Kubla Khan" As Symbol Author(S): WARREN STEVENSON Source: Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol

"Kubla Khan" as Symbol Author(s): WARREN STEVENSON Source: Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Winter 1973), pp. 605-630 Published by: University of Texas Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40754231 Accessed: 15-11-2015 11:15 UTC

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This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WARREN STEVENSON

"Kubla Khan" as Symbol

CRITICISM OF "KUBLA KHAN" HAS COME OF AGE ONLY DURING THE pastdecade or so. This is owingpartly to thepoem's inner compactness and subtlety,and partlyto thebizarre circumstances which, according to Coleridge'sprefatory note publishedwith the poem in 1816, sur- roundedthe poem's composition. Too longto be quotedin itsentirety, theprefatory note is in theform of an apologyin whichthe poet says he has been prevailedupon to publishthe "fragment,"and has done so "ratheras a psychologicalcuriosity, than on theground of any supposed poeticmerits." The defensivetone has to do withColeridge's constitu- tionaldiffidence where his own best poetry was concerned,rather than withobjective self-criticism. As such, it maybe largelydiscounted. The notegoes on to ascribecomposition of the poem to thesummer of 1797 in "a lonelyfarm-house between Porlock and Linton,on the Exmoorconfines of Somersetand Devonshire,"where the author had retiredon accountof ill health,and wherehe fellasleep from the effects of an "anodyne,"while reading the account in Purchashis Pilgrimage of the constructionof a palace and surroundinggardens by Kubla Khan,the Mongol ruler of thirteenth-century China. There followed "a profoundsleep, at leastof the external senses," lasting about three hours, duringwhich the poet "has themost vivid confidence, that he couldnot havecomposed less than from two to threehundred lines." Upon awak- eninghe wrotedown the fifty-fourlines we have,whereupon he was interruptedby a "personon businessfrom Porlock," with the result thathe was never able to remember the rest of the poem. For overa centurythis account of thepoem's genesis was takenat facevalue, and readerswho should have known better were lulled - one mightalmost say "conned" - intoregarding it as a beautifulbut mean- inglessfragment, thus incidentally discovering a new literarygenre. Herematters stood when Lowes wrote The Road toXanadu ( 1927) , in the latterpart of whichhe appliedto "Kubla Khan" the same tech- niquesof source-huntingthat had been so brilliantlysuccessful with "The AncientMariner" in the firstpart. On the premisethat "The AncientMariner" and "Kubla Khan" are "builtof essentially the same materials,"Lowes extended our knowledgeof thepoem's sources. But

Texas Studiesin Literatureand Language XIV.4 (Winter,1973)

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6θ6 WARRENSTEVENSON like his predecessors,Lowes acceptedColeridge's prefatory note un- critically,and lamelyconcluded that "Kubla Khan" is an aimless pageant.1 The firstbook successfully to broachthe poem's inner meaning was Maud Bodkin'sArchetypal Patterns in Poetry(London, 1934), witha Jungianreading which recognized that the poem is structuredupon the archetypesof heavenand hell.Next came Knight'sThe StarlitDome, whichproposed a symbolicreading of the poem involvingFreudian elementsin thedescription of the landscape. According to Knight,the sacredriver, which "runs into an infinityof death," is "a symbolof life." "As forKubla Khan himself... he becomesGod: or at leastone of those'huge and mightyforms' ... in Wordsworth.. . . Comparethe two levelsof meaningin The Tempest,where Prospero performs a some- whatsimilar role ... or Yeats'semperor in Byzantium,"Knight also usefullyobserves that "The dome'sshadow falls half-way along the river. . . [The dome]is directlyassociated with the 'mingled measure' ofthe sounds coming from the two extremes The 'mingledmeasure' suggeststhe blend and marriageof fundamentalopposites: life and death,or creationand destruction.These 'mingle' under the shadow of thegreater harmony of the crowning dome-circle." Knight concludes: "The poemhas a barbaricand orientalmagnificence that asserts itself witha happypower and authenticitytoo oftenabsent from visionary poemsset within the Christiantradition."2 The poem'srelation to the Christiantradition is a matterto whichI shallreturn. Meanwhile, one maysafely observe that, in commonwith "The AncientMariner" and "Christabel,""Kubla Khan" has itssetting, for the most part, in the laterMiddle Ages. Scholarshipwas notlong in catchingup withand vindicatingcriti- cism.The discoveryin 1934 of the CreweMS of the poem in Cole- ridge'shandwriting, with its minor but significantvariations from the publishedversion and itsindependent account of how thepoem came to be written,freed criticism once and forall fromthe incubus of Cole- ridge's1816 pieceof prefatory exotica, which, we are nowbeginning to realize,is bestregarded as an imaginativeadjunct to thepoem,3 like the proseglossary added to "The AncientMariner" in SibyllineLeaves, or Shelley'spreface to "Epipsychidion."The Crewenote, which follows

1 JohnL. Lowes, The Road to Xanadu: A Studyof the Ways of the Imagina- tion(London, 1951: 1stpub. 1927), pp. 410, 412. 2 G. WilsonKnight, The StarlitDome: Studiesin thePoetry of Vision (London, Toronto,and New York,1941 ) , pp. 91-97. 3 bee Irene (Jhayes, Kubla Khan and the CreativeFrocess, Studies m Ro- manticism,!(1966), 1-21.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan33as Symbol 607 ratherthan precedesthe textof the poem,reads much morelike a sober,factual account of the poem's genesis : Thisfragment with a gooddeal more, not recoverable, composed in a sort ofReverie brought on bytwo grains of Opium, taken to checka dysentery, at a FarmHouse betweenPorlock & Linton,a quarterof a milefrom GulboneChurch, in thefall of the year 1797. s. t. goleridge.4 ElisabethSchneider, working with this and otherevidence relating to the effectsof opium,has establishedbeyond serious doubt that Cole- ridgedid notcompose the poem in an opiumdream : "Verylikely Cole- ridgewas in a sortof 'Reverie' as hisholograph note says, and no doubt he had been takingopium. Perhaps too the euphoriceffect of opium renderedhis process of composition more nearly effortless than usual."5 One recallsthat the second part of "Christabel" was begun the morning afterColeridge had consumeda considerablequantity of wine. Returningnow to theproblem of thepoem's "meaning" : criticism duringthe past two decadeshas consistedlargely of refinementand elaborationof the symbolical exegesis of Bodkin and Knight,with some disagreementas to the role of the Khan, the natureof the poem's "unity"(though on thispoint there is moreagreement than disagree- ment),and the tone (hence,the meaning)of certainpassages, most notablythe conclusion. In 1951 an influentialarticle R. H. entitled"The appeared " by Fogle RomanticUnity of 'Kubla Khan.' Continuingwhere Knight left off, Fogle sees the poem as embodyinga Coleridgean"reconciliation of oppositeor discordantqualities" accomplished by the Imagination. Accordingto Fogle,the pleasure-dome is thefocal point of the physical setting and is correspondinglyimportant. Withinthe bounds of the encircledgarden, the pleasure-dome and the riverare theopposites to be reconciled.. . . The imageof thedome sug- gestsagreeable sensations of roundnessand smoothness;the creationof Man,its quasi-geometrical shape is simpler than the forms of Nature which surroundit, yet blends with them. This dome,however, also evokesthe religious- it is in somesort a temple,if onlyto themere mortal Kubla Khan.And thus there is alsoa blendingor interfusion with its opposite, the sacredriver Alph. The pleasure-dome... is aboveand beyondNature, a 'miracleof rare device'in whichMan transcendsand circumventsmere natural processes. It standsamid an enormousgarden in whicha considerablesegment of wildnature is isolated and imprisoned for the delight of Kubla.6 4 Brit.Mus. Add. MS 50,847. 5 " "The Dream of 'Kubla Khan/ PMLA, 60 ( 796. 6 " 1945), "The RomanticUnity of cKubla Khan,' College English,13 (1951), 13-18.

