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Articulate Vision:
A Structuralist Reading of ”Kubla Khan”
William L. Benzon
Abstract: Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" has a highly coherent structure in which the
two parts of the poem exhibit the same ternary structure. Each can be divided
into three sections, the middle of those three in turn has three subsections and
again, the middle of the middle has three subsections. The first section ends
with "A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice," a line which is then repeated
in the middle of the second section. This structure encompasses both semantics
and sound, uniting both in a single coherent mental act.
C O N T E N T S
“Kubla Khan”: Part 1................................................................................... 4
“Kubla Khan”: Part 2................................................................................. 13
Sound Structure ........................................................................................ 18
The Relation Between Parts 1 and 2 ............................................................ 21
Some Concluding Questions....................................................................... 23
Notes ........................................................................................................ 24
Originally published in Language and Style, Vol. 8: 3-29, 1985. Reprinted with
permission of the publlisher.

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Articulate Vision:
A Structuralist Reading of ”Kubla Khan”
William L. Benzon
One Structuralist impulse has been to go beyond interpretation, to, indeed, found a science of
literature, or semiotics, or anthropology, or whatever.1
That has been my impulse. But I do not
claim that the following analysis of Coleridge’s ”Kubla Khan”is scientifically valid. The analysis
is neither deduced from some scientific theory of the human mind nor does it result in such a
theory. It leads only to questions. And that is one of my purposes, to question.
My other purpose is to present a paradigmatic example. For, despite some pieces by
Jakobson, Ruwet, and Riffaterre, structuralism has had more to say about narrative than about
poetry.2
Since, as Thomas Kuhn has pointed out, science proceeds more through a consideration
of exemplary instances than by the direct development of deductive theory, it follows that
exemplary analyses of poems are more important to the development of a structuralist theory of
poetry than abstract theorizing.3
The examples provide the ground on which the theory is built.
And ”Kubla Khan”provides a rich analytic opportunity. In the first place one can, by such
simple means as counting periods and commas and noting whether imagery is visual or oral,
discern patterns in the text that seem beneath critical ingenuity. Then one faces a Pascalian
wager: Do we construe those patterns as clues to the structures and processes that sustain the
poem or are they to be dismissed as mere epiphenomena? A bet on the latter alternative risks
nothing and wins nothing. So one can only bet that the patterns are important clues to
underlying mechanisms. But delivering on that bet is considerably more difficult than
discerning the patterns that prompted it.
This brings me to my second point. My hypothesis is that those patterns are necessary to
the reflexive dynamics of the poem. “Kubla Khan”is a poem about poetry, not merely because
Kubla can be taken as a figure for the poet and his pleasure-dome a figure for the poem, but
because the poetic processes that generate the poem can operate on themselves in so doing. The
poem is thus recursive.4
Jakobson has defined the poetic function as the projection of the principle of equivalence
from the plane of selection to the plane of combination.5
Those formal patterns that make
”Kubla Khan”so open to structuralist analysis point to context-dependent semantic
equivalences that allow the poetic process to operate on itself. The result is a poem whose
meaning can be resolved only by resolving the meanings of terms whose meanings are
equivalent to the poetic process itself.
The poem is 54 lines long and is divided into two parts.6
The most obvious linguistic
difference between the two parts is in the use of pronouns (see Table 1). Part 1 (lines 1-36) has
only four pronouns while Part 2 (lines 37-54) has sixteen. This suggests that the cognitive
structures sustaining subjectivity, which are linguistically realized through personal pronouns,
are strongly operative in Part 2, but not in Part 1. Thus, one analytic task is to characterize the

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cognitive domains through which each part of the poem moves. The other analytic task is to
characterize that movement.
PRONOUN LINE
Part 1 her
whose
it
it
16
20
24
34
part 2 I
it
her, she
I, me
her
me
I
who, them
his, his
him
your,
he
38
39
40
42
43
44
46
48
50
51
52
53
Table 1: Pronouns in ”Kubla Khan”
My overall argument is that “Kubla Khan”manifests a dialectical movement—thesis,
antithesis, synthesis—which is realized in each of two cognitive domains linked together by the
construction of ”A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!”In Part 1 the opposition between
form and life is mediated by imagination and is realized in a domain lacking an explicit authorial
presence and concocted primarily of physically observables: gardens, hills, trees, the odor of
cedar, a river, a fountain, various sounds. In Part 2 nostalgia mediates between self-possession and
ecstasy. This cognitive domain can sustain an explicit authorial presence and is created from
mental and communicative acts: the memory of a vision, a conjecture about the grounds of
creation, the creation of the dome in air, a magical incantation—"Beware! Beware!"
My analytic method includes creating an immediate constituent analysis of the two parts of
the poem using the simplest criterion available. For Part 1 punctuation is almost completely
sufficient to the task; Part 2 is trickier. It turns out that each part of the poem can be divided into
three parts; the middle sections of these in turn divide into three; and again, the middle divides
into three. All other subdivisions are binary.
The middlemost section of Part 1 (20-22) describes the eruption of the fountain:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail.
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher s flail.
The middlemost section of Part 2 is line 47: “That sunny dome! those caves of ice!” This is
practically a word-for-word repetition of the final line of Part 1. Within the structuralist
framework I am elaborating, the relationship between the two parts of “Kubla Khan” can be
stated thus: the entity designated by the phrase “a sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice”
plays the same role in the combinatorial structure of Part 2 that the fountain plays in Part 1.

