similar creative experiences. Discuss any examples that are given and the fleeting nature of creative power. Ask them to turn to their index cards and share their associations concerning the word “artist.” Discuss their responses and the stereotypical connotations of the word “artist.”
Finally, read the end of the poem for Coleridge’s portrait of the artist. Questions to discuss with students include:
Who is the damsel and what role does she play in the creative process?
What could her song do for the writer?
When the speaker says, “I would build that dome in air” what does he mean he would do?
How would onlookers describe his physical appearance?
How would they respond to his creation? How does he make them feel?
What forces has this artist been in contact with?
End with a summary question: in two or three words, how can we describe this artist? To conclude, connect this back to the picture Coleridge creates of Khan’s garden which is beautiful yet dangerous. Taken together, the poem gives a picture of one particular version of the creative process, a process which often takes the artist to a place far away and “other.” First we read of the artist’s vision, then of his inability to completely recreate that vision, and then of what would happen if he could fully recreate that vision. His prediction. Summarize Coleridge’s experience with the creative process, and end by discussing students’ own experiences as artists. Discuss as well McKennitt’s artistry.