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I have quoted Fogle at lengthbecause his remarksare a salutary correctiveto the view sometimesexpressed, that Kubla is a typical eighteenth-centuryman of reason,trying to imposehis rationalorder upon a recalcitrantlandscape.7 About all thatneeds to be said of this viewis thatif Kubla's aim was to imposea rationalorder upon nature, and towall out all theintractable and irrationalelements, he hasneither chosennor built very well. Rather, the poem emphasizes the fusion of oppositeswithin both the natural and humanorders, and thelandscape ofthe pleasure-garden iswholly Romantic in conception: Andthere were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Whereblossomed many an incense-bearingtree ; Andhere were forests ancient as thehills, Enfoldingsunny spots of greenery. Butoh! thatdeep romantic chasm which slanted Downthe green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! A savageplace ! as holyand enchanted Ase'er beneath a waningmoon was haunted Bywoman wailing for her demon-lover! Most criticshave recognizedthat the poem is about the natureof poeticcomposition; a few have recognizedthat it is also about the natureof divinecreativity. What remains to be accomplishedis a syn- thesizingof thesetwo views that will correspond to thesynthesis of the poem itself.According to HumphreyHouse, whoseview agreesin essencewith those of Knightand Fogle,Xanadu is a symbolof har- monioushuman activity. The sacredriver is "thesacred given condition of humanlife. By usingit rightly,by building on itsbank, by diverting itswater into sinuous rills, Kubla achieveshis perfect state of balanced living.... It is an imaginativestatement of the abundantlife in theuniverse, which begins and endsin a mysterytouched with dread, butit is a statementof this life as theground of ideal humanactivity." Since"perfect state" presumably means just that, House is in effectsay- ingthat Kubla Khan in thepoem inhabits a realparadise, one in which theconjunction of heaven and earthis realized.As House also remarks, "thisis a visionof theideal humanlife as thepoetic imagination can createit."8 Hence, we shouldnot be surprisedto findthat in thecre- ationof this paradise the "whole man" is takeninto account. The landscape is bathedin thelight of eternity,and the poetexplicitly tells us thatthe sacred river is flungup "at onceand ever." " 7 See, forexample, George Watson, "The Meaning of 'Kubla Khan,' A Re- view ofEnglish Literature, 2 (Jan.,1961 ), 28. 8 HumphreyHouse, Coleridge(London, 1953), p. 122.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan39as Symbol 609 In thefirst thirty-six lines of the poem, all theopposites of human and divinenature are givenfree scope and arereconciled into a unitywhich is aptlysymbolized by the climactic vision of the "sunny pleasure-dome withcaves of ice!" Amongthe opposites which are reconciledare the infiniteand the finite("caverns measureless to man" and "twicefive miles"); darknessand light("sunless sea" and "sunnyspots of greenery"); natureuntamed and natureimproved ("forests" and "gardens") ; savageryand sanctity("a savageplace! as holyand enchanted . . ."); destructionand fertility("Huge fragmentsvaulted like reboundinghail/ Or chaffygrain beneath the thresher'sflail"); life and death ("Throughwood and dale thesacred river ran,/ Then . . . sankin tumultto a lifelessocean" ) . Energieswhich elsewhere, after the Fall, wouldappear as dangerousand demonicare hereharmoniously integratedinto the total design. In short,these lines give us Coleridge's "Marriageof Heaven and Hell," in which,as in Blake's"The Tyger," we confrontthe mystery of creation. It has been frequentlyobserved that Coleridge's description of the landscapein Xanadu borrowsfrom Milton's account of the garden of Eden in ParadiseLost (IV. 132-285; IX passim). So faras I know, onlyone critichas madethe further comparison of the opening lines of "Kubla Khan" to thefirst two chapters of Genesis. H. H. Meierwrites, "ifthe Miltonic parallel holds, Kubla himselfis God theordainer of the garden,whereas other persons there are strictlyspeaking none."9 The Edenichypothesis, or parallel,works insofar as it helpsto accountfor thesense of pristineenchantment which imbues this landscape. Also, one notesthat in decreeingthat the pleasure-dome and itssurrounding gardensbe built,Kubla Khan is likeGod creatingthe world by fiat. The riverwhich emerges from the deep romanticchasm is thricereferred to in thepoem, and alwaysas "thesacred river." It presumablyreturns to thefountain via thesunless sea,10 like a serpentwith its tail in itsmouth - the ancientemblem of eternity.Its veryname, Alph, speaks of the beginningof things. There are, it is true,"forests ancient as thehills,/ Enfolding sunny spotsof greenery,"but thestock phrase, "ancient as thehills," has the connotationof timelessness rather than of specific age. It does,however, serveto anticipatethe reference to "Ancestralvoices prophesying war," 9H. H. Meier, "AncientLights on Kubla's Lines," EnglishStudies, 46 (1965), 26; see also p. 22n. Coleridge'senigmatic "Poet Bonaparte- Layerout of a World- garden"points in thesame direction(The Notebooksof Samuel TaylorColeridge, ed. KathleenCoburn [London, 1957-19621 1, 1166, 6.94) . 10 See Richard Gerber,"Keys to 'Kubla Khan,'" EnglishStudies, 44 (1963), 334-335,where this point is discussedat length.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6lO WARRENSTEVENSON whichsome critics have complainedof as detractingfrom the poem's unity.Now ifwe followthe "Edenichypothesis" through to itslogical conclusion,we shallsee thatthe war here prophesied is notonly war on earth,but (sinceEden symbolizesthe conjunction of heaven and earth) also war in heaven.11The "ancestralvoices" are prophesyinga falling awayfrom the pristine unity in whichheaven and earthare one,as in the mythof Blake. "Ancestralvoices prophesying war" thusbecomes parallelto the line "And whenthe starsthrew down their spears" in "The Tyger,"the main difference being that the former is anticipatory, thelatter retrospective. The unityof Kubla's paradisecannot last for thesame reasonthat the unity of God's paradise,which it symbolizes, couldnot remain unbroken. Thereremains the task of answering those critics who have attempted a negativeinterpretation ofthese thirty-six lines - whichconstitute the mainbody of thepoem - as describinga falseparadise. By rightsthe burdenof proofshould be on them,since the eulogistictone of these linesseems almost self-evident. Reference has been made to the fact that the"sacred river" is alwaysthus described. "But oh!" whichintroduces thesecond stanza seems sufficiently clear in its emotionalconnotation ofwonder and delight,followed as it is by "thatdeep romantic chasm" and "holyand enchanted."And finally,the last two linesof thispart of the poem sum up what has preceded,not only,as we have seen, symbolically,but also withwhat amountsto an explicitstatement of approbation,paralleling the formula in Genesis,"and God saw thatit wasgood" : It wasa miracleof rare device, A sunnypleasure-dome with caves of ice! In otherwords, if we acceptthe pleasure-dome as a unifyingsymbol of thewhole hortus clausus of which it is thefocal point (and noticehow thereference to "cavesof ice" hereand in line47 invitessuch a reading), then the tone and attitudeof thesesummarizing lines apply equallyto everythingthat has precededthem. To quote House again: "Thereis onlyone answerto thosewho want to makethis a falseparadise- thatis, an appealto thepoem as a whole,its rhythmical develop- ment,its total effect as a poemof fulfilment,and to say,cIf you still wantto makethat a spuriousexperience, do so: "Thy way experience ' "12 thoucanst not miss,me minerequires." MarshallSuther, after a closeexamination of thepoem's imagery in relationto theimagery of Coleridge'sother poems, comes to a similarconclusion : "The factseems 11See Meier,p. 22. ±Λnouse, p. uu .

