Study Questions for "Kubla Khan" by
Samuel Coleridge
Vocabulary:
fragment, imagery
Introduction:
none
Lecture or Handouts:
Why didn't Coleridge ever finish "Kubla Khan"? What
interrupted
him? Historically, who is Kubla Khan?
Identify the following characters,
places, and
images:
Kubla Khan, the pleasure-domes of Xanadu,
Alph, the woman wailing for her demon lover,
Reading Questions for "Kubla Khan"
Passages for Identification: Be able
to explain who wrote this passages, what poem the passage
come from, and briefly explain
their significance, context, or importance in the work:
A. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleaure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
B. So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree
C. A savage place! As holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
D. 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 honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of paradise."