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“Kubla Khan”: Part 1
Part 1 is divided into three sections: Section 1.1 covers lines 1-11; Section 1.2: 12-30; Section
1.3: 31-36 (see Table 2). The primary textual index of the division between 1.1 and 1.2 is the
space between lines I I and 12. Such a space also exists between lines 30 and 31 in the
manuscript, but is usually omitted when the poem is printed.7
1.1 1.11 1.111 In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
1
2
1.112 Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
3
4
5
1.12 1.131 So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
6
7
1.132 1.1221 And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
8
9
1.1222 And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
10
11
1.2 1.21 1.211 But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
12
13
1.212 A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
14
15
16
1.22 1.221 And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
17
18
19
1.222 Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Of chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
20
21
22
1.223 And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
23
24
1.23 1.231 1.2311 Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
25
26
1.2312 Then reached the taverns endless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
27
28
1.232 And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
29
30
1.3 1.31 1.311 The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
31
32
1.312 Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
33
34
1.32 1.321 It was a miracle of rare device, 35
1.322 A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 36
Table 2: Constituent Structure, Part 1

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Section 1.1 is dominated by Kubla and his decree. The emphasis is on order: precisely
“twice five miles,” the gardens are located there (“And there were gardens”), while the forests
are here (“And here were forests ancient”). This order is primarily a spatial order and the
imagery is primarily visual, creating an illusion of an objective perception of the geography of
Xanadu, of its delineation in space. And there is a sense of light; the gardens are bright and the
forests enfold “sunny spots of greenery.” Coleridge seems to be setting up the traditional
association between the word (Kubla’s decree) and light and order.
In contrast, Section 1.2 is dominated by aural and kinesthetic imagery: the woman wailing,
”ceaseless turmoil seething,” “And sank in tumult.” Order seems violated where possible: a
place so savage that it has elements of both the holy and the demonic, ceaseless turmoil, tumult,
vaulting fragments, and ”Five miles meandering”—as though the repetition of ”five miles”in
conjunction with”meandering”is intended to foreground the order/disorder contrast with 1.1
by contrasting the specificity of twice with the vagueness of meandering. Finally, there is a
pronounced shift in tone, with line 12 opening with an exclamation (“But oh !”) and the entire
section having a feel of excitement and tension that contrasts with the controlled exposition of
1.1.
Here the external world of Xanadu is likened to subjective states (the chasm is like a
woman possessed by desire for her lover) and bodily processes (the eruption of the fountain is
like breathing). The earth is, by implication, like the human body. In the words of Kenneth
Burke:
[T]his indeterminate mixture of motion and action is in effect a poetized
psychology, detailing not what the reader is to see but what mental states he is thus
empathically and sympathetically imitating as he reads.8
The sacred fountain dominates Section 1.2. Kubla is no longer the lord of language, creating
by decree, but is subject to ”Ancestral voices prophesying war! ”Water and breath have taken
the place light holds in 1.1; the emphasis is on energy, force, life, and not on reason, light, and
order. This contrast between 1.1 and 1.2 is pointed up in the contrast between “sunless sea” and
”lifeless ocean.” Presumably these phrases designate the same object; but the concepts are
different. This underground body of water is the terminus of the dominant forces in Part 1. As
light and order dominate 1.1 this termination is stated in those terms; the sun does not shine on
the subterranean sea. But 1.2 is dominated by life energy (imaged by sexual desire, water, the
breath); and so the terminal sea is designated in those terms, it is lifeless. Coleridge is thus
playing the same trick here that he did with ”five miles.” The qualifying term is chosen to suit
the poetic context, light and order or life energy and disorder.
The most striking feature of the semantics of Section 1.3 is that it is constructed from
insubstantials, shadows. Nowhere is the earth present, only ”The shadow of the dome of
pleasure,”and ”the mingled measure/ From the fountain and the caves.” But when these
insubstantials are followed to their sources one finds Kubla’s dome and the river stretching
between fountain and caves. With its reference to the reflection (shadow) of Kubla’s dome
floating on the river’s surface, the semantic space of 1.3 partakes of the contrasting spaces
traversed in 1.1 and 1.2. Is there a synthesis afoot?
In his discussion of meter in Chapter XVIII of the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge speaks of
spontaneous impulse and voluntary purpose and of how poetry must bring about “a union; an
interpenetration of passion and of will.” In the ”Principles of Genial Criticism,” the contraries
that must be unified are called “FREE LIFE” and “confining FORM.” Surely 1.1 is the province
of voluntary purpose, Kubla creates by decree and confining form, the walls circling the fertile

