S.T Coleridge is regarded as one of the greatest poets of Romanticism. His skill is to be seen in the use of supernatural in the most wonderful and mysterious way in his poems.
The poem "Kubla Khan" is the delightful blending of imagination, emotions, diction and sweet melody. The whole poem is a dream fragment.
Theme of the Poem:
The theme of the poem is author's fascination with a dream, a vision of Kubla Khan's summer residence and its environs, and then centers on the poet's desire to remember all the details of the dream.
Critical Appreciation:
Coleridge under the impact of opium, had a fanciful dream. Upon awakening from his slumber, he started recording his dream vision.To some extent, he was successful but in the mean time, he was interrupted by a visitor. So, he forgot much of his dream. Thus, the poem remained a fragmentary version of that dream.
Coleridge dreamt about a Mongolian ruler, Kubla Khan who decreed a magnificent palace to be built. Kubla Khan's "stately pleasure dome" stood on the banks of a sacred river, Alph which flowed through the caverns "measureless to man" into the "sunless sea".
54.400 SRY