X

Xanadu.... Today I am thankful for one of the first works of beauty that brought me to love the English language and the world of imagination behind the pages of literature. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Kahn"


"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."


Coleridge's words were brought to him during a drug induced sleep. He had been reading about Kubla Kahn prior to sleeping. After waking, he feverishly started writing. After writing the first three stanzas of the poem, Coleridge was interrupted by someone who kept him occupied for an hour. He then was unable to recall the original dream to end the poem.

The mysterious person is one of the most notorious and enigmatic figures in Coleridge’s biography; no one knows who he was or why he disturbed the poet or what he wanted or, indeed, whether any of Coleridge’s story is actually true. But the person has become a metaphor for the malicious interruptions the world throws in the way of inspiration and genius, and “Kubla Khan,” strange and ambiguous as it is, has become what is perhaps the definitive statement on the obstruction and thwarting of the visionary genius.
So today, because well darn it I couldn't come up with another X word ;-) I am thankful for Xanadu.