Editing Kubla Khan (section)

== Composition and publication ==
=== Date of composition ===
[[File:Samuel Taylor Coleridge at age 42.jpg|thumb|right|Coleridge, 1814]]
"Kubla Khan" was likely written in October 1797, though the precise date and circumstances of the first composition of "Kubla Khan" are slightly ambiguous, due to limited direct evidence. Coleridge usually dated his poems, but did not date "Kubla Khan",<ref>Holmes 1989 p. 165</ref> and did not mention the poem directly in letters to his friends.

Coleridge's descriptions of the poem's composition attribute it to 1797. In a manuscript in Coleridge's handwriting (known as the [[Crewe manuscript]]), a note by Coleridge says that it was composed "in the fall of the year, 1797."<ref name=":0">{{cite web |url = https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/manuscript-of-s-t-coleridges-kubla-khan |title=Manuscript of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan'|website=British Library|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190617140410/https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/manuscript-of-s-t-coleridges-kubla-khan|archive-date=17 June 2019|access-date=January 25, 2020}}</ref><ref>Holmes 1989 qtd. p. 162</ref> In the preface to the first published edition of the poem, in 1816, Coleridge says that it was composed during an extended stay he had made in [[Somerset]] during "the summer of the year 1797."<ref name=":1">Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ''Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep'', 2nd edition, William Bulmer, London, 1816. Reproduced in ''The Complete Poems'', ed. William Keach, Penguin Books, 2004.</ref> On 14 October 1797, Coleridge wrote a letter to [[John Thelwall]] which, although it does not directly mention "Kubla Khan", expresses many of the same feelings as in the poem,{{NoteTag|"I should much wish, like the Indian Vishna, to float about along an infinite ocean cradled in the flower of the Lotos, & wake once in a million years for a few minutes – just to know I was going to sleep a million years more...I can ''at times'' feel strong the beauties, you describe, in themselves, & for themselves – but more frequently ''all things'' appear little – all the knowledge, that can be acquired, child's play – the universe itself – what but an immense heap of ''little'' things?...My mind feels as if it ached to behold & know something ''great'' – something ''one'' & ''indivisible'' – and it is only in the faith of this that rocks or waterfalls, mountains or caverns give me the sense of sublimity or majesty!"<ref>Holmes 1989 qtd p. 167</ref>}} suggesting that these themes were on his mind.<ref name=":2">Holmes 1989 pp. 166–167</ref> All of these details have led to the consensus of an October 1797 composition date.

A May 1798 composition date is sometimes proposed because the first written mention of the poem is in Dorothy Wordsworth's journal of October 1798, where she mentions "carrying ''Kubla'' to a fountain".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kelleher |first=Hilton | title=The Kubla Khan Manuscript and Its First Collector | journal=The British Library Journal | date=1994 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/42554389. | volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=184–198 |jstor=42554389 | access-date=2024-07-08}}</ref> October 1799 has also been suggested because by then Coleridge would have been able to read [[Robert Southey]]'s ''Thalaba the Destroyer'', a work which drew on the same sources as "Kubla Khan". At both time periods, Coleridge was again in the area of Ash Farm, near [[Culbone Church]], where Coleridge consistently described composing the poem. However, the October 1797 composition date is more widely accepted.{{cn |reason=Wide acceptance is very difficult to verify and may change over time |date=July 2024}}

=== Composition in a dream ===
In September 1797, Coleridge lived in [[Nether Stowey]] in the southwest of England and spent much of his time walking through the nearby [[Quantock Hills]] with his fellow poet [[William Wordsworth]] and Wordsworth's sister [[Dorothy Wordsworth|Dorothy]]<ref name="Holmes 1989 pp. 161-162">Holmes 1989 pp. 161–162</ref> (his route today is memorialised as the "[[Coleridge Way]]").<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.somerset-rural-renaissance.co.uk/coleridge-way.html|title=The Coleridge Way|year=2007|publisher=Somerset Rural Renaissance|access-date=2 July 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081123055049/http://www.somerset-rural-renaissance.co.uk/coleridge-way.html|archive-date=23 November 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> Some time between 9 and 14 October 1797, when Coleridge says he had completed the tragedy ''Osorio'', he left Stowey for [[Lynton]]. On his return journey, he became sick and rested at Ash Farm, located near Culbone Church and one of the few places to seek shelter on his route.<ref name="Holmes 1989 pp. 161-162" /> There, he had a dream which inspired the poem.

