Lesson Plan: Kubla Khan
- What does the «exotic» mean to you? How would you describe it? If you can picture a scene that encapsulates the exotic.
Kubla Khan, By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Complete the first verse with the following words: fertile, blossomed, caverns, sunless, sacred spots, hills, sank
In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
A stately Pleasure-Dome decree,
Where Alph, the __________ river ran
Through ______________ measureless to man
Down to a ____________ sea. So twice five miles of ____________ground
With walls and towers was girdled ’round,
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where ____________ many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the _________ ,
Enfolding sunny ____________ of greenery.
2. Draw a map of the place described in the first verse. Compare the map with your partner.
Complete the second verse with the following verbs: vaulted, was forced, was haunted, ran, reached, flung up, were breathing, heard
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 the waning moon _________________
By woman wailing for her Demon Lover!
And from this chasm with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this Earth in fast, thick pants ____________,
A mighty fountain momently ________________,
Amid whose swift, half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments ___________ like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail;
And ‘midst these dancing rocks at once and ever,
It ___________ momently the sacred river!
Five miles meandering with ever a mazy motion,
Through wood and dale the sacred river _________,
Then ___________ the caverns measureless to man,
And ___________ in tumult to a lifeless ocean.
And ‘mid this tumult, Kublai ___________ from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
3. Go through the second verse. Which words refer to something slow, gentle? Which words refer to something fast, or violent?
Complete the third verse with the following verbs, paying attention to the sounds: measure, played, fed, long, Paradise, there, caves
The shadow of the Dome of Pleasure
Floated midway on the waves,
Where was heard the mingled ____________
From the fountain and the _____________.
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 _____________,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such deep delight ‘twould win me
That with music loud and _________,
I would build that dome within the air!
That sunny dome, those caves of ice,
And all who heard should see them _____________,
And all should cry: “Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle ’round him thrice,
And close your eyes in holy dread:
For he on honeydew hath ____________,
And drunk the milk of _____________!”
4. How does the this description of the place differ from the first? What is the different perspective? How can things change in your mind when they become memory? Can they become more exotic?
5. Describe a memory you once had. One that you cannot remember very well.
6. Watch the following video. What additional information does it say about the poem?
7. Create a short poem, using ABBA rhyme scheme, describing an exotic place (can be real or unreal).