upturned head with rays of light coming out of it and ascending into the sky

Kubla Khan

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Start Free Trial

Further Reading

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

  • Adair, Patricia A., "‘Kubla Khan’ and the Underworld," in The Waking Dream: A Study of Coleridge's Poetry, pp. 108-43. London: Edward Arnold, 1967. (Explicates the imagery of “Kubla Khan” with particular emphasis on references to the underworld of Greek mythology.)
  • Bate, Jonathan, "‘Kubla Khan’ and ‘At a Solemn Music,’" English Language Notes 24, No. 1 (1986): 71-73. (Explains some Miltonic parallels in “Kubla Khan.”)
  • Beer, J. B., "The River and the Caverns," in Coleridge the Visionary, pp. 199-229. London: Chatto & Windus, 1959. (Provides an analysis of the symbolic imagery of “Kubla Khan,” in which the river and cavern images in the poem are viewed as representative of “dialectic creativity … in a fallen world” and Kubla is seen as a emblem of the “commanding genius.”)
  • Beer, John, "Remapping the Roads to Xanadu and Highgate: Another Look at Coleridge's Reading," The Wordsworth Circle 29, No. 1 (Winter 1998): 25-30. (Comments on several different types of reading—ranging from “submissive” to “imperious”—and on the limitations of John Livingston Lowes's method of interpreting Coleridge's reading in his 1927 study of “Kubla Khan” entitled The Road to Xanadu.)
  • Benzon, William, "Articulate Vision: A Structuralist Reading of ‘Kubla Khan,’" Language and Style 18, No. 1 (Winter 1985): 3-29. (A structuralist interpretation of “Kubla Khan.”)
  • Colombo, Claire Miller, "Reading Scripture, Writing Self: Coleridge's Animation of the ‘Dead Letter,’" Studies in Romanticism 35, No. 1 (Spring 1996): 27-53. (Readings of “The Eolian Harp” and “Kubla Khan,” both proposing that Coleridge considered the poetic form a derivative of the sculptural form.)
  • De Paolo, Charles, "Coleridge and the Cities of the Khan," Wordsworth Circle 14, No. 2 (Spring 1983): 83-87. (Traces Coleridge's description of Xanadu in “Kubla Khan” to Purchas's description of the city of Xamdu.)
  • Drew, John, "‘Kubla Khan’ and Orientalism," in Coleridge's Visionary Languages, edited by Tim Fulford and Morton D. Paley, pp. 41-48. Cambridge: Brewer, 1993. (A reading of “Kubla Khan” as an Orientalist poem.)
  • Fleissner, Robert F., "‘Kubla Khan’ As an Integrationist Poem," Negro American Literature Forum 8, No. 3 (Autumn 1974): 254-56. (Explores the theme of a reconciliation of opposites in “Kubla Khan,” especially in terms of the poem's imagistic depiction of race.)
  • Hamilton, Paul, "Plagiarism with a Difference: Subjectivity in ‘Kubla Khan’ and Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark," in Beyond Romanticism: New Approaches to Texts and Contexts, 1780-1832, edited by Stephen Copley and John Whale, pp. 140-59. London: Routledge, 1992. (Explains the connections between Mary Wollstonecraft's A Short Residence and “Kubla Khan.”)
  • Hedley, Douglas, "Coleridge's Intellectual Intuition, the Vision of God, and the Walled Garden of ‘Kubla Khan,’" Journal of the History of Ideas 59, No. 1 (1998): 115-34. (Points to the element of mystical transcendence in “Kubla Khan” and probes the poem's reference to the Christian image of paradise as a walled garden.)
  • Huhn, Peter, "Outwitting Self-Consciousness: Self-Reference and Paradox in Three Romantic Poems," English Studies 72, No. 3 (March 1991): 230-45. (Describes the role and effect of self-conscious composition in three Romantic poems, including “Kubla Khan.”)
  • Kennard, L. R., "Kubla Can: Wordplay in Coleridge's Poetry," The Wordsworth Circle 26, No. 1 (Winter 1995): 8-12. (Examines the role of puns and punning in “Kubla Khan,” ascribing these to Coleridge's self-referentiality and modernity as a poet.)