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ground. There is a passage in The Statesman’s Manual that makes the connection between reason
and confinement, encirclement, quite explicit. Coleridge is talking of the imagination:
that reconciling and mediatory power, which incorporating the Reason in Images
of the Sense, and organizing (as it were) the flux of the Senses by the permanence
and self-circling energies of the Reason, gives birth to a system of symbols . . . of
which they are the conductors.9
On the other hand Section 1.2 is surely the realm of the free life, the impulsive fountain and the
sacred river that meanders with a mazy motion. This being so, 1.3 is then the synthesis of these
contraries. But it is a highly mediated synthesis, done through insubstantials.
Enough; any further discussion of the resolution of contraries is best offered in the context
of a more refined analysis of the structure of Part 1.
Further analysis of the constituent structure of Part 1 proceeds by a scheme in which
periods dominate colons, colons dominate semicolons, and semicolons dominate commas, with
successive commas indicating coordination or serving some other purpose. I assume that
punctuation serves to indicate pauses in speaking a line—a view Coleridge himself held.10
And
psycholinguistic research has shown that pauses mark linguistic processing boundaries.11
Sections 1.1 and 1.3 consist of two sentences; 1.2 has three sentences. The full analysis is given in
Table 2.
Two minor notes: Section 1.21 is punctuated only with exclamation points; hence the
punctuation scheme indicated in the previous paragraph cannot be applied here. Clearly the
exclamation points early in lines 12 and 14 mark exclamations and not full stops. The division of
1.21 into two subsections should be obvious enough (note that each subsection begins with an
exclamation). The subdivision of 1.231 into two couplets, though not clearly indicated by the
punctuation (the comma at the end of line 27 could justify a division at that point in addition to
the indicated division at the end of 26), is consistent with the sense of the two couplets: 1.2311
covers one phase of the river’s course and 1.2312 covers another.
The entire structure is represented graphically in Figure 1. The most striking aspect of this
structure is its symmetry. And the most striking aspect of the symmetry is the interplay
between ternary and binary branches. This is the textual patterning I had in mind at the
beginning of this essay. Once the analysis extends to Part 2, it is possible to analyze the
relationship between Parts 1 and 2 by asserting combinatorial equivalence between pieces of
text having equivalent positions in the immediate constituent tree. However, that analysis must
wait.
Let us return to Coleridge’s love of contraries. For simplicity, call one principle form and the
other life. Clearly Section 1.1 is the realm of form while life rules 1.2. Each has equal claim to 1.3.
Kubla is the agent of form, while the fountain is the agent of life. Each agent creates
something, Kubla—the pleasure-dome, the fountain—Alph the sacred river. Just as the fountain
is not present in 1.1, so Kubla, as agent, is not present in 1.2. Neither agent is present in 1.3.
That 1.1 is dominated by form does not preclude participation of life in 1.1, otherwise Alph
could not be mentioned. What is precluded is the agentive participation of life in 1.1. The
following elements in 1.1 can be assigned to life: fertile ground (made so by Alph’s waters),
sinuous rills (again, Alph’s waters), perhaps the incense-bearing trees, and perhaps the ancient
forests (both depend on water for growth). But all are encompassed by Kubla’s decree. He has
created a garden, a space in which the forces of nature are ordered by the conventions of culture.
The elements of life are placed in configurations according to principles of form. The walls
and towers enclose a certain fairly large piece of land. Within that enclosed space we have hills

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and ancient forests, which in turn enclose the sunny spots of greenery, which are, I suppose, the
gardens evoked in 1.1221. Thus, we have walls and towers, form, enclosing ancient forests and
hills, life, which enfolds gardens, form and life. Finally, as 1.1 ends with ancient hills, so 1.2 will
end with ancient prophets.
!
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!"#!
!"##
!"#$
!"##!
!"###
!"##$
!"#!!
!"#!#
!"#$!
!"#$#
!"#$!!
!"#$!#
!"!!
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!"!#!
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!"!!!
!"!!#
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Figure 1: Constituent Structure Tree, Part 1
Section 1.2 is dominated by life and is ternary in structure. Section 1.21 concerns the chasm,
1.22 centers on the fountain, and 1.23 follows the river from the fountain to the caves.
Interestingly enough 1.21 is, like 1.11, five lines long, divided into a couplet and a triplet, and
rhyming A B A A B. The first section of Part 2 (“A damsel with . . . singing of Mount Abora”) is
similarly five lines long with the same couplet/triplet structure and a similar rhyme scheme, A
B C C B.
In section 1.1 form was assimilated to visual order. In 1.2 life is assimilated to a series of
natural and human images. The emotive function of language (Jakobson 1960) is foregrounded
in 1.2, while 1.1 foregrounds the conative (Kubla’s decree) and referential functions. In emotive
speech the voice, as breath, comes into its own as the vehicle for the expression of emotion in
sound. Note that talking of emotion, of inner life, is but a form of referential discourse and
makes no immediate claim on the feelings of either addressor or addressee. The expression of
emotion resides in the tone of voice rather than in the referentiality of the words being intoned.

