Editing Kubla Khan (section)

==Style==
{{quotebox | title="Kubla Khan" | quote=
<poem>
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
     Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and inchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted Burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

     The shadow of the dome of pleasure
     Floated midway on the waves;
     Where was heard the mingled measure
     From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

     A damsel with a dulcimer
     In a vision once I saw:
     It was an Abyssinian maid
     And on her dulcimer she play'd,
     Singing of Mount Abora.
     Could I revive within me
     Her symphony and song,
     To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
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 drank the milk of Paradise.<ref>Coleridge 1816 pp. 55–58</ref>
</poem>
}}

=== Fragmentation ===
According to Coleridge's account, the poem is an incomplete fragment.<ref>Sisman 2006 p. 195</ref> Originally, he says, his dream included between 200 and 300 lines, but he was able to compose only the first 30 before he was interrupted. The second stanza is not necessarily part of the original dream and refers to the dream in the past tense.<ref>Perkins 2010 pp. 43–44</ref> "Kubla Khan" is also related to the genre of fragmentary poetry, with internal images reinforcing the idea of fragmentation that is found within the form of the poem.<ref>Perkins 2010 pp. 42, 45–47</ref> The poem's self-proclaimed fragmentary nature combined with Coleridge's warning about the poem in the preface turns "Kubla Khan" into an "anti-poem", a work that lacks structure, order, and leaves the reader confused instead of enlightened.<ref>Fulford 2002 p. 54</ref> However, the poem has little relation to the other fragmentary poems Coleridge wrote.<ref>Bate 1968 p. 76</ref>

The first lines of the poem follow [[iambic tetrameter]] with the initial stanza relying on heavy stresses. The lines of the second stanza incorporate lighter stresses to increase the speed of the meter to separate them from the hammer-like rhythm of the previous lines.<ref name="Yarlott p. 129">Yarlott 1967 p. 129</ref> There also is a strong break following line 36 in the poem that provides for a second stanza, and there is a transition in narration from a third person narration about Kubla Khan into the poet discussing his role as a poet.<ref>Mays 2001 pp. 509–510, 514</ref> Without the Preface, the two stanzas form two different poems that have some relationship to each other but lack unity.<ref name="Perkins 2010 pp. 42–43">Perkins 2010 pp. 42–43</ref> This is not to say they would be two different poems, since the technique of having separate parts that respond to another is used in the genre of the [[odal hymn]], as in the poetry of other Romantic poets including [[John Keats]] or [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]].<ref>Bate 1968 p. 78</ref> However, the odal hymn as used by others has a stronger unity among its parts, and Coleridge believed in writing poetry that was unified organically.<ref>{{harvnb|Singh|1994|p=48}}</ref> It is possible that Coleridge was displeased by the lack of unity in the poem and added a note about the structure to the Preface to explain his thoughts.<ref>{{harvnb|Roe|2001|p=265}}</ref>

=== Sound ===
The poem's language is highly stylised with a strong emphasis on sound devices that change between the poem's original two [[stanza]]s. The poem relies on many sound-based techniques, including [[cognate]] variation and [[chiasmus]].<ref>Mays 2001 pp. 509–512</ref> In particular, the poem emphasises the use of the "æ" sound and similar modifications to the standard "a" sound to make the poem sound Asian. Its rhyme scheme found in the first seven lines is repeated in the first seven lines of the second stanza. There is a heavy use of [[assonance]] and [[alliteration]], especially in the first line: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan". The stressed sounds, "Xan", "du", "Ku", "Khan", contain assonance in their use of the sounds a-u-u-a, have two rhyming syllables with "Xan" and "Khan", and employ alliteration with the name "Kubla Khan" and the reuse of "d" sounds in "Xanadu" and "did". To pull the line together, the "i" sound of "In" is repeated in "did". Later lines do not contain the same amount of symmetry but do rely on assonance and rhymes throughout. Though the lines are interconnected, the rhyme scheme and line lengths are irregular.<ref>Schneider 1967 pp. 88–91</ref>