Kubla Khan

[ koo-bluh kahn ]

noun

1. (italics) a poetic fragment (1797) by Coleridge.
2. Kublai Khan.

“Kubla Khan”

1. An evocative poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge about an exotic emperor. It begins with these lines: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree….”

Example Sentences

As in “Kubla Khan,” my trip sparkles like a pleasure dome and echoes with cries of “Beware!”

From Los Angeles Times

Developers broke ground in 2004 for its predecessor, a mall initially dubbed "Xanadu" after the pleasure dome in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan."

From Salon

Speaking of his friend Carl Fisher, the Kubla Khan of Miami Beach, Rogers said, “Carl discovered that sand could hold up a real estate sign.”

From New York Times

The long list of inventions and great works said to have been generated in dreams includes the periodic table, the sewing machine, Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” Paul McCartney’s “Let It Be,” and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”

From The New Yorker

Some scholars claim that Coleridge got stuck on Kubla Khan and then invented the Person from Porlock to excuse its fragmentary composition.

From Nature