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That which is revealed in 1.1 can be comprehended by reason, the light of the mind; but the
mysteries of 1.2 call upon the inner life to bring meaning to the text. When one exclaims (But
oh!) one is carried away from controlled self-presence; the inner life is brought into immediate
confluence with the external world, unmediated by subservience to willfully projected
intentional acts. One neither chooses nor willfully intends emotions, but emotions inevitably
influence intentions.
The inner life of man is assigned to one semantic space that is initially distinct from the
semantic space for life in nature. Hence the two are analogically connected through similes—“as
holy and enchanted/as e’er beneath,” “As if this earth . . . were breathing,” “like rebounding
hail/Or chaffy grain.”In the image of the dancing rocks the distance between these two
semantic spaces vanishes; the vaulting fragments are poetically tamed by the harvest image,
threshing grain. In line 23 the rocks are dancing; the dance comes from man, the rocks from
nature.
The most developed of these similes is in 1.21. As one term we have the deep chasm (1.211).
(Perhaps ”romantic”functions as a contrast to ”stately”in 1.111, setting up a contrast between
the pleasure-dome and the chasm.) It is athwart, across, the cedarn cover. It is savage rather
than stately. The simile follows immediately:
. . . as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
Note that enchant is derived from cantare, to sing. Yet the only singing present here is the
wailing of the woman, which contrasts with the sweet song of the damsel with a dulcimer
(dulcis, sweet: melos, song) in Part 2
As for the demon lover, there are two possibilities. Perhaps daimon, a being between gods
and men, is meant. Otherwise, demon as denizen of the underworld, or, at least, as madman—
the demonic and the Dionysian. In either case the demon is beyond the human realm, beyond
that which is subject to voluntary human purpose. He is no Platonic lover. The woman’s wail is
undoubtedly sexual.
And why is she wailing beneath a waning moon? Is this a particularly auspicious place
from which to seek the return of her lover? Or perhaps we have an equivalence between the
human order, the woman, whose lover is gone, and the natural order, the moon, which is
moving toward absence? And, the waxing and waning of the moon is a cyclic process, as is
sexual desire, as is menstruation. Whatever is the case, both the resurgence of sexual desire and
the waxing and waning of the moon are beyond the call of human will. Finally, notice the
contrast between the moon, which is seen at night, and the implicit presence of the sun (through
sunny) in 1.1222.
Section 1.22 is divided into three sections, 1.221, 1.222, and 1.223. While 1.21 had two
sections, one (1.211) focusing on the external appearance of the chasm and the other (1.212) on
cyclic inner life in man and natural periodicity, each subsection of 1.22 had both a natural and a
human component. In 1.221 the periodic (momently—moment by moment, in discrete repeated
moments rather than continuously) eruption of the fountain from the earth is likened to (the
periodicity of) breathing. In 1.222, the structural center of Part 1 (is that why it opens with
amid?), the fountain is compared to hail and grain (raised by man); thus the central element has
yet another triple structure, a three-termed simile. Finally, in l .223 the rocks are said to be
dancing.
Notice the way in which the violence of 1.221 becomes poetically transformed into the
orderly motion of dancing rocks. The transformation occurs with the comparison to “chaffy

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grain beneath the thresher’s flail.” While threshing may be violent, grain being beaten in an
irregular rhythm, the act of threshing takes place within the orderly cycle of events relating to
the planting and harvesting of grain—the human ordering of natural life for human ends. Nor
should we miss the connection between the birth of the sacred river that nourishes the fertile
ground and the reaping of the harvest. With the introduction of order and purpose, through a
simile, the stage is set for the rocks to dance, to display a regular motion in time.
About 1.223 there is little more to say. ”At once and ever” I take to be a statement of
periodicity, ”at once” being a single cycle, and ”ever” indicating that all else is a repetition of
that cycle.
Before considering 1.23 a brief summary is in order. Section 1.21 focuses on the chasm,
using a simile to link it to both human desire and the celestial cycles, thus linking external
nature with inner life. With that link established, Coleridge can counterpoint the two in his
development of the fountain’s emergence from the chasm and the sacred river from the
fountain. Certainly it is this equivalence that permits speaking of the earth as breathing. The
fountain has an ejaculatory force that cannot be denied, but I hesitate to think of the fountain as
a sexual symbol. Rather, the inner force of sexual orgasm has been embodied in the forms of
external nature; the life within has been given external form, or, equally so, outward forms have
been used to articulate the life within—one is reminded of Eliot’s notion of the objective
correlative. Human sexuality has been poetically transformed into an occurrence in nature, into
the source of life in the natural world, the sacred river Alph, whose waters fertilize the earth.
With 1.23 the poem returns to familiar territory. In 1.231 the course of the sacred river is
followed to its end in the lifeless ocean. As noted above, five miles is repeated from 1.121, but
with a contrasting qualifier meandering rather than twice. The contrast is further heightened by
with a mazy motion (notice the alliteration). The similarity between 1.112 and the three final lines
of l .231 is remarkable:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 1.112
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 1.231
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean.
The overall combinatorial frame is much the same for both passages; but the paradigmatic
selections are different.
Finally: ”And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far/Ancestral voices prophesying
war!”The voices from the past that proclaim limits to Kubla’s powers are not unlike the ancient
forests that enclose the gardens. That the prophecy is of war is most simply explicated as a
prophecy of continued conflict and turmoil. Kubla is not the only agent operating in Xanadu
and that situation is not going to change. Form must always contend with life.
The most salient aspects of the analysis to this point are summarized in Table 3. In 1.1
Coleridge explored the relationship between man and nature under the aegis of form by using
the image of the garden. In 1.2 he has explored that relationship under the aegis of life and
found periodic impulse. Before going on to see how Coleridge explores the relationship
between those explorations under the sign of imagination, a point must be made. In ”Kubla
Khan” the oppositions nature/man (culture) and form/life are orthogonal to one another rather
than one being a mediated form of the other, as in Levi-Strauss’ early theory of myth.12
The