  • Levy, Martin J., "Coleridge, Mary Robinson and ‘Kubla Khan,’" Charles Lamb Bulletin, No. 77 (January 1992): 155-56. (Traces the relationship between Coleridge and Mary Robinson, focusing on the latter's connection with “Kubla Khan.”)
  • Lorrah, Jean, "The Shamanistic Vision in Fantastic Poetry," in The Scope of the Fantastic—Culture, Biography, Themes, Children's Literature, edited by Robert A. Collins and Howard D. Pearce, pp. 199-204. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985. (Analyzes shamanistic visions in various poems, including “Kubla Khan.”)
  • Meier, Hans Heinrich, "Ancient Lights on Kubla's Lines," English Studies 46, No. 1 (February 1965): 15-29. (Reapplies John Livingston Lowes's theory of reading to “Kubla Khan,” uncovering references to the poetry of Milton and Spenser, and to the mythical figure of Adonis.)
  • Ober, Warren U., "Southey, Coleridge, and ‘Kubla Khan,’" JEPG 58, No. 3 (July 1959): 414-22. (Presents biographical evidence concerning Coleridge's association with the poet Robert Southey to suggest that “Kubla Khan” was written in late 1799.)
  • Pearce, Donald, "‘Kubla Khan’ in Context," Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 21, No. 4 (Autumn 1981): 565-83. (Reads “Kubla Khan” in relation to Coleridge's other romantic evocations of landscape in his earlier poetry and in his Notebooks.)
  • Piper, H. W., "The Two Paradises in ‘Kubla Khan,’" The Review of English Studies 27, No. 106 (May 1976): 148-58. (Notes references to the original and restored Christian paradises in “Kubla Khan.”)
  • Skarda, Patricia L., "Teaching the Fragment: Christabel and ‘Kubla Khan,’" in Approaches to Teaching Coleridge's Poetry and Prose, edited by Richard E. Matlak, pp. 134-66. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1991. (Details student responses to two of Coleridge's best known works, tracing their evolution from inception to publication.)
  • Stillinger, Jack, "The Plots of Romantic Poetry," College Literature 15, No. 3 (1988): 208-23. (Examines various Romantic poems, including “Kubla Khan,” as works of fiction.)
  • Ting, Nai-Tung, "From Shangtu to Xanadu," Studies in Romanticism 23, No. 2 (Summer 1984): 205-22. (Compares Coleridge's descriptions of Xanadu in “Kubla Khan” to the city of Shangtu, the historical Mongol summer capital.)
  • Wheeler, Kathleen, "‘Kubla Khan’ and Eighteenth Century Aesthetic Theories," The Wordsworth Circle 22, No. 1 (Winter 1991): 15-24. (Evaluates the imagery and thematic texture of “Kubla Khan” in the context of eighteenth-century theories regarding the aims of poetry, the qualities of artistic genius, and the tension between truth and beauty.)
  • Wheeler, Kathleen, "‘Kubla Khan’ and the Art of Thingifying," in Romanticism: A Critical Reader, edited by Duncan Wu, pp. 123-50. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. (Highlights ambiguities inherent in “Kubla Khan” and its accompanying preface as these refer to the fundamental nature of poetic creation and the conveyance of truth through aesthetic experience.)
  • Youngquist, Paul, "Rehabilitating Coleridge: Poetry, Philosophy, Excess," ELH 66, No. 4 (1999): 885-909. (Assesses “Kubla Khan” within a larger study of Coleridge's opium dependency and his career shift from poet to philosopher.)

Get Ahead with eNotes

Start your 48-hour free trial to access everything you need to rise to the top of the class. Enjoy expert answers and study guides ad-free and take your learning to the next level.

Get 48 Hours Free Access

Already a member? Log in here.

Previous

Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Poetry Criticism)
Loading...