Pleasure Domes and Sunbeams: An Anti-Oedipal Reading of “Kubla Khan”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1797 poem “Kubla Khan” begins with the statement that Kubla Khan once caused a pleasure-dome to come into existence by dint of a kingly decree. The last line states that the narrator, should he gain suffi cient poetic vision, would have “drunk the milk of paradise” and w...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institute of English Studies
2017-10-01
|
| Series: | Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.anglica.ia.uw.edu.pl/images/pdf/26-1-articles/Anglica_26-1_RTindol_55-72.pdf |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1797 poem “Kubla Khan” begins with the statement that Kubla
Khan once caused a pleasure-dome to come into existence by dint of a kingly decree.
The last line states that the narrator, should he gain suffi cient poetic vision, would have
“drunk the milk of paradise” and would “build that dome in air.” A new reading may be
derived from a focus on precisely what these lines say and what they imply within the perspective
of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s work Anti-Oedipus. If the process of the
narrator’s gaining poetic insight is set in motion by a conscious decree from Kubla Khan,
then an Anti-Oedipal reading considers whether the end result is simply the consequence
a powerful individual’s wishes, or else is paradoxically a liberation from those wishes. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0860-5734 0860-5734 |