Thread by @roomynaqvy

#KublaKhan #Coleridge In my MA, as a student, a professor taught me in 1992 that Coleridge took opium and wrote the poem, Kubla Khan, under the influence of opium. In my class of 35 students, except Debangshu Kerr and I, no student loved the poem. 1/

While we took the jam-packed public transport bus from Jamia Millia Islamia University to AIIMS, to home, Debangshu and I would discuss Coleridge's Kubla Khan. We were not convinced it was opium induced poem. 2/

We had CM Bowra's book, The Romantic Imagination and a book, Coleridge the Visionary by John Beer and our professor. But somehow I wasn't convinced. Anyway, we wrote in the examinations what best we knew. 3/

My friend, Debangshu Kerr wanted to crack the Indian Civil Services examination and left further literary studies. I cracked the Junior Research Fellowship and National Test for Lectureship the first time I took it, in Dec 1993. I joined MPhil in 1994. 4/

We did MPhil coursework. We had to write research papers. One of the research papers, I chose to write in 1994-1995 was in Coleridge's iconic poem, Kubla Khan. I had to solve unresolved issues since my MA days. 5/

I accessed the Central Reference Library, Faculty of Arts, Delhi University, the JNU Central Library, the Delhi Univ South Campus library and my Univ library. No internet those days. 6/

I realised that William Hazlitt had said Coleridge wrote nonsense verse in a review of the poem in 1816. It was based on the 1816 published version of the poem, which had a preface. 7/

I also learned that Humphrey House, that highly regarded scholar, had started his 1953 (if I remember correctly) Clarke Lectures by saying, "If Coleridge had not appended his preface, who would have thought of Kubla Khan as opium induced imagination?" 8/

I also accessed an article by Elizabeth Schneider, PMLA 1945, which brought medical evidence to show Kubla Khan was neither a fragment nor opium induced. Also, most probably, Thomas de Quincey's book was also not opium induced. 9/

I learned that in 1960, the British library, London, found a manuscript of Kubla Khan dated 1797 that Coleridge had gifted with a note to Lady Southey, poet Robert Southey's wife. 10/

Comparing the first time, Kubla Khan was published in 1816 with the 1797 manuscript is very interesting and insightful indeed. In 1797 manuscript, Coleridge's note is short; he says he has a reverie after a few grains of opium. 11/

In 1816 Preface to Kubla Khan, Coleridge says he had laudanum and he had a deep sleep of over three hours (if I remember correctly) and he also builds up a story and calls his poem, "a fragment". 12/

Essentially, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was far ahead of his time and experimenting with a sub genre of poetry in the Romantic Age, called "a fragment". He thought it would be too ahead of his age, so, didn't publish the poem from 1797 till 1816 and then too, appended a preface. 13/

Imagine, my professor in 1992 was still not aware of these developments. The evidence was there in libraries, under dusty journals. And such an iconic poem had injustice. Funnily that professor taught in the same vein for years after I had graduated. 14/

Writing a poem like Kubla Khan would be a poet's dream. I don't think I can attempt something like that. You should metrically scan the poem and you would realize the poetic craft in it. An excellent example of Coleridge's theory of Secondary Imagination. 15/ends

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