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan93as Symbol 611 to be thatnone of the efforts to read an adversemeaning into the first partof the poem stand up in theface of an examinationof Coleridge's otheruses of the images found there, or evensimply in theface of most readers'spontaneous reaction to the lines."13 Representativeof the poem's anti-Edenic critics at theirmost articu- lateis J.B. Beer,whose book Coleridge the Visionary, in manyways the best studyto date of Coleridge's"great three" poems, devotes over eightypages to "Kubla Khan." Beersees his own interpretation ofthe poem as a logicaldevelopment and extensionof House's;14but this is misleading,if not disingenuous;for whereas House, as we have seen, regardsthe first thirty-six lines of the poem as describinga true paradise, Beerregards them as describinga false paradise. Afternoting that according to Porphyryas interpretedby Thomas Taylor,a cavernis a symbolof the materialworld, Beer somewhat hastilyand illogicallyconcludes that "Alph is thesacred river, as itflows afterthe Fall."15 But theriver Alph flows into, not out of,the caverns; and if, as in the mythof Blake,the cavernssymbolize the fallenor about-to-be-fallenworld, the bright gardens above maywell symbolize theUnfällen one. As we haveseen, the only overt reference to anything thatlooks like the Fall, in thispart of thepoem, is in lines29-30, con- tainingthe reference to "Ancestralvoices prophesying war." The voices proceedfrom the tumultof the sacredriver plunging into the lifeless ocean amid thecaverns, so thatwhat is beingprophesied may well be theFall and thecreation of the material world, of which both the sunlesssea and thecaverns are Neoplatonicsymbols, as the resultof war inheaven and its dislocations. Beer also goes astraywhen he attemptsto argue,from sources ex- traneousto the poem, that "Kubla Khan is theTartar king of tradition : fierceand cruel,he bearsthe brand of Cain." Noneof this is in thepoem. Beercontinues: "The man-madedome is a mistakenideal, an attempt to escapefrom the true temple and createa privateworld. ... It is the flawin Kubla Khan's personalitythat he cannotpossess this innocent attitudeto nature[of Coleridge'smuch later poem, 'To Nature'].In- stead,he mustenclose his paradisewith walls and towersand build a privatepleasure-dome in themiddle of it." The pleasure-dome,according to Beer,"emphasizes the themeof enclosureand separationfrom the worldwhich was introducedby the buildingof the walls and towers."16But as we haveseen, the tone of the passages referred to con-

13Visions of Xanadu (New York,1965), p. 261. 14 T.B. Beer,Coleridge the Visionary (London, 1959), pp. 206-207. 15Ibid., p. 211. 16 Ibid., pp. 222, 224.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6l2 WARRENSTEVENSON tradictsthis interpretation. Also, it is worthremembering that both Eden and heavenitself were "walled" in Milton'saccount. Nor does Beersatisfactorily explain why the poet should wish to emulateKubla's achievement.In fact,Beer's "Tartar king of tradition:fierce and cruel"and theKubla Khan ofthe poem have little in commonbesides thename. Even the historical Kubla Khan,who was a patronof the arts and a rulerof intelligenceand magnanimity,17sorts somewhat oddly withthis description. Coleridge, whose two notebook references to the Khan are eulogisticrather than pejorative in tone, records that "Kublai- khan [sic] orderedletters to be inventedfor his people,"18and it was evidentlythis human, civilizing aspect of theKhan whichmost inter- estedhim. Beergoes on to comparestanza two, describing the romantic chasm and themighty fountain, with Milton's description of Eden justbefore theFall in BookIX ofParadise Lost - a fairenough comparison, inso- faras bothscenes are invested with "a senseof foreboding."19 But again, the tone is almostentirely eulogistic, and House's commenton the "ancestralvoices" may be appliedretrospectively to the whole stanza: "This is essentialto the full unityof the conception:the Paradise containsknowledge of the threat of its own destruction."20 The woman wailingfor her demon-lover recalls the lines in Genesis(VI) aboutthe sonsof God lovingthe daughters of menwhich intrigued Byron while he was writingManfred. They also recall,as severalcritics have ob- served,the wailing women associated with the cults of Adonis,Osiris, Thammuz,and Attis.21But the wailingwoman and her demon-lover are introducedinto the poem onlyby way of comparisonand do not actuallyinhabit the "holy and enchanted"chasm itself. Beer is at some pains to denythat Coleridge's"mighty fountain" correspondsto the fountainin the paradise-gardenof ParadiseLost. Yet bothscenes are "savage,"and bothfountains erupt to watertheir respectivegardens and findtheir way back downto the"nether flood." True,Coleridge's fountain is potentiallydestructive as wellas life-giving - but onlypotentially. The word "dancing"in the phrase"dancing rocks"well epitomizesthe essentially harmonious nature of the vision. " 17S.b. "Kubla Khan Encycl Brit.,1 lth ed. 18 Notebooks,I, 1281,8.30. Coleridgeseems to be confusingKubla withGhen- gis Khan, who accordingto Purchasreceived the alphabetfrom Nestorian Chris- tians. The other entryreads, "Cublai Chan began to reign, 1256 the greatest Princein Peoples,Cities, & Kingdomsthat ever was in theWorld" (ibid., I, 1840, 16.223). 19Beer, p. 234. 20House, 121. 21 p. Gerber,pp. 327-329, makes much of the sound link betweenKubla and Cybele.See also Beer,p. 235, and Meier,pp. 28-29.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan" as Symbol 613 It is a romanticvision of Paradisehovering on thebrink of theFall, butstill delighting in itsinner harmony and successfulmaintenance of whatin thefallen world would be a well-nighintolerable tension. Faced withthe unmistakably eulogistic tone of lines31-36 describing the shadowof the dome floatingon the water,Beer resortsto a ratherdesperate strategem in orderto reconcilethis passage with his previousinterpretation. "The 'caves of ice' are the new,transforming elementin the poem.The domeof pleasureis not the pleasure-dome whichKubla decreed.... It is the "miracle"in whichtwo seemingly irreconcilableprinciples are heldtogether: heat and ice."22Here, Beer at leastbelatedly recognizes the principle of the reconciliation of oppo- sitesat workin thepoem, and thefunction of the dome as a symbolof unityand integration.But to saythat "the domeof pleasure"(of line 31) is notthe pleasure-dome which Kubla decreed(line 2), whenthe veryphrase, "It was a pleasure-dome,"occurs in line 36, and when theselines so clearlysummarize everything that has gone before,is tantamountto not being able to see the dome for the caves. To do justiceto Beer'saccount of the poem,I mustquote his own summary: KublaKhan, to sum up, is a poemwith two major themes: genius and the lostparadise. In thefirst stanza [11. 1-11] the man of commanding genius, thefallen but daemonic man, strives to rebuild the lost paradise in a world whichis, like himself, fallen. In thesecond stanza [11. 12-30], the other side of thedaemonic reasserts itself: the mighty fountain in thesavage place, thewailing woman beneath the waning moon, the demon-lover. The third stanza[11. 31-36] is a momentof miraculousharmony between the con- tendingforces : the sunny dome and thecaves of ice, the fountain and the caves,the dome and thewaves all beingcounter-poised in one harmony. Finally,in thelast stanza [11. 37-54], there is a visionof paradise regained. 23