[[File:KublaKhan.jpeg|thumb|right|The [[Crewe manuscript]], handwritten by Coleridge himself some time before the poem was published in 1816]]

Coleridge described the circumstances of his dream and the poem in two places: on a manuscript copy written some time before 1816, and in the preface to the printed version of the poem published in 1816. The manuscript states: "This fragment with a good deal more, not recoverable, composed, in a sort of Reverie brought on by two grains of Opium taken to check a dysentry, at a Farm House between [[Porlock]] & Linton, a quarter of a mile from Culbone Church." The printed preface describes his location as "a lonely farm house between Porlock and Linton, on the [[Exmoor]] confines of Somerset and Devonshire," and embellishes the events into a narrative which has sometimes been seen as part of the poem itself.

According to the extended preface narrative, Coleridge was reading ''Purchas his Pilgrimes'' by [[Samuel Purchas]], and fell asleep after reading about [[Kublai Khan]]. Then, he says, he "continued for about three hours in a profound sleep... during which time he had the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two or three hundred lines ... On Awaking 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."<ref name="Holmes qtd. p. 435">Holmes 1998 qtd. p. 435</ref> The passage continues with a famous account of an interruption:<ref name="Holmes 1998 p. 435">Holmes 1998 p. 435</ref> "At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock... 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 purpose of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away."<ref name="Holmes qtd. p. 435" /> The "[[person on business from Porlock]]" later became a term to describe interrupted genius. When [[John Livingston Lowes]] taught the poem, he told his students "If there is any man in the history of literature who should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, it is the man on business from Porlock."<ref>Perkins 2010 qtd. p. 39</ref>

There are some problems with Coleridge's account, especially the claim to have a copy of Purchas with him. It was a rare book, unlikely to be at a "lonely farmhouse", nor would an individual carry it on a journey; the folio was heavy and almost 1,000 pages in size.<ref>Fruman 1971 p. 337</ref> It is possible that the words of Purchas were merely remembered by Coleridge and that the depiction of immediately reading the work before falling asleep was to suggest that the subject came to him accidentally.<ref>Bate 1968 pp. 75–76</ref> Critics have also noted that unlike the manuscript, which says he had taken two grains of opium, the printed version of this story says only that "In consequence of a slight indisposition, an [[anodyne]] had been prescribed." The image of himself that Coleridge provides is of a dreamer who reads works of lore and not as an opium addict. Instead, the effects of the opium, as described, are intended to suggest that he was not used to its effects.<ref name="Perkins p. 39">Perkins 2010 p. 39</ref>

According to some critics, the second stanza of the poem, forming a conclusion, was composed at a later date and was possibly disconnected from the original dream.<ref>Perkins 2010 pp. 40–44</ref>

===Publication===
[[File:Christabel, Kubla Khan, and Pains of Sleep titlepage.jpg|thumb|right|Title page of ''Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep'' (1816)]]

