Samuel Taylor Coleridge read voraciously and took notes on everything. Early in the 20th century one John Livingston Lowes examined books Coleridge is known or likely to have read – either because it is explicitly referenced in Coleridge’s notes or because it is very much like something Coleridge has referenced and was likely available to him at the time – and found passages similar to lines and phrases in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and in “Kubla Khan.” Lowes then reproduced these passages, some at considerable length, and provided suitable contextual and connective tissue relating them to Coleridge’s interests and habits and, of course, to his poems. He published the results of his labors in The Road to Xanadu. I agree with the modern judgment that Lowes’ investigation into Coleridge’s notebooks and library tells us relatively little about how Coleridge’s poems work in our minds and hearts, nor is his loose associationist psychology very convincing.
Nonetheless, I find Lowes’ work quite fascinating. What interests me is what interested Lowes, that fragments of ideas and wording somehow found their way from texts dating back to the 17th century and into Coleridge’s poems. Those poems then served as a vehicle for further dissemination of some of those fragments. We can thus think of them as memes in Richard Dawkins’ rather casual and controversial formulation.
I herewith present the text to “Kubla Khan,” followed by putative sources from Lowes, and end with the lyrics to a rock anthem, “Xanadu,” by Rush. The rock tune is clearly indebted to Coleridge’s poem. The actual order of transmission is, of course: sources to Coleridge to Rush. Beyond this I note that the garden meme is older than language. Without it there would be no Xanadu.
I've done a web-based study of the distribution of the /xanadu/ meme where I argue that, once Coleridge had introduced the word into early 19th century Europe, there were three major dispersal events: the film, Citizen Kane; Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu; and the movie, hit song, and now Broadway musical, Xanadu. Here's a detailed analysis of Coleridge's poem.
The Text of “Kubla Khan”
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns meaureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
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!
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 fragements vaulted like rebounding hail,
Of 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 taverns endless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should seem them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Coleridge’s Sources
Here are a few of the passages Lowes marshals in contemplation of “Kubla Khan.” What's intersting is how specific words and phrases made their way into the poem. I have reproduced them as Lowes did, with certain phrases italicized. The first passage is from Purchas His Pilgramage, originally published in the early seventeenth century. This is the passage that Coleridge cites in his preface to the poem, though he misquotes it there (p. 326 of Lowes):
In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddows, pleasant springs, delightfull Streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure, which may be removed from place to place.
The next passage is by a contemporary of Coleridge’s, William Bartram, and is from his Travels through North and South Carolina . . . (p. 335 of Lowes):
Just under my feet was the inchanting and amazing chrystal fountain, which incessantly threw up, from dark, rocky caverns below, tons of water every minute, forming a bason, capacious enough for large shallops to ride in, and a creek of four or five feet depth of water, and near twenty yards over, which meanders six miles through green meadows, pouring its limpid waters into the great Lake George. . . . About twenty yards from the upper edge of the bason . . . . is a continual and amazing ebullition, where the waters are thrown up in such abundance and amazing force, as to jet a swell up two or three feet above the common surface: white sand and small particles of shells are thrown up with the waters . . . when they . . . subside with the expanding flood, and gently sing again.
The next passage is from James Bruce, who had journeyed to the source of the Nile in the third quarter of the eighteenth century and published his Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the fourth quarter (Lowes p. 339):
The second fountain lise about a stone-cast west from the first: the inhabitants say that this whole mountain is full of water, and add, that the whole plain about the fountain is floating and unsteady, a certain mark that there is water concealed under it; for which reason, the water does not overflow at the fountain, but forces itself with great violence out at the foot of the mountain. The inhabitants . . . maintain that that year it trembled little on account of the drought, but other years, that it trembled and overflowed so as that it could scare be approached without danger.
Out of all these mountains do issue innumerable sources and rivulets. . . . All these rivulets, descending from the mountains, make the plain and all those hillocks so fair and fruitful, that one would take this whole kingdom for some evergreen garden. . . . The lake hath this peculiar, that ‘tis full of little isles, which are as many gardens of pleasure, that appear all green in the midst of the water. . . . Beyond the lake, upon the side of the hills, there is nothing but houses and gardens of pleasure . . . . full of springs and rivulets.
Note that the passages I’ve cited here pertain mostly to the first half of the poem, but Lowes does provide putative sources for the second half as well. These few passages do not adequately convey the cumulative effect of Lowes’ exposition, with page after page of likely or possible “sources” for the poem.
Lyrics to “Xanadu”
Here are the lyrics to a tune called “Xanadu,” composed and performed by the rock group, Rush. Following Lowes’ convention with Coleridge’s putative sources, I have italicized the fragments that seem to have come from Coleridge’s poem.
"To seek the sacred river Alph To walk the caves of ice To break my fast on honey dew And drink the milk of paradise...." I had heard the whispered tales Of immortality The deepest mystery From an ancient book. I took a clue I scaled the frozen mountain tops Of eastern lands unknown Time and Man alone Searching for the lost—Xanadu Xanadu—To stand within the Pleasure Dome Decreed by Kubla Khan To taste anew the fruits of life The last immortal man To find the sacred river Alph To walk the caves of ice Oh, I will dine on honeydew And drink the milk of Paradise A thousand years have come and gone But Time has passed me by Stars stopped in the sky Frozen in the everlasting view Waiting for the world to end Weary of the night Praying for the light Prison of the lost—Xanadu Xanadu—To stand within the Pleasure Dome Decreed by Kubla Khan To taste my bitter triumph As a mad immortal man Nevermore shall I return Escape these caves of ice For I have dined on honeydew And drunk the milk of Paradise Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson Lyrics by Neil Peart
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