The stanzaicdivisions, which I have supplied,are Beer'sown. But the CreweMS, withonly one stanzaicdivision (after line 36), does not lendsupport to thisinterpretation. Moreover, any interpretation, to be convincing,must take into accountthat in the Crewe MS the first thirty-sixlines are presentedas a unity.Indeed, there are signsthat Beerhimself is not entirelyhappy with his interpretation: "In spiteof theover-riding pattern of the poem, however, the imagery is so compli- cated and inter-woventhat a completeinterpretation cannot be pre- sentedin one straightforwardexposition. Instead, one is forcedto es- 22Beer, p. 246. 23 Ibid., pp. 266-267. Beer'sinterpretation is substantiallyfollowed by Geoffrey Yarlott,Coleridge and theAbyssinian Maid (London, Γ967), Ch. V.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6 14 WARRENSTEVENSON tablishthe dialecticof thesis,antithesis, static harmony and desired consummation."24 More relevantare Beer'sremarks, in the formof an addendumto his main interpretation,about King Solomon,who "builta pleasure- housefor himself and a paradise-garden,"and whosebeloved bride, the Queen ofEgypt and Ethiopia,becomes the Wisdom of the Apocryphal writings.Beer also observesthat in theBook of EcclesiasticusWisdom comparesherself to the treesand watersof a paradise-garden.Thus viewed,the Abyssinianmaid, like Solomon'sbeloved, becomes "the imageof a psychologicalstate - therecovery of thelost Shechinah."25 Butto thisone musthasten to add thatit is a statewhich is symbolized inthe description of the hortus clausus in thefirst part of the poem. More convincingthan Beer's dichotomy,but in accord with his addendum,is thereading of thepoem by DorothyF. Mercer,according to whichKubla's "decree"is identifiedwith the Logos, and the Abyssinianmaid is identifiedwith Boehme'sSophia, the heavenly virginwho "is fromEternity" and existswithin the Godhead.26Miss Mercercompares Kubla Khan's pleasure-dometo Boehme's"pleasant Palace ofJoy . . . made out of theMidst of the Waters," an imageof heaven; the "sunlesssea" and "lifelessocean" to Boehme's"material Water[which] is as it weredead or has Death in it ... and God called it a sea."27In otherwords, the pleasure-domeis an imageof God's heavenlycreation, and the sunlesssea is an image of the primordial matterwhich has notyet been given form. The mightyfountain is the well-springof divinecreativity initiating a dance of opposites.With referenceto the linesbeginning "And fromthis chasm with ceaseless turmoilseething," Miss Mercerwrites: "Here in thetremendous activ- ityof the fourthform, the greatmystery of the abyssof God, is the potentialityof the determinate, of bothgood and evil,wrath and love, savageryand tranquillity The natureof the moral miracle embodied in Kubla Khan is [that]. . . thegarden of Eden was suchso longas the treeof knowledge of good and evilhad notbeen tasted; it was a garden so longas innocenceknew nothing of morality."In thispoem, "Cole- ridgeis viewinglife's process sub specieaeternitatis, from the point of viewof the creativeartist; so viewedthe savage place is as holyand enchantedas theAbyssinian maid singing of Mount Abora." The poem is an effortto communicateand thus to evokethe "paradisalcon- 24 Beer,p. 267. 25 Ibid., pp. 269-270. 26 " DorothyF. Mercer, The Symbolismof Kubla Khan,' Journalof Aesthetics and ArtCriticism, 12 (1953), 51-52, 56. 27 Aurora,II, 50-51; Three Principles,VI, 15; quoted in Mercer,p. 53.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan" as Symbol 615 sciousness"and so to recommend"the adoration of the creative process itself."28 Miss Mercer'sBoehmenistic reading is successfulinsofar as it com- binesa criticalawareness of the poem's archetypeswith a "holistic" approachto itsopposites, and a nearlyequal emphasisupon theroles of creationand "re-creation"in the poem's structure.In a sense, Coleridgeis workingout a magnificentvariation on the Neoplatonic themethat the artistmost nearly resembles God in the act of artistic creation.In thefirst part of thepoem we see Kubla, likePoe's Land- scapeGardener, creating through the word, by fiat, building a pleasure- domeamid a beautifuloriental garden poised over a "sunlesssea." It is a symbolof God's heavenlycreation. "A sunnypleasure-dome with cavesof ice," it imagesboth the "gardens bright with sinuous rills" and thesubterranean "caverns measureless to man,"and is imagedby them. The shadowof the dome of pleasure Floatedmidway on thewaves. This about-to-be-createdworld in thetime-stream of history"mirrors" or reflectsthe transcendentheavenly reality. The linesalso recallthe spiritof God movingupon the face of thewaters, from Genesis, hence the act of creation.Boehme speaks of God as "the greatSource, or Fountain,"and Coleridgewrote in hisnotebook in 1796,"Well-spring - totalGod."29 The fountain,then, symbolizes the fountain of eternal life,which Plotinus also used as an imageof God. Fromthe fountain- sourceflows the sacred river through the Edenic garden, both of which are stillin a harmoniousrelationship to the dome. None ofthe attempts topersuade us ofa disjunctiverelationship is convincing, ifonly because the sacredriver waters the garden,and bothprovide an appropriate settingfor the pleasure-dome.The sacred river,if we are to trust Coleridge'smarginal note to Boehme,corroborated by an entryin WilliamHolwell's Mythological Dictionary, symbolizes divine Truth. BesideBoehme's note, "water (with the other Elements) is theMother ofEarth, or elseit wouldbe dead or barren,"Coleridge wrote, "Truth is Watercalled the Motherof Earth." Under the heading"alphi" Holwellhas, "An Oraclewas so termedby theAmonians: and Alpha, thevoice of God."30Thus, boththe dome and itsshadow, as well as

28Mercer, 54-59. 29 pp. Boehme, Three Principles,Law's ed. (London, 1764-1781), VII, 2; Cole- ridge,Notebooks, I, 272, G. 269. 30 Brit.Mus. copy of Boehme's Workswith Coleridge'smarginalia; A Mytho- logical,Etymological, and HistoricalDictionary (London, 1793) .

