"Kubla Khan": A Poem of Sexual Ambiguity

Abstract

The poem "Kubla Khan" is quite inexplicable. It is full of ambiguity and seemingly bizarre implications. Many critics have seen it as a poem full of ethereal music, but, i find it a mysterious reflection on humen sexuality. In it Coleridge makes reference to what Freud would have called "dream work", basically thoughts surfacing as things and thinking being dramatized: the thoughts being pulled from the subconscious and made significant. Had it not been for the opium, Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" would have remained a fantasy, dreamt and lost. Certainly, the poem is a most intricate work, full of the poet's desire to portray grandeur synaesthetically. "Kubla Khan" is, also among other things, a poem full of ironic reflections on the legendary architectural feat of the Mughals