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nature/man opposition is explored in contexts set by the form/life opposition. We thus have
oppositions operating on oppositions rather than a series of ever decreasing oppositions in one
dimension.
Section 1.1 Section 1.2
Dominant Category: FORM LIFE
: as Agent Kubla Khan the fountain
: acts by decree (will) periodic impulse
: to create dome/garden Alph
Sensory modality: visual aural, kinesthetic
Abstract modality: spatial temporal
Table 3: Summary Analysis of 1 .1 and 1.2
Now we consider the realm of imagination, 1.3. It has two subsections, 1.31 and 1.32, each
of which is in turn divided into two subsections. Section 1.311 (the shadow floating on the
waves) descends from 1.1, while 1.312 (the mingled measure) clearly comes from 1.2. 1.311 and
1.1 are visual and spatial while 1.312 and 1.2 are aural and temporal.
The image developed in 1.311 is equidistant from both life and form. Kubla is at the center
of the realm of form. He creates the dome and its reflection (shadow) appears on the waves. The
fountain centers the realm of life and creates the river, whose surface reflects the dome. That
reflection belongs equally to form and life; the image derives from form and is reflected on the
surface of the sacred river (of life). Figure 2 diagrams these relationships.
Figure 2. Associations Operative in 1.311
The rectangles are analogous to the semantic planes of Ross Quillian’s network model,
which Umberto Eco adopted as his model of semiotic codes.13
It is important to distinguish
between the contents of the planes and the planes themselves. Form, life, and imagination are
labels for the planes, while Kubla, float, river, and so forth are concepts, signs, organized within
the planes. Thus, form is not a concept within the form plane; rather, form is an operator that
organizes a group of concepts into a semantic plane.14
The same is true of imagination and life.

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The labels on the two lower planes should be obvious enough. The label on the upper plane
is derived from Coleridge’s theory of the imagination as a reconciling and mediatory power (see
above). Each concept within a plane is a node; the links between the nodes are associative
relationships. The imagination plane mediates between the form and life planes.
IMAGINATION
LIFE
FORM
hear
measure
turmoil
fountain
tumult
caves
Figure 3. Associations Operative in 1.312
In section 1.312 the tumultuous sounds of 1.2 are ordered in measure in the imagination
plane. If we place the element measure on the form plane we get a diagram like Figure 3. The
approximate sense of this diagram is: (someone) hears measure in the fountain’s turmoil and
the caves’ tumult.
Figure 4. Figures 2 and 3 Combined
By combining Figures 2 and 3 we obtain Figure 4. I have quoted “point”because it is a term
in my analysis of the poem, not a term in the poem itself. Yet Coleridge is clearly defining a
specific point, one from which one can hear the sounds from both the fountain and the caves
and from which one can see the reflection of the dome in the river. 15
This point is at the center
of the semantic universe Coleridge has been exploring in Part 1 of ”Kubla Khan.”

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In 1.3 the poem is working at a level above the agency of either Kubla or the fountain.
Those agencies are now being placed in relation to one another. Kubla is not a poet—one of the
traditional interpretations. He is only one of the faculties—form, reason—employed by the
poetic imagination. The fountain embodies the opposing faculty—life, passion. Together these
faculties inform the imagination, which is at the basis of poetic creation.
Section 1.32 tightens the links between life and form. Section 1.321 (line 35) characterizes
the imagination with respect to the creative forces behind it. That it is a miracle links it to free
life and spontaneous impulse, since miracles occur from a point beyond man’s capacity to
enforce his voluntary purposes on the world. That the imagination is also of rare device brings
it within the scope of voluntary purpose, of confining form, characterizing it as a contrivance of
great subtlety.
In 1.322 the product of imagination is presented as “A sunny pleasure dome with caves of
ice.” The sunny pleasure-dome is linked to form while the caves of ice are linked to life. Ice is a
crystalline form of water the flow of the sacred river fixed in a moment. An entry in the Gutch
Notebook consolidates the connection between ice and the semantics of section 1.2:
In a cave in the mountains of Cashmere an Image of Ice, which makes its
appearance thus— “two days before the new moon there appears a bubble of Ice
which increases in size every day till the 15th day, at which it is an ell or more in
height: then as the moon decreases the Image” does also till it vanishes. 16
This passage associates a cave, ice, and lunar periodicity—all we need to link it with the
semantics of 1.2, the life semantic plane.
Putting this analysis in diagrammatic form yields Figure 5. The parenthesized it derives
from the opening pronoun of line 35. The object in question is not simply the dome, the fruit of
Kubla’s will; it is the synthesis of the dome and the caves, the fruit of miracle and artifice.
Figure 5. Concluding Couplet, Part 1
Thus the overall pattern of Part 1 is: thesis (form), antithesis (life), synthesis (imagination).
The important point is that this dialectic is realized at the level of the semantic planes
themselves, not merely in the relations between concepts within the planes. It is one thing for
Coleridge to explicitly talk of “A light in sound, a sound-like power in light” (“The Eolian
Harp,” line 28). It is quite a different matter to embody that principle in patterns of imagery,
where one section of a poem uses light imagery, the following section uses sound imagery, and