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6l6 WARRENSTEVENSON thefountain and theriver, are symbolic,showing "the translucence of theeternal through and in thetemporal."31 If thesacred river is symbolicof divine Truth, it is notunreasonable to ask what the divineTruth is thatis beingsymbolized. There are varioushints in thepoem that a traditionof visionary knowledge, par- tiallylost or obscured,is beingreferred to. Amongthese hints are the sacredriver, Mount Abora, and the Abyssinianmaid, as well as the incantatorysound of names like Kubla Khan and Xanadu. The pleasure-domeitself may be sucha hintif, as seemslikely, it symbolizes the originalconjunction of knowledgeand pleasurebefore the Fall. Ahania has a similarrole in Blake'smyth; and thereis also Enithar- mon's apocalyptic"crystal house" whereinher sons and daughters engagein "thesports of night"{Europe, 13: 12-14). "My heartser- agliosan wholehost of Joys," Coleridge wrote in his notebook in 1796 ;32 but hisunified sensibility seems to have scandalizedsome of his critics. One is again remindedof the Song of Solomon,with its minglingof sensualand apocalypticelements. Whatseems to be required,then, is a mythichypothesis, or literary sources,or both,which will account for this particular configuration of symbolsand images.If one wereto guess,on thebasis of the interpreta- tionwhose outline has been thus far traced, one would probably conjec- turethat in additionto theNeoplatonic tradition, the poem also makes use of another,older traditionassociated with such mattersas sun- worshipand somethingroughly corresponding to Blake's visionary Christianity,but in a primitive,hence mythic, form. Owingto thewidespread fable of PresterJohn and theaccounts of returnedtravellers, both Tartary and Abyssiniawere reported at differ- enttimes to have had Christianleaders.33 This in turnopened up the possibilityof finding a traditionof Christianity being preserved more or less intact,free from the corruptionsof the Westernchurch. Mungu Khan, Kubla'sbrother, and manyof his courtiers were baptized Chris- tians,and Naiam, Kubla's uncle,whom he finallydefeated in battle, had beensecretly baptized. Kubla himself,upon putting down Naiam's insurrection,called all theChristians among his uncle's followers to him, kissedthe New Testament,"and causedhis Barons to do thelike." He also observedChristmas and Easter,as well as the chieffeasts of the Saracens,Jews, and Idolaters:"The cause (he said) was becauseof thosef oure Prophets to whichall theworld doth reverence : Jesus of the Christians,Mahomet of the Saracens,Moses of the Jews,and Sogo- 31Anima Poetae (London, 1895), pp. 115-116. 32Notebooks, I, 135,G.130. ύάS.v. "TresterJohn," tfulhnch's Mythology.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan" as Symbol 617 manhasCan thefirst Idoll ofthe Pagans. . . . Yet he had bestopinion ofthe Christian faith because it containednothing but goodnesse."34 Of thereligion of theTartars, Purchas reports that "they believe in onegod, the Maker of all thingsvisible and invisible,the Author of good thingsand punishments,yet do theynot worship him with prayers, or any certainrites." This is somethingwhich undoubtedly would have interestedColeridge the Unitarian in the1790's. Purchas' account continues,"They worship the Sunne, Lights, and Fire; Wateralso, and the Earth.. . . Theyhave no setrites prescribed by Law." (Aroundthe time whenhe wrote"Kubla Khan," Coleridgehad plannedto writeHymns to the Sun and Moon.) "They are givento Divinations,Auguries, Soothsayings,Witchcrafts, Inchantments : and when they receive answerefrom the Devill, they attribute the same unto God. . . ." Here again is the suggestionof a "Marriageof Heaven and Hell," which seemsparticularly relevant to the "woman wailingfor her demon- lover."35 Threepages later in Purchashis Pilgrimage come the lines Coleridge wasreading just before he composed"Kubla Khan" : In Xamdudid CublaiCan builda statelyPalace, encompassing sixteene milesof plaine ground with a wall,wherein are fertile Meddows, pleasant springs,delightful Streames, and all sortsof beasts of chase and game,and in themiddest thereof a sumptuoushouse of pleasure,which may be re- movedfrom place to place. . . . This was Kubla's summerpalace. He also had a winterpalace, "the greatestthat was everseene," in Cambalu,likewise surrounded by walls and gardens,and Purchasreports that "Hee fora superstitiousfeare suggestedby his Astrologers,of a rebellionwhich sometime should be raisedagainst him in Cambalu,built a new Citienear thereunto called Taidu."36This story, which is repeatedin Purchashis Pilgrimes, doubt- lesshelps to accountfor the "ancestralvoices prophesying war" in the poem. In additionto the appeal ofsome of their unorthodox religious views, theTartars exerted another subtle claim on thesympathetic attention of Coleridge.I referto theirpossession of thosequalities of warlike braveryand decisivenessin whichColeridge seems to have regarded himselfas beingdeficient, and forwhich he retaineda certainchildlike admiration.One thinksof his undergraduate escapade of running away 34 See Samuel Purchas,Purchas his Pilgrimage(London, 1617), pp. 459, 474- 475. 35Ibid., p. 469. 36 Ibid., pp. 472-475.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6l8 WARRENSTEVENSON to join thedragoons. Compare the following note: "Everything, that has beenknown or deemedfit to winwoman's Love, I have an impulse to makemyself - eventho5 I shouldotherwise look downupon it- I "37 cannotendure not to be strongin arms,a dazzlingSoldier Shades of"The BritishStripling's War Song,"which Coleridge wrote in 1799! As forthe decisivenessof the Tartars,the followinganecdote speaks foritself. Marco Polo reports,says Purchas, "That in Cambalu was suchsudden and rigorousexecution of Justice, that one takinga jarre of Milke froma woman'shead, and beginningto drinke,upon the woman'sout-cry was apprehended,and presentlywith a swordcut in sunder,that the bloude and milkissued together."38 In "Kubla Khan" thewarlike bravery has been channeledinto the arts of peace,but the decisivenessremains a potentfactor, conveyed by the deliberate sounds ofthe alliteration : In Xanadudid Kubla Khan A statelypleasure-dome decree. If the Tartars representedto Coleridge'simagination a primitive breadthof religiousview and freedomfrom petty moralistic compunc- tions,the quotidianlack of such freedommight help to explainhis failureto sustainhis writingat thisimaginative level. Certainly,the moralizingtendentiousness of Coleridge'sinferior verse is nowhere evidentin "Kubla Khan." Turningnow to Bruce'sTravels to Discoverthe Source of the Nile, a bookwhose influence on thepoem was firstnoted by Lowes, we find theEthiopians, or "Cushites"as Brucecalls them, related to a tradition ofoccult learning. Bruce says it seems "probable" that the first alphabet was Ethiopie,and conjecturesthat God toldMoses on MountSinai to use not Egyptianhieroglyphics, but the lettersrepresenting sounds which"the Ishmaelites, Cushites, and Indiantrading nations had long been using."As we have seen,Coleridge credited Kubla Khan with havingintroduced letters to hispeople. Bruce also conjecturesthat the Queen of Sheba "was an Ethiopian,or Cushiteshepherd" and "a per- son oflearning." Upon herbearing Solomon a son,"All Abyssiniawas thereuponconverted,"39 first to Judaism,and laterto Christianity. The sourceof the Abyssinian maid would seem to be a hithertoneg- lectedpassage in Bruce'sTravels describing a Mohammedanwedding he attendedat Arkeeko,near the island of Masuah, "in the very entranceto Abyssinia": 37NotebooksAl,3US,fA2. 38Purchas his Pilgrimage, p. 463. 39James Bruce, Travels to Discoverthe Source of the Nile (London, lvyuj, I, 420,421,473-474,478.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan" as Symbol 619 I heard two girls,professors hired for such occasions,sing alternately versefor verse in replyto each other,in themost agreeable and melodious mannerI ever heard in my life.This gave me greathopes that,in Abys- sinia,I shouldfind music in a stateof perfectionlittle expected in Europe. Upon inquiryinto particulars I was miserablydisappointed, by beingtold thesemusicians were all strangersfrom Azab, the myrrhcountry, where all thepeople werenatural musicians, and sungin a betterstile than I had heard; but that nothingof thiskind was knownin Abyssinia,a moun- tainous,barbarous country, without instrument, and withoutsong; and that it was the same here in Atbara; a miserabletruth, which I afterwards completelyverified. These singerswere Cushites,not Shepherds. I, however,made myselfmaster of two or threeof thesealternate songs upon the guitar,the wretchedinstrument of that country;and was sur- prised to findthe words in a language equally strangeto Masuah and Abyssinia.I had frequentinterviews with these musicians in the evening; theywere perfectly black and wooly-headed.Being slaves, they spoke both Arabicand Tigré,but could singin neither... I have sometimesendeav- oured to recoverfragments of thesesongs, which I once perfectlyknew frommemory only, but unfortunatelyI committed none of themto writ- ing. Sorrow,and variousmisfortunes, that everyday markedmy stayin thebarbarous country to whichI was thengoing, and thenecessary part I, muchagainst my will, was forself-preservation forced to take in theruder occupationsof thosetimes, have, to my greatregret, obliterated long ago thewhole from my memory.40

