Quote of the Day: Xanadu

 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

I hope it’s clear I’m not talking about that silly movie with Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck (whoever he is), and Gene Kelly in his embarrassingly awful final film role. (IIRC, this was the movie that launched the Razzies, the annual award for the worst [fill in the blank, movie-related category] of the year.

I’m talking about Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, a poem which (Coleridge always said) came to him in a dream, and which he was writing down after he woke up, only to be interrupted by the dreaded “person from Porlock,” who caused him to forget the other two or three hundred lines that were in his mind. So we have only a fragment of about the first fifty lines to wallow in, and I do. It’s one of my favorite bits of Romantic poetry, shrouded as it is in mystery and luscious images (perhaps I like it so much because it reminds me of Keats), and I don’t have to believe the fanciful story of its origins to love it.

It sprang to mind today, in a rare felix culpa in my life (most of my culpae aren’t at all felix, I assure you) when I received a message from dear @arahant this morning, reminding me that I’d signed up for today’s Quote of the Day.

Well, I’d forgotten.

So I did what I always do first thing, and checked births, deaths, events, and holidays and observances in Wikipedia to see if there was something interesting I could hang a post on. (What a weird locution. Normally one hangs things on posts; one doesn’t hang posts on things. Oh, well. I leave that to the grammarians, syntaxticians, and definitional police (and there are plenty here of all of the preceding) to sort out.)

But, what a bonanza of a day! Talk about being spoiled for choice:

First, it’s Donald Trump’s Birthday. Happy Birthday, President Trump! It’s also the anniversary of Richard II’s chat with the Revolting Peasants at Mile End (1381), and of Owen Glendower’s declaration that he was allying himself with the French against Henry IV, in 1404. Perfidious Welshman. No wonder there are a couple of border towns on the English side where it’s still legal to kill a Welshman as long as you do it with a bow and arrow and at certain times of the day or week.

Today, in 1775, the Continental Army was established by the Continental Congress. And Charles Babbage proposed his “Difference Engine” in a paper before the Royal Society in 1822. (That hearkens back to a recent post of mine; the last QOTD from me, in fact.)

On June 14, 1940, the German Occupation of Paris began. “I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray. You wore blue.” On this day in 1982, Argentina surrendered to Great Britain, ending the Falklands War. And three years ago today, the horrific Grenfell Tower fire in London took 72 lives.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811. Margaret Bourke White, 1904. Burl Ives, 1909. Sam Wanamaker, 1921. Boy George (1961).

Benedict Arnold died on this date in 1801 (in his bed, of gout and dropsy). Legend says that his last words were, “Let me die in this old uniform in which I fought my battles. May God forgive me for ever having put on another,” but no one knows if that’s actually true or which uniform he was talking about. Adlai Stevenson (the first one), former Vice-President of the United States–to Grover Cleveland (1914). Emmeline Pankhurst (1928). G.K. Chesterton (1936), Henry Mancini (1994).

Every single one, and lots more, quoteworthy in his, her, or its own right. But the first thing to catch my eye, and the one that stuck, was this:

1287 – Kublai Khan defeats the force of Nayan and other traditionalist Borjigin princes in East Mongolia and Manchuria.

And there you have it. Xanadu, legendary site of Kublai Khan’s summer palace, first recorded in the travels of Marco Polo in 1275, when it served the same purpose for the previous Yuan dynasty.

Some of the loveliest lines in all of English poetry (or so I think):

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
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.

Xanadu.

I don’t want to pass over the fact that it’s also Flag Day in the United States. And so, in conclusion, a musical interlude, another favorite of mine. (Mr. She and I saw these guys and gals perform in Washington PA, several years ago. Wonderful):

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  1. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    She (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    It is a lovely poem, @she. Much better than reading about revolting peasants! Thanks.

    An excellent and highly readable history of the Peasant Revolt of 1381 is Dan Jones’ Summer of Blood.

    I don’t know that one, but I will check it out. And hope that “Dan Jones” is a better writer than “Dan Brown,” who I had him momentarily confused with. Thanks!