After its composition, Coleridge periodically read the poem to friends, as to the Wordsworths in 1798, but did not seek to publish it. Coleridge's friend, the author [[Mary Robinson (poet)|Mary Robinson]] wrote a response to the poem titled, "To the Poet Coleridge," which was first published in the October, 17, 1800 edition of ''[[The Morning Post]]'',<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/TWC24042945?journalCode=twc| title=From "Mingled Measure" to "Eestatic Measures": Mary Robinson's Poetic Reading of "Kubla Khan"| date=1995|last=Robinson|first=Daniel| journal=[[University of Chicago Press]]| volume=26| pages=4–7| doi=10.1086/TWC24042945}}</ref> and was later included in her ''Poetical Works'' compilation in 1806.<ref>{{Cite web|author=Robinson, Mary|url=https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksinc01robiuoft/page/226/mode/2up|title=Poetical works; including many pieces never before published |date=1806|page=226}}</ref> In 1808 an anonymous contributor to the ''Monthly Repertory of English Literature'' quoted two lines from it in a book review.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=vfBIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1 Monthly Repertory of English Literature, Arts, Sciences, etc. Vol. 4 No. 13 (April 1808), p1. ]</ref>

The poem was set aside until 1815 when Coleridge compiled manuscripts of his poems for a collection titled ''Sibylline Leaves''.<ref>Holmes 1998 p. 387</ref> It did not feature in that volume, but Coleridge did read the poem to [[Lord Byron]] on 10 April 1816.{{NoteTag|[[Leigh Hunt]], the poet and essayist, witnessed the event and wrote, "He recited his 'Kubla Khan' one morning to Lord Byron, in his Lordship's house in Piccadilly, when I happened to be in another room. I remember the other's coming away from him, highly struck with his poem, and saying how wonderfully he talked. This was the impression of everyone who heard him."<ref>Holmes 1998 qtd. p. 426</ref>}}

Byron persuaded Coleridge to publish the poem, and on 12 April 1816, a contract was drawn up with the publisher [[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]] for £80.<ref>Holmes 1998 p. 426</ref> The Preface of "Kubla Khan" explained that it was printed "at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity, and as far as the author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed ''poetic'' merits."<ref>Sisman 2006 qtd. p. 417</ref> Coleridge's wife discouraged the publication,{{NoteTag|She wrote to [[Thomas Poole (tanner)|Thomas Poole]], "Oh! when will he ever give his friends anything but pain? he has been so unwise as to publish his fragments of 'Christabel' & 'Kubla-Khan'...we were all sadly vexed when we read the advertisement of these things."<ref>Holmes 1998 qtd. p. 431</ref>}} and [[Charles Lamb]], a poet and friend of Coleridge, expressed mixed feelings, worrying that the printed version of the poem couldn't capture the power of the recited version.{{NoteTag|Lamb wrote to Wordsworth: "Coleridge is printing Xtabel by Lord Byron's recommendation to Murray, with what he calls a vision of Kubla Khan – which said vision he repeats so enchantingly that it irradiates & brings Heaven & Elysian bowers into my parlour while he sings or says it; but there is an observation: 'never tell thy dreams,' and I am almost afraid that 'Kubla Khan' is an owl that won't bear daylight. I fear lest it should be discovered by the lantern of typography and clear reducing to letters, no better than nonsense or no sense."<ref> Holmes 1998 qtd. p. 429; Doughty 1981 qtd. p. 433.</ref>}}

"Kubla Khan" was published with [[Christabel (poem)|''Christabel'']] and "The Pains of Sleep" on 25 May 1816.<ref>Holmes 1998 p. 434</ref> Coleridge included the subtitle "A Fragment" to defend against criticism of the poem's incomplete nature.<ref>Ashton 1997 pp. 112–113</ref> The original published version of the work was separated into 2 stanzas, with the first ending at line 30.<ref>Yarlott 1967 p. 145</ref> The poem was printed four times in Coleridge's life, with the final printing in his ''Poetical Works'' of 1834.<ref>Mays 2001 p. 511</ref> In the final work, Coleridge added the expanded subtitle "Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment". Printed with "Kubla Khan" was a preface that stated a dream provided Coleridge the lines.<ref name="Sisman p. 417">Sisman 2006 p. 417</ref> In some later anthologies of Coleridge's poetry, the preface is dropped along with the subtitle denoting its fragmentary and dream nature. Sometimes, the preface is included in modern editions but lacks both the first and final paragraphs.<ref>Perkins 2010 pp. 39–40</ref>