Shangdu
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Shangdu, known in the West as Xanadu, was the summer capital of the Yuan dynasty. Located in what is now Zhenglan Banner, Inner Mongolia, it was designed by Chinese architect Liu Bingzhong and served
Ruins of Shangdu
Kubla Khan
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Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a Dream is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." Ac
Shangdu
…pillars gilded and varnished ... Inspired by Purchas's account, Coleridge dreamt of Xanadu while under the influence of opium and began writing the poem Kubla Khan (1797): 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…
Title page of Kubla Khan (1816)
Coleridge, 1814
The Crewe manuscript, handwritten by Coleridge himself some time before the poem was published in 1816
Title page of Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep (1816)