Lost In Transmission

While every poet wrestles with the difficulties inherent in the process of transmission from creative impulse to completed work, few poets were as consumed with the mechanics, and the inevitable disconnect, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as evidenced in his most vivid work, Kubla Khan, a testament to a poet?s failure to fully bridge the gap between idea and actual. What Coleridge has managed to produce is a poem that works as both a meditation on the triumphs and tribulations of writing, as well as a creative work unto itself- paradoxically, both playing with, and in thrall of, that self-same disconnect which is of such paramount importance. Rather than a single, cohesive whole Kubla Khan is actually composed of three different narratives, seeped in an all-pervasive aura of failure: Kubla?s dictation of the voluptuary pleasure-dome doomed to tumble into conceptual oblivion, an anonymous poet operating as the voice of Coleridge bemoaning his artistic impotence, and, through his inclusion of the now-infamous (and highly suspect) back-story of a crucial interruption in the midst of a fit of inspiration, the total work, pigeonholing it into a fragment.

From the very first lines in which the titular Kubla Khanis introduced, and the stage of exotic Xanadu is set, the reader is already confronted with information that is demanding conveyance. In an intriguing deviation from his inspirational work, Purchas? Pilgrimage (the text of which is available at the end of the Crewe manuscript ) which contains the matter-of-fact ?In Xanadu did Cublai Can build a stately Pallace,? Coleridge penned the immortal ?In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/a stately Pleasure-Dome decree.? While certainly more aesthetically pleasing, Coleridge?s substitution of ?build? for ?decree? shifts the focus of the poem away from the material to the abstract, morphing the mechanical into the poetical. Kubla Khan ascends to the role of versifier, and the Pleasure-Dome is to be his magnum opus. What follows is some of the most intense verbal imagery Coleridge committed to verse, flecks from a colossal brainstorm the reader can hear rumbling in the horizon. Lines such as ?Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,/Through caverns measureless to man,/Down to a sunless sea? reverberate with a sort of weightiness that belies a proximity to pure impulse. The final line of the first stanza, ?Enfolding sunny spots of greenery? showcases Kubla Khan as a medium at the height of his craft, transmitting these scenes of Eden-like paradise without a noticeable flaw.

But the intensity, rather than subsiding or fading completely, is amplified violently within the next stanza, as the poem and poet are swept up in a deluge of evocative language. What was at first a slight rip in the fabric of reality has been widened into a deep romantic chasm, threatening to swallow Kubla Khan with its primal creativity. Khan?s failure to control this elemental force draws parallels with Coleridge?s own slavery to opium and withering self-awareness, and the poem grows increasingly perverse and bleak to reflect these corrupting influences: ?A savage place! as holy and enchanted/ As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted/ By woman wailing for her demon-lover The language peaks with ?A mighty fountain momently was forced;? the unbridled creative impulse finally burning itself out, washing away to reveal a desiccated Kubla Khan, drained and defeated by his inability to keep his artistic flow in check. The haunting of image of the pleasure-dome sinking into lifeless ocean captures the stagnation brought on by inadequacy, a garbled transmission damning the pleasure-dome to return to the void. Coleridge?s repetition of the earlier lines of ?caverns measureless to man? remind the reader the object of beauty that has just been tragically aborted by insufficiency, evoking a tremendous sense of loss that cannot even begin to approach the agony of the poet who had attempted to give it form. This poignancy is captured in the final image of Kubla Khan the poet, privy to a private and excruciating act of extinction that is then mirrored in the external world with the ancestral voices prophesizing war, signaling his personal failure carrying over into a public loss, the world to be thrown into disarray. Unlike Atlas, the poet suffers under the burden of two loads: the personal responsibility, and the responsibility to the world who has just been denied a work of greatness.

Although our poet, Kubla Khan, fades from view, the poem of the pleasure-dome remains, refusing to dissolve completely into the waters of collective unconscious. Though unable to make the transition from inclination to entity, the force that shaped the dome is of such passion that the dome remains lodged in a state between being and non-being, material that lifts its head from under the quagmire of potential to demand its creation. A shadow, a faint flickering of what the dome could be remains, floating on the sea of possibility, the ?mingled measure? capturing the frustration of a poet who can hear it?s protestations but is unable to grasp its ensnared form. The last two lines, ?It was a miracle of rare device,/ A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!? exemplifies the isolated misery of the failed poet, left with an insufficient vocabulary and contradictory imagery to assert that which he or she can alone know the potency of.

This moment of human ruin segues into the second narrative, once again beginning with a scenario of transmission. In marked contrast, however, the transmission of the ?damsel with a dulcimer? borders on perfection, the creative impulse directly translated into to the physical world through the appropriate medium. The narrator takes this ?song of Mt. Abora? as an example of perfect transmission, placing it in direct comparison to his perceived lack of ability as well as the limitations of his artistic medium. If Coleridge, as narrator, could overcome his impediments, could ?revive within me, her sympathy and song? and communicate his messages with the efficacy and flux of music and musical language, then ?To such a deep delight 'twould win me,? these pleasure-domes could be rescued from their creative purgatory: ?I would build that dome in air,/ That sunny dome! those caves of ice!? Rather than languishing away in self-pity, like the conceptual ?decree? of Kubla Khan, Coleridge?s words could literally shape reality, crafting the world around him with his words. With language that approaches frightened reverence, Coleridge equates an image of the self that has eliminated these errors of transmission to an ascension to Godhead, becoming an avatar for inspiration: ?And all should cry, Beware! Beware!/ His flashing eyes, his floating hair!? The incomparable force that absorbed Kubla Khan in the second stanza would be in Coleridge?s control, terrifying readers with a vehemence and vigor deserving of quaking adulation.

The severity of the paragraph is both highlighted and extinguished by the final four lines, who monumental self-importance reminds the reader of how pathetic, an ultimately heart-rending Coleridge?s shortcomings are: ?Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.? By themselves, these lines are striking, denoting Coleridge?s incomparable ability for verse that lingers, bespeaking a terrible and powerful talent. But within the context of the paragraph, the lines border on the absurd, the final line?s veiled reference to his opium habit a reminder of his tremendous personal weakness which pinpoints the piteous nature of the entire stanza. Coleridge is portrayed as a delusional drunkard, spiraling flights of fancy in grotesque comparison to his abject baseness, blasphemous virility coming from a man who was impotent.

This directly relates to Coleridge?s insistence on Kubla Khan?s nature as a fragment, rather than a completed work. Indeed, though Coleridge appears to be once more self-defeating in insisting on a back-story which would seem to work only to diminish the grandeur of the poem, being in itself an incomplete transmission, rudely interrupted before it could complete it?s journey from concept to object, considering the subject matter it only serves to further Coleridge?s purpose. Coleridge?s presentation forces the reader to accept Coleridge?s terms, placing an emphasis on the scenario of transmission that allows for interpretations that would not have resulted had Coleridge allowed the reader to wander without guide. In so doing, Coleridge manifests a measure of control over his unleashed imagery, preventing himself from falling into the same trap that, paradoxically, he, as Kubla, does indeed fall into.

Ironically, though the message Coleridge is attempting to transmit is regarding his own failure in his ability to transmit, the message is captured perfectly, making this a rather unique case of writing what you know.