In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan,” Kubla commands the building of a pleasure-dome.
The opening describes Kubla Khan ordering a pleasure-dome in Xanadu, beside the sacred river Alph. The poem contrasts the dome’s magnificent, ordered pleasure ground with wild natural forces, including a deep chasm and a mighty fountain.
Coleridge published “Kubla Khan” in 1816 with the subtitle “A Vision in a Dream.” The poem became famous for its dreamlike imagery, musical sound, and incomplete appearance. Coleridge said its composition had been interrupted by the arrival of the “person from Porlock,” though the story’s historical reliability is debated.
The pleasure-dome is sometimes incorrectly called a palace or temple. Coleridge’s exact phrase is “stately pleasure-dome,” making it a structure designed for magnificence and delight rather than worship or defense. The poem’s setting draws on descriptions of Shangdu, the summer capital associated with Kublai Khan.