    Hang On (View Comment):
    As I learned more about the exploits of the Mongols, I liked the Mongols less and less. I wonder what Coleridge was thinking (or not) to immortalize these marauders, rapists, and pillagers who left nothing of any value behind. Probably a function of they never got as far as England. (Fortunate for England.) They had to contend with Vikings, but that’s an entirely different story.

    I found the opening chapters of Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game remarkably clarifying, about both the Mongols and the Russians. It’s a terrific read all the way through. (Full disclosure: I did buy a wall map of Asia from Amazon, hung it up, and stuck little pins with flags with notes on them all over it, because I had difficulty keeping the place names, old and new, straight and a bit of trouble with some of the geography. By the time I finished, the map looked like something out of Winston Churchill’s war room. But it helped, and actually became part of the fun as time went on.)

    I loved reading the Great Game as well. I have read it twice. I also found it illuminating about the British in a different way. The Russian government and the British government rested on very different bases. The British were all about cash flow while the Russians were all about hard, physical assets. That’s overstated, but the Russians had vast potential, but no cash flow to develop what they already had. At the same time, they didn’t want foreign capital to develop it because the government wanted to be totally in control. Only late in their development did they allow foreign (mainly French) capital. And we all know how it turned out for the foreign capital.

    Britain was far too paranoid about India and losing it to the Russians while at the same time being afraid of the Indians themselves. That should have told them something about what they were doing wrong. But it didn’t. 

    • #31
  2. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Another great Stars and Stripes Forever:

     

    • #32
  3. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    I had this poem memorized when I was about 8 years old. It was in a book of poetry on my parents’ bookshelves. Well there were only three channels on the TV, and cartoons were just for an hour on Saturday morning. What was I supposed to do? The things kids did before Netflix.

    You were at Dorothy L. Sayers’ Poll-Parrot stage:

    Looking back upon myself (since I am the child I know best and the only child I can pretend to know from inside) I recognize three states of development. These, in a rough-and- ready fashion, I will call the Poll-Parrot, the Pert, and the Poetic–the latter coinciding, approximately, with the onset of puberty. The Poll-Parrot stage is the one in which learning by heart is easy and, on the whole, pleasurable; whereas reasoning is difficult and, on the whole, little relished. At this age, one readily memorizes the shapes and appearances of things; one likes to recite the number-plates of cars; one rejoices in the chanting of rhymes and the rumble and thunder of unintelligible polysyllables; one enjoys the mere accumulation of things. 

    With reference to the classical Trivium, this is the stage of Grammar plays out in different subjects: 

    The grammar of History should consist, I think, of dates, events, anecdotes, and personalities. A set of dates to which one can peg all later historical knowledge is of enormous help later on in establishing the perspective of history. . . 

    Science, in the Poll-Parrot period, arranges itself naturally and easily around collections–the identifying and naming of specimens and, in general, the kind of thing that used to be called “natural philosophy.” To know the name and properties of things is, at this age, a satisfaction in itself. . .

    Kids will memorize stuff, so it’s important to make sure that as much of the stuff as possible is good stuff.

    So far (except, of course, for the Latin), our curriculum contains nothing that departs very far from common practice. The difference will be felt rather in the attitude of the teachers, who must look upon all these activities less as “subjects” in themselves than as a gathering-together of material for use in the next part of the Trivium. What that material is, is only of secondary importance; but it is as well that anything and everything which can be usefully committed to memory should be memorized at this period, whether it is immediately intelligible or not.

    The modern tendency is to try and force rational explanations on a child’s mind at too early an age. Intelligent questions, spontaneously asked, should, of course, receive an immediate and rational answer; but it is a great mistake to suppose that a child cannot readily enjoy and remember things that are beyond his power to analyze–particularly if those things have a strong imaginative appeal. . .

    • #33
  4. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Those opening lines are pretty, but they don’t make a bit of sense. Here’s the way they should read:

    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
    Decree that his carpenters and stonemasons
    Should build a stately pleasure dome,
    Where Alph the sacred river. . . .