Here is the experienceof the poet in "Kubla Khan" strippeddown to its bare essentials: the girl,or girls,who thoughtevidently not from Abyssinia were Cushites or Ethiopians, hence "Abyssinian," singing beautifullyto the accompanimentof a stringedinstrument; and the fascinatedauditor's vain attemptsto revive withinhim theirmelody. But Coleridgehas apprehendedhis materialssymbolically and so has transformedthem. The Abyssinianmaid becomesat once Coleridge's muse,Boehme's Sophia or celestialWisdom, the sorormystica of the alchemists,41and the equivalentin the poem's nascentmythology to Blake'sEnitharmon, whose reunion with Los marksthe crucial stage of his struggletowards cosmic redemption. She also, as severalcritics havenoted, merges with the Isis figurewho is elsewherepresent in the poem'sbackground. In particularColeridge seems to have beeninflu- encedby the frontispiece to Maurice'sHistory of Hindostan, portraying "theIsis Omnia of Egypt,the Indian Isa, and GrecianCeres," a giant femalefigure with one footon thewater and theother on a woodedhill,

40Ibid., Ill, 51-52. 41 " See S. K. Heningef,Jr., "A JungianReading of 'Kubla Khan,* Journalof Aestheticsand ArtCriticism, 18 (1959), 366.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 620 WARREN STEVENSON

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This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 622 WARREN STEVENSON holdingin her righthand a stringedinstrument and in her lefta bucket, doubtless to demonstrateher control over the tides. Her dress is be- spangledwith stars, and overher head is a crescentmoon. Maurice sets out to prove that the earliestinhabitants of Hindostan "were of celestial,not terrestrialorigin ; thattheir empire was the empire of the imaginationin the skies,not of real power on this globe of the earth." He adds that the ancient sovereignsof Hindostan were "chil- dren of the sun and moon."42All this is relevantto "Kubla Khan," particularlyas Bryantobserves that fromthe earliestinhabitants of this regionwere descendedthe Ethiopians.He quotes Nilus the Egyptianto the effectthat "The Indi are the wisestof all mankind.The Ethiopians are a colony fromthem and inheritthe wisdom of theirforefathers."43 Maurice's account of Hindu cosmogony,which he setsout to recon- cile with Genesis, contains a featurewhich helps to account for the prominentrole of the pleasure-domein "Kubla Khan." Maurice observes that "Of the various systemsof cosmogony,according to the Hindoo writers,scarcely any one has been hithertoexhibited to the public ... which does not mentionthe importanceof the egg in the productionof creation."44Plate II of Maurice's firstvolume illustrates "The mundane egg of Heliopolis adorned with a lunar crescent"and "the Agathodaimon,or Good Genius symbolizedby a Serpentcircling in its genial embrace the Mundane Egg." The image of the "mundane egg" (which is also found in Bryant) seems to have leftits mark on both Blake's symbolismand "Kubla Khan." According to one Sanskrit account as narrated by Maurice, the Almighty"formed a hollow sphere of gold, composed of two parts,to which he imparteda ray of his own light,and it became the sun." In anotheraccount Monu, son of Brahma,informs his inquirers thatthis world was all darknessundiscernible, undistinguishable, altogether as in a profoundsleep, till the self-existentinvisible God, makingit mani- festwith his fiveelements, and otherglorious forms, perfectly dispelled the gloom.Desiring to raise up creaturesby an emanationfrom his own essence,he firstcreated the waters,and impressedthem with the power of motion: by that power was produced a golden egg, blazing like a thousandstars, in whichwas bornBrahma, the great parent of all rational beings,that which is, the invisiblecause, self-existing but unperceived! That divinityhaving dwelt in the egg throughrevolving years, himself meditatingupon himself, dividedinto two equal parts; and fromthese 42Thomas Maurice, The Historyof Hindostan (London, 1795-1798), I, ii-iii, vi. 43Jacob Bryant, A New System,or, an Analystsof Ancient Mythology (London, 1774-1776), IIL 219. 44 Maurice,p. 59.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "KublaKhan" as Symbol 623 halveshe formedthe heavens and earth,placing in themidst the subtil aether,the eight points of theworld, and thepermanent receptacle of waters. Accordingto yet anotherSanskrit treatise, the "independentSpirit, whoseessence is eternal,sole, and self-existent,"first gave birthto "a light,most perceptible to theelementary sense, but extractedfrom the all-comprehensiveessence of his own perfection."The Deity then causedto emanatefrom himself "an immeasurabletorrent of water," and he preservedit suspendedby his almightypower. "By the same prolificenergy, eggs without number, bearing the shape of primordial matter,were generated, and floatedupon thatmighty abyss." Finally, Mauricequotes Sir W. Jonesto theeffect that "in thegreat reservoir, or cistern,of Gatmandu,the capitalof Nepaul, thereis placed,in a recumbentposture, a largewell-proportioned image of blue marble, representingNayen [thespirit of Brahma],floating on thewaters."45 When thesepassages are placed beside Maurice'slater (p. 107) accountof the ice-bubble, which Coleridge found impressive enough to recordin hisnotebook,46 and ofwhich Ε. Η. Coleridgeconjectured that it influencedColeridge's description of the "sunny pleasure-dome with cavesof ice !" itcan be seenthat we aredealing with a potentconfigura- tionof images,and one whichdoubtless helped to shape Coleridge's visionof creation as it manifestsitself in "Kubla Khan." Mergingthese imagesof floating eggs, sleeping gods, and ice-bubbleswith a previously quotedpassage from Boehme concerning a palace ofJoy built upon the waters,Coleridge evidently hit upon the image of a pleasure-dome glitteringin thesun and castingits shadow on thesacred river as a symbol of unityand perfection,imaging the unity and perfectionof God, who in Sanskritsources is said to be "like a perfectsphere, without beginningor end."47 The domeplus its shadow image the sphere; either aloneimages the divided mundane egg of creation, whether heavenly or terrestrial,actual or potential. Most of the thirdvolume of Bryant'sMythology is an extended encomiasticaccount of the peoplewhom he calls the Cuthites,which also seems to have profoundlyinfluenced the structureof "Kubla Khan." TheseCuthites are thesame people as Bruce'sCushites. Bryant saysthe sons of Chus (or Cush,the eldest son of Ham in theBible) were 45Ibid., pp. 50, 55, 64-65, 66-67. 46 "In a cave in the mountainsof Cashmerean of Ice, whichmakes its - Image appearancethus ["]twodays beforethe new moon thereappears a bubbleof Ice whichincreases in size everyday till the 15thday, at whichit is an ell or morein height;then as the moon decreases,the Imagef"]does also till it vanishes"(Note- books,I, 240, . 47 G.236) Maurice,p. 52.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 624 WARRENSTEVENSON giantsor Titanswho warredagainst heaven at thefoundation of the world,and someof whomwere banished to "the vast unfathomable abyss"of theAtlantic Ocean, whichaccording to ancientlegend "was so farsunk beneath the confines of the world, that, to expressthe depth and distance,they imagined, an anvilof iron tossed from the top would notreach it underten days."48 Here is a possiblesource for the caverns measurelessto man. The remainingCuthites "were styled Gods, and Demigods,and thechildren of Heaven. . . . Theypretended to be de- rivedfrom the Sun ; andwere called Heliadae, or the Solar Race."49 In laterdays the Cuthites were scattered and widelyseparated. "The calamitieswhich this people experienced, were so severe,and accumu- lated,that they were held in remembrancefor ages. The memorialsof themmade a principalpart in theirrites; and theypreserved them also in theirhymns. They weregenerally in a melancholystyle; and their musickwas adaptedto them.The chiefsubject was thehistory of the Titanicage, the sufferingsof theirGods; and above all the flightof Bacchus,and the scatteringof his limbsover the plain of Nusa. To thesewere added thewanderings of Isis or Demeter; who went over the worldto pickup thelimbs of the same Bacchus, under the character of Osiris."50Here, as Beerconjectured without the support of this passage, is thelikely burden of the lament of the woman wailing for her demon- lover. The Atlantians,Bryant's account continues, "were the same as the CuthiteErythreans; and theocean upon whichthey lived, was called theErythrean Sea Strabohas preserveda curious fragment from the Prometheusliberatus of Aeschylus; wherein ... thepoet mentions The sacredwaves of theErythrean Sea; and thevast pool nearthe ocean, upon the bordersof whichthe WanderingEthiopians have takenup theirresidence: where the Sun, thatall-seeing Deity, used to refresh hisimmortal body, and recruithis wearied horses, in thetepid streams ofthat salutary water"*1 Here we havea furtherlink between Abyssinia and a traditionof lost knowledge associated (as in themyth of Blake) withLost Atlantis.The sacredwaves of the ErythreanSea mayhelp to explainthe "sacred river" in "Kubla Khan,"since both are connected symbolicallywith the sun.52 Accordingto Bryantthe Cuthites "paid thehighest reverence to the 48Bryant, III, 59-60. 49Ibid., Ill, 250. s° Ibid.,Ill, 273-274. si Ibid.,Ill, 434-435. 52Holwell's Mythological Dictionary observes that "the ancient Cuthites . . . hada greatveneration for Fountains and streams" (p. 197).

