On the surface, Coleridge's “Kubla Khan” is a poem of a beautiful place that came to him within a dream with passionate and surreal undertones. However, if you look a bit deeper, you may see Greek mythology at play within one of Coleridge’s most well known poems. Through a journey of words that bring the audience through hills and valleys, a story of Greek mythology with a focus on the life of Dionysus takes form.
The poem opens with “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure dome decree:” continuing on to describe this pleasure dome. The river Alph runs through, which is a nod to Alpheus, a Greek mythological river and river god. The author’s description furthers this assumption of the Greek theme by stating it runs through caverns measureless to man and down into a sunless sea denoting the might and depth the god has. He continues on to tell of the fertile ground, grand gardens, fragrant trees, and forest spotted with green landscapes. In keeping with his theme, this all points to the lands of the Dionysus cult of the maenads and lived quite a hedonistic lifestyle. Their lifestyle is told more in the following lines, stating:
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
The first three lines tell of the maenads, inciting thoughts out their sexualized passions brought on by their god Dionysus. The final two have a dual meaning: the frenzied women would dance in the night in passion as well as Dionysus’ creation between Semele and Zeus, as he came to her in the night invisible. Semele was pleased with her invisible lover and his taking of her could be preserved as a demon like possession.
The poem then continues on with continued dual meaning within lines 17 through 30. These state:
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!
These lines have a dual meaning, as well. Not only is this the conception of Dionysus but it is also the demise of his mother, Semele. The burst that rushes forth and meets which later foretells of war is his conception and the later wrath of Hera who becomes jealous of Zeus’ love for Semele. The volcanic like burst is also when Semele finally saw Zeus in his true form and was incinerated by his image.
The poem continues on to tell of the dome once more, but this time it has a cavern of ice. This could very well be the place where Dionysus was raised. Hera’s wrath was never ending and for protection Zeus sent him to be raised with the mountain nymphs.
Next, Coleridge jumps back to the maenads as they are enticing the narrator with music. Still, there are those who know tell him to beware. Maenads were known to tear apart both animals and mean and feast upon their flesh when in their frenzied states. Yet the narrator weaves a protective circle around himself, for he can no longer resist, as he has tasted the milk and honey of Dionysus, which is true paradise.
Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” is the great poetical work of Dionysus. He wove in Greek mythology perfectly within the lines of surreal beauty that it seeps into the veins of the reader as if they have themselves tasted the milk and honey. It is impossible to not be moved by the musicality and beauty set in Xanadu through Coleridge's amazing words.
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