I am still fascinated by this poem, a broken text (no right interpretation), with its ambiguity between a visionary and a real world, with its oriental landscape, reminding sometimes of Dante's paradise. We don't even know precisely who Kubla Khan is. Is he a god, a warrior, Coleridge himself? Coleridge had fallen in a trance (perhaps due to opium?). In his vision he could see ideas (subliminal) as if they were objects, he was calling ideas into meaning. When he awoke he was interrupted (space of rationality). According to an epoque-making statement, imagination may be compared to Adam's dream (he awoke and found it truth). This is the metaphor of poetry/ creation, i.e. one creates by seeing with the eyes of the mind. The garden is an utopian place. Its correspondent in Xanadu is the dome.
Kubla Khan was a descendent of Ghengis Khan, who was emporer of China at the time of Marco Polo's visit - at least that's the historical Kubla Khan. It is def. Colridge's best work - the only other poem he wrote which comes close IMO is 'The Ancient Mariner'.
Great poem. It really is. Remember "Xanadu" by Rush? Great song that uses references from Coleridge. It is really far out writing.
I was quite impressed when I read it a few years ago...the power of images narrated was strong as well as you could catch, through his words, a sort of varying state of mind