    Or:

    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan decree
    That a stately pleasure dome
    Should be built,
    Where Alpha the Sacred River ran. . . . . .

    Dude. It was an opium dream. You want it to make sense?

    • #34
  5. KentForrester Coolidge
    KentForrester
    @KentForrester

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Those opening lines are pretty, but they don’t make a bit of sense. Here’s the way they should read:

    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
    Decree that his carpenters and stonemasons
    Should build a stately pleasure dome,
    Where Alph the sacred river. . . .

    Or:

    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan decree
    That a stately pleasure dome
    Should be built,
    Where Alpha the Sacred River ran. . . . . .

    Dude. It was an opium dream. You want it to make sense?

    That origin story in the Preface is the most romantic origin of a poem that one could imagine.  “The poem came to me in a opium-influenced dream. Yeah, that’s the ticket!”).  I just don’t trust Coleridge.  The story is just too good to be true.  Besides, he surely edited the poem before it was finally published, months (years?) later. 

    • #35
  6. colleenb Member
    colleenb
    @colleenb

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    I had this poem memorized when I was about 8 years old. It was in a book of poetry on my parents’ bookshelves. Well there were only three channels on the TV, and cartoons were just for an hour on Saturday morning. What was I supposed to do? The things kids did before Netflix.

    Can you still recite it? They say if you memorize something before a certain age you will always remember it.

    • #36
  7. colleenb Member
    colleenb
    @colleenb

    She (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Don’t discount dreams. Here is a snippet that I had from a dream:

    He came back then to his knighthood as he put aside the priestly robes and bought himself a pouder gray and a raven black steed. But he bought no white, for every man knows that he who is born in the white shall die in the white.

    I have no idea what it means, but it was good enough to write down and incorporate into a story.

    Wow. Why do I not have dreams like this? Best I ever managed was when I dreamed that a shelf full of cereal boxes had grown arms and legs and were running up and down in my driveway performing Hamlet. (There’s a YouTube clip somewhere which is frighteningly similar, but which postdates my dream by several years.)

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    I had this poem memorized when I was about 8 years old. It was in a book of poetry on my parents’ bookshelves. Well there were only three channels on the TV, and cartoons were just for an hour on Saturday morning. What was I supposed to do? The things kids did before Netflix.

    I think the fact that kids don’t memorize poetry anymore is really sad. It’s excellent discipline for the mind, expands the vocabulary and improves one’s language skills. None of which objectives is realized as kids soak up and regurgitate back what they hear on TV, on the Internet, and in the movies these days, which have pretty much the opposite effects in all areas. (I suppose you could claim that their vocabularies “expand” in one way. But their word choices seem to be more and more limited, until “those words” occupy far too great a portion of their spoken output, with not very much else coming between.

    I once memorized the entire Walrus and the Carpenter. Can still get through most of it without having to look it up.

    Agree completely. It is a discipline just like cursive writing.

    • #37
  8. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Hang On (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    It is a lovely poem, @she. Much better than reading about revolting peasants! Thanks.

    An excellent and highly readable history of the Peasant Revolt of 1381 is Dan Jones’ Summer of Blood.

    I don’t know that one, but I will check it out. And hope that “Dan Jones” is a better writer than “Dan Brown,” who I had him momentarily confused with. Thanks!

    Hang On (View Comment):
    As I learned more about the exploits of the Mongols, I liked the Mongols less and less. I wonder what Coleridge was thinking (or not) to immortalize these marauders, rapists, and pillagers who left nothing of any value behind. Probably a function of they never got as far as England. (Fortunate for England.) They had to contend with Vikings, but that’s an entirely different story.

    I found the opening chapters of Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game remarkably clarifying, about both the Mongols and the Russians. It’s a terrific read all the way through. (Full disclosure: I did buy a wall map of Asia from Amazon, hung it up, and stuck little pins with flags with notes on them all over it, because I had difficulty keeping the place names, old and new, straight and a bit of trouble with some of the geography. By the time I finished, the map looked like something out of Winston Churchill’s war room. But it helped, and actually became part of the fun as time went on.)

