English 12Chu
Name:______
Period:______
Date:______
“Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph,[1] the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,[2]
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover![3]
A savage place! as holy and enchanted as e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently[4] was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:[5]
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy[6] motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure[7]
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer[8]
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian[9] maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of MountAbora.[10]
Could I revive within me
Her sympathy and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Directions:
Read the questions carefully. Respond to each thoroughly, insightfully and correctly in complete sentences. Answers are worth two points each.
- In the first stanza, what images create pictures of the pleasure-dome that Kubla Khan decrees?
- Why is the “deep romantic chasm” of line 12 called a “savage” place? What ominous note is introduced toward the end of the second stanza?
- In the third stanza, what does the speaker see in a vision? What does the speaker say he wants to do?
- The speaker in the poem has been interpreted as being an artist, perhaps a poet. Why would the “damsel with a dulcimer” be important to the speaker?
- What could the “dome in air” which the speaker wants to create symbolize?
- Many ancient cultures regarded poets as seers who had a special relationship with the gods and thus were to be treated with reverence. How might Coleridge be alluding to such beliefs in the closing lines of the last stanza?
- How could this poem be about the creation of a poem?
1
ELA Content Standard 2.0 (Reading Comprehension)
[1] Alph: probably a reference to the Greek river Alpheus, which flows into the Ionian Sea, and whose waters are fabled to rise up again in Sicily.
[2] sinuous rills: winding streams
[3] athwart a cedarn cover: crossing diagonally under a covering growth of cedar trees
[4] momently: adverb at each moment
[5] thresher’s flail: heavy, whip-like tool used to thresh, or beat, grain in order to separate the kernels from their chaff,
or husks
[6] mazy: adjective like a maze; having many turns
[7] measure: noun rhythmic sound
[8] dulcimer: noun musical instrument that is often played by striking the strings with small hammers
[9] Abyssinian: Ethiopian. Ethiopia is in northeast Africa.
[10]MountAbora: probably a reference to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, in which MountAmara, in Ethiopia, is a mythical, earthly paradise.