13. Page 13
the third section uses both types of imagery—all without there being any explicit assertion of
union between sound and light. What was, in “The Eolian Harp,” a consciously contemplated
trope appears to be, in ”Kubla Khan,” an unconscious structuring principle. It is this
unconscious structuring that makes ”Kubla Khan” so remarkable, and so deeply a poem about
poetry.
“Kubla Khan”: Part 2
Part 2 starts off with a memory, an account of an event present to the narrator at some
past time. We are now in a semantic space whose explicit content is representations of mental
acts—in contrast to Part 1 where the ”poetized psychology” (Burke) was projected onto external
scenes. The constituent structure of Part 2 is given in Table 4.
2.1 2.11 A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
37
38
2.12 It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
39
40
41
2.2 2.21 2.211 Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
42
43
2.212 To such a deep delight ‘twould win me 44
2.22 2.221 That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
45
46
2.222 That sunny dome! those caves of ice! 47
2.223 And all who heard should seem them there, 48
2.23 2.231 And all should cry, 49a
2.232 Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
49b
50
2.3 2.31 Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
51
52
2.32 For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise
53
54
Table 4. Constituent Structure, Part 2
I have already remarked on the structural similarity between 2.1 and 1.11 and 1.21.
Recalling the etymological significance of dulcimer, we can see that the damsel contrasts with the
woman wailing of 1.21: a discordant wail versus sweet music. And the woman is associated
with a chasm, while the damsel sings of a mountain. Neither female is directly present in the
poem. The woman appears in one in terms of a simile and the damsel is an element in a
memory. The memory is of a vision, a link to form (1.1); and within the vision there is a song, a
link to life (1.2)—have we a soundlike power in light?

14. Page 14
The delineation of section 2.2 is not so easy as 1.2, for the syntactic markers are not so
obvious. Consequently, I have had to rely on several hours of reading the poem aloud to
establish a sense of the boundary between 2.2 and 2.3. The internal structure of 2.2 was also
quite tricky.
If the poem from ”Beware! Beware!” had been enclosed with quotation marks (as is
customary for direct quotation), then I would be inclined to treat that final section of the poem
as one major unit. But, though Coleridge knew the conventions of quotation, he chose not to use
them here; indicating, I suppose, that he wanted to minimize the assertion that ”all would cry”
and the content of that cry. That lines 49 and 50 belong to 2.2 rather than 2.3 is indicated
primarily by the radical shift in tone between 50 and 51. At about line 45 (“That with music loud
and long”), marked by a shift to the left margin, the tone of Part 2 begins to pick up, leading to
the exclamations of lines 47-50, marked by exclamation points. With line 51, Part 2 shifts to a
calmer mood, to a more controlled statement about the poet rather than exclamation at his
creation.
In section 2.3 the poetic voice moves from the emotive function in lines 47-50 to the
conative function (2.31) and the referential function (2.32). These final lines state the reason for
the poet’s power, and the reason he must be feared: he has been to Paradise.
An immediate constituent tree for Part 2 is given in Figure 6. The most striking thing about
this diagram is its resemblance to the tree for Part 1 (Figure 1). We have a central core of ternary
structures flanked by a mantle of binary structures. At the center, line 47 repeats the final line of
Part 1, the line that is emblematic of the process made manifest in Part 1. The tree diagrams for
Parts 1 and 2 represent the overall combinatorial structure of the poem. The final analysis of the
relationship between the two parts depends on comparing fragments of text having equivalent
positions within these trees—but the comparison must wait.
In Part 1 Coleridge manifested the intrasubjective processes giving rise to the poetic
imagination by projecting those processes onto external scenes. Part 2 is about the intersubjective
processes of poetic communication—the relationship between the roles of poet and ordinary
citizen within one person and the relationship between the poet and others. The conditional of
2.2 is the device through which Coleridge makes manifest the logical structure of poetic
communication.
Section 2.211 (“Could I revive . . .”) states the condition on which poetic inspiration rests. It
states what must happen to win someone from self-possessed recollection of a past vision (2.1)
into ecstatic poetic creation—this is how the gap between ordinary citizen and poet is crossed. If
he can bring the damsel’s symphony and song (ordered sound, measure) to life within himself,
then the poet will be in the state of delight necessary for creating poetry. The conditional states
logical dependencies: if this is to happen, then that, on which this depends, must happen first.