    I loved reading the Great Game as well. I have read it twice. I also found it illuminating about the British in a different way. The Russian government and the British government rested on very different bases. The British were all about cash flow while the Russians were all about hard, physical assets. That’s overstated, but the Russians had vast potential, but no cash flow to develop what they already had. At the same time, they didn’t want foreign capital to develop it because the government wanted to be totally in control. Only late in their development did they allow foreign (mainly French) capital. And we all know how it turned out for the foreign capital.

    Britain was far too paranoid about India and losing it to the Russians while at the same time being afraid of the Indians themselves. That should have told them something about what they were doing wrong. But it didn’t.

    I read it too. Sometimes “paranoia” just means being minimally obervant.

    • #38
  9. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    The Great Game had a map in it showing the various expansions of the Russian Empire. It was large chunks of territory. Not particularly valuable territory. Were they just going to pull up short at the Himalayas and stop? With all the goodies on the other side, plus warm-water ports?

    • #39
  10. She Member
    She
    @She

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    Another great Stars and Stripes Forever:

    Great fun!  Thanks.

    • #40
  11. She Member
    She
    @She

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Those opening lines are pretty, but they don’t make a bit of sense. Here’s the way they should read:

    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
    Decree that his carpenters and stonemasons
    Should build a stately pleasure dome,
    Where Alph the sacred river. . . .

    Or:

    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan decree
    That a stately pleasure dome
    Should be built,
    Where Alpha the Sacred River ran. . . . . .

    Dude. It was an opium dream. You want it to make sense?

    That origin story in the Preface is the most romantic origin of a poem that one could imagine. “The poem came to me in a opium-influenced dream. Yeah, that’s the ticket!”). I just don’t trust Coleridge. The story is just too good to be true. Besides, he surely edited the poem before it was finally published, months (years?) later.

    Yes, I think it was years later.  Byron or Shelley, I think (one of the Romantic also-rans, anyway–(ducks)) encouraged him to publish it.

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):
    Kids will memorize stuff, so it’s important to make sure that as much of the stuff as possible is good stuff.

    Agree 1000%

    • #41
  12. She Member
    She
    @She

    Percival (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    It is a lovely poem, @she. Much better than reading about revolting peasants! Thanks.

    An excellent and highly readable history of the Peasant Revolt of 1381 is Dan Jones’ Summer of Blood.

    I don’t know that one, but I will check it out. And hope that “Dan Jones” is a better writer than “Dan Brown,” who I had him momentarily confused with. Thanks!

    Hang On (View Comment):
    As I learned more about the exploits of the Mongols, I liked the Mongols less and less. I wonder what Coleridge was thinking (or not) to immortalize these marauders, rapists, and pillagers who left nothing of any value behind. Probably a function of they never got as far as England. (Fortunate for England.) They had to contend with Vikings, but that’s an entirely different story.

    I found the opening chapters of Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game remarkably clarifying, about both the Mongols and the Russians. It’s a terrific read all the way through. (Full disclosure: I did buy a wall map of Asia from Amazon, hung it up, and stuck little pins with flags with notes on them all over it, because I had difficulty keeping the place names, old and new, straight and a bit of trouble with some of the geography. By the time I finished, the map looked like something out of Winston Churchill’s war room. But it helped, and actually became part of the fun as time went on.)

    I loved reading the Great Game as well. I have read it twice. I also found it illuminating about the British in a different way. The Russian government and the British government rested on very different bases. The British were all about cash flow while the Russians were all about hard, physical assets. That’s overstated, but the Russians had vast potential, but no cash flow to develop what they already had. At the same time, they didn’t want foreign capital to develop it because the government wanted to be totally in control. Only late in their development did they allow foreign (mainly French) capital. And we all know how it turned out for the foreign capital.

    Britain was far too paranoid about India and losing it to the Russians while at the same time being afraid of the Indians themselves. That should have told them something about what they were doing wrong. But it didn’t.

    I read it too. Sometimes “paranoia” just means being minimally obervant.

    I was introduced to it by a friend, about three years ago.  I wish I could have given my copy to my dad and we could have talked about it.  I think he’d have loved it.

