1. The Secrets of Kubla Khan
Revealed. . .

2. Circumstances of Composition
In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's Pilgrimage: ``Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.'' The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!

3. ``Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.''

4. INTERPRETATION SYMBOL
Dreams langauge is a symbolic language. Things are not necessarily what they seem, but stand for other things. Here are the key symbols from “Kubla Khan”. Try to fashion them into a coherent interpretation.
SYMBOL
INTERPRETATION
The Garden
Alph
Wailing Woman
Demon Lover
Mighty Fountain
Violent Expulsion
Lifeless Ocean
Ancestral Voices

5. INTERPRETATION SYMBOL
A minister's son, Coleridge for a time considered joining the clergy himself. He was also very involved in the tumultuous political events of his time. The initial suggestion of the Garden of Eden morphs into a dystopian future.
SYMBOL
INTERPRETATION
The Garden
Paradise, Eden
Alph
Adam, the Human Race, history
Wailing Woman
Eve
Demon Lover
The Serpent
Mighty Fountain
Knowledge
Violent Expulsion
The expulsion from the Garden
Lifeless Ocean
The Future of Humanity
Ancestral Voices
Coleridge’s Fears & Doubts

6. INTERPRETATION SYMBOL
The Romantic writers were great supporters of the revolution in France. Coleridge watches that brilliant beginning turn into the “Terror”, and the rise of Napoleon.
SYMBOL
INTERPRETATION
The Garden
The Enlightenment
Romantic Chasm
France, the revolution
Wailing Woman
Marianne
Demon Lover
The masses
Violent Expulsion
The guillotine, the Terror
Alph
Blood
Lifeless Ocean
The French Republic
Ancestral Voices
WiIl it spread to Britain?

7. INTERPRETATION SYMBOL
Coleridge finally decided on a career in writing, but he was not always sure of his own abilities. He had a tempestuous relationship (personally and professionally) with William Wordsworth.
SYMBOL
INTERPRETATION
The Garden
Dove Cottage, the early relationship
Romantic Chasm
Rift between STC & WW
Wailing Woman
Sarah Coleridge/Hutchinson
Demon Lover
Opium
Violent Expulsion
The imagined break
Alph
Inspiration, the artistic muse
Lifeless Ocean
Future works
Ancestral Voices
Critics

8. Sigmund Freud pioneered the modern idea of dream analysis
Sigmund Freud pioneered the modern idea of dream analysis. If you know anything about Freud, you know that he felt that, deep down, it was all about sex. (See “Oedipus complex”, “Freudian imagery”.)
SYMBOL
INTERPRETATION
The Garden
The female, the womb
Romantic Chasm
Freudian symbol for the female
Wailing Woman
Sara Coleridge
Mighty Fountain
Freudian symbol for the male
Violent Expulsion
Consummation
Alph
The beginnings of life (male)
Lifeless Ocean
A barren womb
Ancestral Voices
Ancestral voices