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan33as Symbol 625 memoryof theirancestors." He describesat lengththe cavern-temples ofthe Erythreans, and refersto one at Cuma describedby Strabo,who "says,that it was inclosedwith vast woods, held of old in greatveneration;because in themthey sacrificed to themanes."53 Here is a possible sourceof the "forestsancient as thehills," which, as we have seen,are symbolicallylinked with the "ancestral voices prophesying war." Bryant continues: As thewhole of Upper Egypt was closely bounded on each sideby moun- tains,all thefloods which descended from the higher regions, and from Abyssinia,must have comewith uncommon violence. The wholeface of thecountry affords evidence of theirimpetuosity in the first ages, before theyhad bornedown those obstacles by which their descent was impeded. As thesoil was bydegrees washed away, many rocks were left bare; and maystill be seenrough and rudein a varietyof directions.Some stand up single;others of immense size lie transverse,and incumbentupon those below:and seemto shew,that they are notin theirnatural situation, but havebeen shattered and overturnedby some great convulsion of nature. The Egyptianslook upon these with a degreeof veneration. . . ,54 Here,it would seem, is a sourcefor Coleridge's "huge fragments" which "vaultedlike rebounding hail" whenthrown up bythe fountain of the sacredriver. The reasonfor Coleridge's change of the Crewe MS "MountAmara," firstto "MountAmora," then to "MountAbora," is nothard to fathom. MountAmara, "where Abassin kings their issue guard," was underthe taintof the Miltonic imputation that it was thesite of a falseparadise. "Amora,"while suggesting "Amor vincit omnia," with all thatimplies, was at once too ambiguousand too hackneyed."Abora," on theother hand,had theright sound and noneof the wrong connotations. In fact, it had mostof theright connotations. According to Bryant,there was "an Hyperboreanof greatfame called Abaris,who is mentionedby Herodotus.He was theson of Zeuth,styled Seuthes : and he is repre- sentedas veryknowing in theart of divination,and giftedwith super- naturalpowers. Apollo is said to have lenthim a goldenarrow, upon whichhe was waftedthrough the air, and visitedall theregions in the world.He neithereat, nor drank;but wentover the earth,uttering oracles,and presagingto nations,what was to come." "This," com- mentsBryant, "seems to be an imaginarycharacter; and probably relatesto the variousmigrations of the sons of Chus, and the intro- ductionof their religion into different parts of the world."55 If, as seems 53Bryant, III, 274,500. 54Ibid., Ill, 531. 55Ibid., Ill, 497.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 626 WARRENSTEVENSON likely,Mount Abora is in any way linked with Abaris, the Abyssinian maid singingof the mountain would be singingof the original focal unity of the Cuthites,human and divine, as representedby a holy mountain,itself shaped notunlike an arrow. Beer pointsout that "Abor" appears on the second page of HolwelPs MythologicalDictionary with the commentthat "the Sun was called Abor, the parent of light." He also observesthat Beth-Abara was the place where Jesus was baptized and where the holy spiritdescended on him "like a dove."56These sourceslikewise point to a symbolicnexus of sun-worshipand apotheosis.The visionof the damselwith a dulcimer singingof Mount Abora is the redemptivecounterpart to that of the woman wailing beneath a waning moon for her demon-lover,as the poem moves fromanticipation of the Fall to regeneration,and from sparagmosto réintégration. Finally, and most importantof all, Bryant provides the probable basis forColeridge's association of Abyssiniawith Kubla Khan, hitherto regardedby some criticsas one of the mostformidable obstacles to the poem's unity.He saysthe easternor Indo-EthiopianCuthites settledbetween the Indus and Ganges,and one of theirprincipal regions was called Guthaia,rendered Cathaia by the Grecians. . . [The GuthitesJ sent out large bodies into differentparts; and many of the Tartarian nationsare descendedfrom them. They got possessionof the upper part of Ghina,which they denominated Cathaia: and thereis reasonto think that Japan was in some degreepeopled by them.. . . The Guthiteswor- shipped Cham, the Sun; whose name they variouslycompounded. In China most things,which have any referenceto splendourand magnifi- cence, seemto be denominatedfrom the same object. Cham is said in the language of that countryto signifyanything supreme. . . . Cambalu, the name of the ancient metropolis,is the city of Cham-Bui: and Milton stylesit veryproperly, Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Chan. By thisis meant thechief seat of the Guthean Monarch.57