    • #42
  13. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    Percival (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    It is a lovely poem, @she. Much better than reading about revolting peasants! Thanks.

    An excellent and highly readable history of the Peasant Revolt of 1381 is Dan Jones’ Summer of Blood.

    I don’t know that one, but I will check it out. And hope that “Dan Jones” is a better writer than “Dan Brown,” who I had him momentarily confused with. Thanks!

    Hang On (View Comment):
    As I learned more about the exploits of the Mongols, I liked the Mongols less and less. I wonder what Coleridge was thinking (or not) to immortalize these marauders, rapists, and pillagers who left nothing of any value behind. Probably a function of they never got as far as England. (Fortunate for England.) They had to contend with Vikings, but that’s an entirely different story.

    I found the opening chapters of Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game remarkably clarifying, about both the Mongols and the Russians. It’s a terrific read all the way through. (Full disclosure: I did buy a wall map of Asia from Amazon, hung it up, and stuck little pins with flags with notes on them all over it, because I had difficulty keeping the place names, old and new, straight and a bit of trouble with some of the geography. By the time I finished, the map looked like something out of Winston Churchill’s war room. But it helped, and actually became part of the fun as time went on.)

    I loved reading the Great Game as well. I have read it twice. I also found it illuminating about the British in a different way. The Russian government and the British government rested on very different bases. The British were all about cash flow while the Russians were all about hard, physical assets. That’s overstated, but the Russians had vast potential, but no cash flow to develop what they already had. At the same time, they didn’t want foreign capital to develop it because the government wanted to be totally in control. Only late in their development did they allow foreign (mainly French) capital. And we all know how it turned out for the foreign capital.

    Britain was far too paranoid about India and losing it to the Russians while at the same time being afraid of the Indians themselves. That should have told them something about what they were doing wrong. But it didn’t.

    I read it too. Sometimes “paranoia” just means being minimally obervant.

    Their observation should have included that what we call Afghanistan stood in the way of the Russian expansion south just as the same people stood in the way of British expansion north. The British had no luck with the Peshwars, Beluchis, etc. So why did they think the Russians would have any more luck? It’s what hems the Chinese in today with Belt and Road.

    • #43
  14. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    colleenb (View Comment):

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    I had this poem memorized when I was about 8 years old. It was in a book of poetry on my parents’ bookshelves. Well there were only three channels on the TV, and cartoons were just for an hour on Saturday morning. What was I supposed to do? The things kids did before Netflix.

    Can you still recite it? They say if you memorize something before a certain age you will always remember it.

    I can’t do this one offhand at the moment, but I can still recite about 100 poems we memorized in 7th grade. He said we could get extra credit for it, so I went all in. If I go on the treadmill and recite them all my my head, it takes 35 or 40 minutes and then I’m done.

    The things we memorize at those young ages stay with us. Educators of the past had the right idea, but then the lefty reformers came along and decided that, “Memorization is boring and stifles creativity!”  And look where we are now.

    • #44
  15. Scott R Member
    Scott R
    @ScottR

    Linus Poindexter (View Comment):

    Let’s not forget this fine re-telling of the legend: https://youtu.be/SEuOoMprDqg .

    Yes, Linus! Embarrassed to say I never knew the allusion until this post. And I was an English major. Ah well, we all have our blind spots.

    Best version is in Exit Stage Left, with an amazing seamless transition to “Xanadu” from “The Trees”.

    • #45
  16. ShaunaHunt Inactive
    ShaunaHunt
    @ShaunaHunt

    I grew up in the 70s and 80s and I had to memorize poems. I have never regretted it.

    When my migraine went chronic, I started losing a lot of memory. It stinks when I’m trying to communicate with the kids.

    • #46
  17. She Member
    She
    @She

    ShaunaHunt (View Comment):

    I grew up in the 70s and 80s and I had to memorize poems. I have never regretted it.

    When my migraine went chronic, I started losing a lot of memory. It stinks when I’m trying to communicate with the kids.

    Sorry to hear that.  It totally stinks.  Are the effects permanent?

    • #47
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