15. Page 15
!
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!"!
!"$
!"!#
!"!!
!"!$
!"!!#
!"!!!
!"!!$
!"!##
!"!#!
!"!$#
!"!$!
!"##
!"#!
!"$#
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Figure 6. Constituent Structure Tree, Part 2
As 2.21 moves the narrator from an ordinary state of consciousness to an inspired poetic
state, so 2.22 begins with inspiration (2.221), moves to poetic achievement (2.222), and then
moves toward the poet’s audience (2.223). Sound is primary, the dome would be built ”with
music loud and long.” That the dome is built in air indicates both that the dome is created by
the breath and that it is in the air, out in space, where it is publicly available. Section 2.222 links
up with the fully achieved imaginative act manifested in Part 1—”That sunny dome! those
caves of ice!”—and with 2.223 (“And all who heard should see them there”); we know that
achievement to be in the public realm. Sound is primary; they hear the words and then they see
the images. The interplay of light and sound that was so important to Part 1 is present here as
the explicit content of speech rather than as the unconscious grammar regulating the content of
speech.
This last point is an important one and deserves restatement. Consider Figure 7. In the
previous semantic planes diagrams (Figures 2-5), associations were only between elements
embedded within particular semantic planes. In Figure 7 elements in one plane are associated,
not with elements in other planes, but with entire semantic planes. The form plane is implicitly
visual, as the life plane is implicitly aural (and kinesthetic). The nodes see and hear in the upper
plane are primarily associated with the form and life planes, not with elements in those planes.
If the grammar of the form plane is visual and the grammar of the life plane is aural, then
elements in the upper plane are associated with those grammars, not with the objects ordered
by those grammars.17

16. Page 16
Figure 7. Semantic Planes within Planes
Section 2.23 moves to the actions the audience takes in response to the poet’s creativity.
Having heard, then seen, they are now going to cry out (2.231). and that cry (2.232) begins with
a warning: ”Beware! Beware!” Just as Section 1.2 ended with a warning—the ancestral voices
warning of coming war—so the analogous section in Part 2 ends with a warning. This analogy
is enforced by the sound structure of the poem. There are only two places in the poem where
consecutive lines begin with the same words: lines 28 and 29: and; and lines 48 and 49: and all.
These two places are the loci of warnings. Sound structure is clearly being used to indicate the
functional equivalence of these warnings.
The warning in 2.232 is completed with ”His flashing eyes, his floating hair!” Flashing eyes
picks up the imagery of the dome, light and the organs of vision; while floating hair is in the
territory of the fountain and the river. The connection is through floating, meaning here
“floating in the air, flying in the wind,” but pointing back to the dome’s reflection floating on
the waves. In this context the inspired poet is a threat to the self-possession, the voluntary
purpose, of the citizen—as the fountain posed a similar threat to Kubla in Part 1. We have here
the magnetic gaze of the ancient mariner who, with his “long grey beard and glittering eye,”
captivated the will of the wedding guest.
In section 2.3 members of the poet’s audience try to contain (2.31) and explain (2.32) him.
The containment proceeds through encircling the poet and denying the vision he offers—
suggesting that it is possible to deny what one sees but harder to close one’s ears. Vision is more
subject to the will than hearing.
Beyond this, the denial of the poet’s creation is essential to bringing “Kubla Khan” to a
close. For it begins the process of dispelling the willing suspension of disbelief that brought the
reader to the poem—as though the suspension of disbelief were like a hypnotic induction and
2.31 like the formula the hypnotist utters to bring the subject out of the trance, returning him to
normal self-possession.18
The command to “close your eyes with holy dread” is directed as
much to the readers of “Kubla Khan” as it is toward the fictive hearers of the poem who are part
of the explicit content of Part 2. Both sets of readers are in the same position with respect to a
poem; the fictive readers face a fictive poem, the real readers, a real poem. They are entranced
by it and so must be released from the trance. Coleridge releases his real readers from the trance
by the device of having fictional auditors deny the creation of a fictional poet.