Bryantgoes on to describethe templesand gilded idols which Marco Polo saw in Cathaia "in thetime of the Tartar EmperourCublai Chan," and conjecturesthat they represented a formof Cuthitesun-worship. He = also refersspecifically to the temple at Kam-ju [Xamdu Xanadu], 56Beer, p. 256. GarlandH. Cannon,"A New ProbableSource for 'Kubla Khan,'" CollegeEnglish, 18 (1955), 136-142,suggests that "Mount Abora" comesfrom the Abor hills of N. India,and citesthe probable influence of Sir W. Jones's"Hymn to Ganga" ( 1785). The relevanceof both these sources is increased byBryant's above- quoted remarks about the Ethiopians' descent from the Hindus. 57Bryant, 111, 553, 557-558.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan" as Symbol 627 whichhad in it a hugesleeping idol gilt all over,and likewiseconcludes thatit was erected to Cham,the Sun.58 Thus Kubla Khan and hisfollowers are identifiedas of Cuthiteor Ethiopiandescent, and are directlyrelated to a traditionof sun-worship and occultknowledge traceable to the Atlantiansand the giantsor Titanswho warred against heaven at thefoundation of the world. To returnto thepoem : thefirst part of it is setin thegolden age, of whichthirteenth-century Xanadu withits Cuthean monarch is a symbol. The "Ancestralvoices prophesying war" are thevoices of the giants or Titans,Kubla's ancestors,who warred against heaven and are prophesyinga similarfalling away fromKubla's terrestrialparadise. To the objectionthat Xanadu is herefunctioning both as a symbolicalrepre- sentationof the Unfällenworld and as a literalrepresentation of the worldafter the Fall, one needonly observe that it is thenature of symbolism,particularly in Romanticpoetry, to preservea certainironic ambivalence,and thatColeridge's own definitionof symbolism,"the translucenceof the eternal through and in thetemporal," points to the samequality. IreneChayes observes: Fromtime to time,critics have glancingly identified the two worlds that emergefrom the opposing descriptions [in st. 1 and 2],the "paradisal" and the"infernal," with the conscious and the unconscious aspects of the mind; actuallysuch an identificationis fundamental to themeaning of thefirst two stanzas.The totallandscape in crosssection, from Kubla Khan's pleasureground through the chasms to thecaverns and theunderground sea,is at oncethe content of the vision in a dreamand a pictorialdiagram ofthe operation of the dreamer's mind during the whole experience. More precisely,the landscape with its descending levels would be themind as structure,and theprocess within it, summed up in theflowing of the river, meanderingwith a mazymotion, the mind as activity.59 BearingMiss Chayes' commentsin mind,if we comparethe scene describedin the firstthirty-six lines of the poem withBlake's myth, whatwe are invitedto beholdis a tripartitescheme of threelevels of existence,hence of the mind, each mirroring the others, and correspond- ingto Blake'sEden, Beulah, and Ulro.The "sunnydome with caves of ice!" symbolizesEden, whereopposition is truefriendship; the fertile gardens,still Unfällen, are Beulah, "whereContrarieties are equally 58Ibid., Ill, 569. 59 Chayes, p. 7. Miss Chayes' remarksconcerning "the dreamer'smind" are concernedwith the total impressionconveyed by the poem, not with theories relatingto themanner in whichColeridge composed the poem.

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True"; and the "cavernsmeasureless to man" and the "sunlesssea" correspondto Ulro and the Lake of Udan Adan. The "sacredriver" of divineTruth runs through and unitesthese three levels. The fourth level- generation- is notyet born. It correspondsto thelevel on which the"anti-Edenic" critics read the poem, and itsabsence, except in posse, doubtlessaccounts for their confusion. Hence, their difficulty in explain- ingwhy Coleridge describes the scene so lavishly,and whyhe wantsto emulateKubla by building"that dome in air," a phrasewhich again pointsto the heavenly or spiritual quality of the dome. It is possible,by emphasizing the phrase "in air,"to implya contrast betweenthe dome decreedby Kubla and the dome whichthe poet proposesto build; but the contextseems to requirethat the primary - rhetoricalemphasis be placedupon "I" at thebeginning of thisline "/ wouldbuild that dome in air"- and themeaning may well be that Kubla's domesurrounded by treesand gardensappeared to be hover- ingin theair becauseof the symmetry and gracefulnessof its construc- tion.60 In eithercase thereis impliedboth a paralleland a contrastbetween thepoet's activity and Kubla's: bothare creatingas itwere through the word,by fiat;but onlythe poet is hisown workman.The mainpoint howeveris thatonly if we acceptKubla's domeas symbolizingGod's creation,and specificallythe heavenly portion of it, does the poet's wish to emulateKubla's achievementmake sense.As one of the poem's moreliteral-minded critics has complained,"It is not easyto believe that a Romanticwould comparehis act of artisticcreation, except ironically,with a potentate'serection of an outbuilding."61There is ironyin thepoem, though it pointsin theopposite direction from this quotation.Like Blake'sLos, who continuallybuilds the city of Golgo- nooza,the poet of "Kubla Khan" wishesto participatewholly in the constructionof a palace of art whichwill be recognizedas a symbol, hencea portion,of God's heavenlycreation - in Christianterms, the New Jerusalem.But thepoem is deliberatelyset outside the orthodox Christiantradition in orderto emphasizethe independence of the poetic visionfrom any one set of beliefs or dogmas. The ironyis thatthe poet has come closer to succeedingthan he seems to realize.This comic ironydetermines the tone,and thereforethe meaning,of the poem's conclusion, beginning with the lines, "A damsel 60Bryant, III, 565, recordsThevenot's description of a templeatop a mountain hewnout of therock by theIndo-Cuthites in sucha way that"it is reallya wonder to see so greata massin theair, which seems so slenderlyunderpropped, that one can hardlyhelp shudderingat firstentering it" (italicsadded) . 61Carl R. Woodring,"Coleridge and the Khan," Essaysin Criticism,9 (1959), 362.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Kubla Khan3'as Symbol 629 witha dulcimer/In a visiononce I saw." It also givesa finalironic twistto thepoem's structure. As we haveseen, the cyclical course of the riverAlph symbolizeseternity; it also symbolizesthe cyclical structure of thepoem, in which,as Boehmesaid ofthe creation, "the End finds the Beginning,and the Beginningswallows up the end again."62 Someonehas written,"[On reading]Ί wouldbuild that dome in air5 . . . thereader's first instinct is tosay that this is justwhat Coleridge has done.But this is evidently quite wrong."63 In readinglyrical poetry, one's firstinstinct is nevercompletely wrong. What Coleridgehas doneis to leave a rhetoricalgap betweenconception and execution,in orderto establishan oscillationin the reader'smind, and thusstimulate the readerto a creativeand imaginativeresponse. Shelley uses the same techniquein the last stanza of "To A Skylark": Teachme half the gladness Thatthy brain must know Suchharmonious madness Frommy lips would flow The worldshould listen then - as I amlistening now. Here,as in theconcluding lines of "Kubla Khan," is thefuror poeticus raisedto the nth degree : CouldI revivewithin me Hersymphony and song To sucha deepdelight 'twould win me Thatwith music loud and long I wouldbuild that dome in air Thatsunny dome ! thosecaves of ice ! Andall who heard should see them there Andall shouldcry, Beware, beware, His flashingeyes, his floating hair! Weavea circleround him thrice Andclose your eyes with holy dread Forhe on honey dew hath fed Anddrunk the milk of Paradise. Some criticshave regardedthis conclusion as despairing;but the majorityhave responded to it as a triumphantaffirmation ofthe divine potentialitiesofpoetry - and theyare right.This shouldbe evidenteven withoutone's awareness of the echoes of Plato's Ion in theselines; with 62 Forty Questions,I, 118. See Miss Chayes' remark,"the contentsof the plannedpoem would be substantiallythe same as theevents in thefirst two stanzas of 'Kubla Khan.' This is a pointwhose significancehas not been sufficientlyap- preciated" (p. 18). 63 Watson,p. 25.

This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 63O WARREN STEVENSON such awareness,the meaning becomes transparently clear.64 The poet seeshimself as oneof a successionof seers and singersof eternal realities, workingto overcomethe ravages of the Fall by restoringto man uat once and ever"a senseof imaginativefulfilment. If the poet is trans- portedto heavenat theend of this poem, it is theperceptive reader who doesthe transporting. 64See KathleenRaine, "Traditional Symbolism in Kubla Khan" Sewanee Review,η (1964), 641-642. The UniversityofBritish Columbia Vancouver

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