Supernatural Elements in KublaKhan

Coleridge was considered to be a note worth poet of 18th

century. Coleridges poetic career is a very short one. Yet
he has given very remarkable poems. In 1796 he
published his first volume of poems on various subjects.
Coleridges best works are mainly of two kinds
1) Supernatural Poems
2) Samul Taylor Coleridge conversational poems
1) supernatural poems: like Kubla Khan Christabel and
The Rime of Ancient Mariner. These timeless poems are
excellent example of romantic imagination.
2) Conversational Poems like A frost at Midnight and
Dejection an Ode reveals reflective side of his
disposition.
* Coleridge as a poet of Supernatural
Coleridges most outstanding contribution to
romantic to romantic poetry is his treatment of the
supernatural. When Coleridge and Wordsworth wrote the
lyrical Ballads, Coleridge took the supernatural as his
field and undertook to naturalize it. There is no any finer
dreamer in English verse than Coleridge. His hi
supernatural imagination is controlled by thought and
study. Coleridge is co-founder of Romantic Movement
with Wordsworth. So, as Wordsworth is a nature poet,
Coleridge is known for his supernaturalism.
Supernatural elements in Kubla Khan
Kubla Khan is the product of sheer fancy. It is a
dream poem, a poem of pure magic. It is one of

Coleridges three masterpieces of super natural poetry.

The atmosphere of supernatural mystery is created in
Kubla Khan mint by the description of the pleasure dome
and the surrounding in which it stood.
Kubla Khan is a product of pure fury, a work of sheer
imagination and is therefore a wholly Romantic
composition. A reader wit a rational or neo-classical spirit
would perhaps fails to find any meaning. Or logic or
thought in this poem. But to a romantic reader, the poem
is a source of intense pleasure and wonder. Kubla Khan is
delightful blend of imagination emotion mystery,
sensuousness, romantic description, sweet melody and
exquisite diction.
Kubla Khan is a poem of pure magic. It is one of
Coleridges three masterpieces of supernatural poetry,
and the other two are christabel and The Rime of
Ancient Mariner. Trough the use of vivid imagery
Coleridge reproduces a paradise- like vision of the
landscape and Kingdome created by Kubla Khan.
The atmosphere of supernatural mystery is created
in Kubla Khan mainly by a description of the pleasure
dome and the surrounding in which it stood. For
instance, the river Alph flowing through caverns
measureless to man down to a sunless sea. The
immeasurable abysses and the sunless sea stir in our
mind the feeling of mystery and even fear.
Then comes the deep romantic gorge which lay
across a wood of cedar tress. The manner in which the
water intermittently gushed forth from the spring,
throwing up huge places of rock were breathing in fast,
thick plants, is staggering to the readers imagination. The
atmosphere of mystery and fear is emphasized when
another reference is made to the sunless sea or the
lifeless ocean in to which the water of Alph falls with a

loud roar. The whole of this description is awe-inspiring if

not horrifying.
It should be noted that suggestiveness is a very
important ingredient of Coleridges supernaturalism. Nor
should we forget the closing lines which which contains a
picture of poetic frenzy. Here we have a great blending of
the natural and the supernatural. A poets inspiration is of
the well-known and natural facts of human life but there
is something supernatural about the way in which this
poetic inspiration and the creative power of a poet are
depicted!
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His fleshing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice
And close eyes with holy dread,
For him on honey- drew hath fed.
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Every line here emphasizes the atmosphere of mystery
and fear which is the key note of the poem. And yet the
whole desiccation is psychologically accurate because
when the poet is in the state of frenzy is really a
magician: touches of realism indeed, have been added,
even to the description of the chasm and mighty
fountain. The two similes- rebounding hail and the chaffy
grain beneath the threshers fail- are drawn from actual
life and are the most realistic. Even in the mids of his faroff, divorced from life desciption, Coleridge does not
forget that hi real purpose was to make the supernatural
and to bring about that willing suspension of disbelief
which constitutes poetic faith.
Kubla Khan is triumph of supernaturalism. It
transforms the world of everyday life in to world of
enchantment. Indeed, this poem ranks as a masterpiece

of supernaturalism. in the poem the images which had

been deposited the unconscious mind of Coleridge from
his reading about subteraneam rivers, pleasures; places
and other marvelous things, emerged to his conscious
mind and and were exposed immediately and
spontaneously in words. The caverns measureless to
man, the romantic chasm, the intermittent burst of water
from the fountain, the sunless sea they all create a world
of wonder and enchantment. The atmosphere of
strangeness and mystery has effetely and skillfully been
created in the poem.
Indeed, this poem ranks as a master piece, of
supernaturalism and is one of the three poems which
brought the name of Coleridge to the forefront of the
greatest English poets.