17. Page 17
In the final words of the poem the auditors affirm the poet’s connection with a deeper
reality, with Paradise. This brings the poem to a close. The conception of Paradise operative
here is not the school child’s fantasy of unrelieved trivial happiness, but a more vigorous
conception, akin to Proust’s nostalgic perception that the only true paradise is the paradise
we’ve lost. The conception is essentially paradoxical; when we are there it is not paradise, when
we are not there, it is. The realm of poetic inspiration is a paradise only to those who are not
poets, as the North Star is a useful beacon only to those who don’ t live there; for those who live
there it is the uncharted sea. I am reminded of the famous fragment from Coleridge’s Anima
Poetae that goes:
If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to
him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in
his hand when he awoke—Ay! and what then?
That is the sort of paradise active in ”Kubla Khan,” a Paradise that disappears whenever you try
to apprehend it as a paradise. And so the poem ends with the name of a human condition that
exists only as it is lost, leaving only a name, a sign, behind. The spell is broken, the name is
uttered, and the reader can return to his normal activities.
As Part 1 reveals the relationship of poetry to impulse and will, so Part 2 reveals the
relationship of poetry to language. In saying this I assume a theory of language that starts from
social interaction. In learning to speak the child interiorizes a function initially performed for
him by others.19
He learns to direct his own perceptual and motor activity as others had done:
”see the ball,” ”come here,” and so forth. Language is thus intimately linked to will, the will of
the other which, when interiorized, becomes one’s own will.
It is through language that one can recall (as in 2.1) a past vision without, however,
reviving that vision. Language makes the cognitive form available, but not the emotional life.
Language is the medium of self possession. And so section 2.1 offers its thesis under that aegis.
Ecstasy is the aegis of 2.2. Inspired speech, poetic speech, is impelled by impulse—the
emotive function of language. That is the impulse represented by the damsel’s symphony and
song. If the poet can bring that to life within himself he would be able to recreate a past vision—
in this case, not that of the damsel, but Part 1 of the poem. As poetic speech pulls the poet
beyond himself, so it does with his hearers. Thus 2.2 reveals poetry as ecstatic language in
which both poet and listener have the same intentional relationship toward language; it is
beyond both and possesses both. It is beyond will where the category of self dissolves.
Section 2.3 is articulated from a plane that takes both self-possession and ecstasy seriously.
Since self-possession and ecstasy are mutually exclusive states of mind, their paradoxical
synthesis can proceed only through a sense of loss, of nostalgia. In this context nostalgia is the
value that self possession places on ecstasy. Even as the poet’s auditors maintain their self-
possession by weaving the circle and closing their eyes, they affirm the power and
seductiveness of his vision by the need for those magical acts. They cannot escape the poet’s
power by mere inattention; they must enact a ritual formula—a ritual that may ultimately
derive its power from the same source the poet derives his, the Yang to his Yin. The formula
ends by affirming the presence of the poet to Paradise—a name given to the realm of poetic
creation by those who take it seriously but are not, for the moment, there. The concept of
Paradise thus embodies the double perspective that nostalgia has on self-possession and ecstasy
in the same way that the conclusion of Part 1—”A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!”—
embodies the double perspective imagination has on form and life.

18. Page 18
Sound Structure
The sound patterning of ”Kubla Khan” is quite complex. I wish to consider only the most
obvious patterning: rhyme. Consider Figures 8 and 9, which indicate the rhyme-schemes for
Parts 1 and 2 respectively. The middle column in each figure gives the final words in each line,
with the constituent structure indicated to the left. All near rhymes have been treated as full
rhymes for simplicity, and I have labeled the rhyming syllables without going to the beginning
of the alphabet at the beginning of a new stanza. The point of this analysis is that there is a
scheme to Coleridge’s rhymes in ”Kubla Khan.” And that scheme agrees with the constituent
structure of the poem, as determined primarily by punctuation, except in two places, 1.22 and
2.22—analogous sections of Parts 1 and 2 respectively.
The first step is to isolate the basic units. There are three in ”Kubla Khan”: a rhymed
couplet is a type X unit; an unrhymed couplet is a type Y unit; and a triplet rhymed AAB is a
type Z unit. These basic units are then combined into higher level units primarily according to
rhyme relationships extending across adjacent pairs of basic units. The V unit is a pair of Y units
where the rhymes in the two Y units are identical. A variant of this is the V’ where the rhyming
sounds of the Y subunits are the same but their position is reversed—AB with BA instead of AB
with AB. Admittedly, the decision to treat ABBA as a variant of ABAB is somewhat arbitrary;
the chiasmus may be more significant in its own right, but it does achieve a small economy. The
decision was motivated primarily by a desire to treat all pairs of Y units in the same way and
assumes that it is more important that the subunits be unrhymed couplets having the same final
sounds than that those final sounds occur in the same order in both subunits.
The U unit is composed of a Y unit followed by a Z unit. The B rhymes of the Y and Z units
must be the same; where only this requirement is met, the unit is called a U’ unit. The full U has
both the A and B rhymes matching.
Finally, the W unit is an X unit coupled with a V unit. Where the X is first it is simply a W
unit; where the X unit is last we have a W’ unit. I treat these as variants of a single type out of a
desire for economy; it might well be that they should be treated as two different structures.
However, we are dealing with sound structure, and in the analysis of music an inversion of a
figure is treated as a variant of that figure; there is no reason the same cannot be done with
poetry.
I have left the series of rhymed couplets in the center of Part 1 unanalyzed because there is
no method of analysis, other than treating them as a group, that would not be totally arbitrary.
Much the same applies to lines 46 through 49 in Part 2.

19. Page 19
1 Khan A
2 decree B
3 ran A
4 man A
5 sea B
6 ground C
7 round C
8 rills D
9 tree B
10 hills D
11 greenery B
12 slanted E
13 cover F
14 enchanted E
15 haunted E
16 lover F
17 seething G
18 breathing G
19 forced H
20 burst H
21 hail I
22 flail I
23 ever F
24 river F
25 motion J
26 ran A
27 man A
28 ocean J
29 far K
30 war K
31 pleasure L
32 waves M
33 measure L
34 caves M
35 device N
36 ice N
U
W’
V’
U
W
V
V
W’
X
Y
X
Z
Y
Y
Y
X
Z
Y
X
Y
Y
Y
X
X
X
X
Figure 8. Rhyme Scheme, Part 1
A comparison of the rhyme structure and the tree structure of the poem reveals a most
remarkable correspondence between the two, especially in Part 1. Except for lines 17 through 24
(1.22), there is no violation of the tree structure by the most elementary units of rhyme structure.
No X, Y, or Z unit crosses a division in the tree structure. Thus, with the exception noted, the
most elementary units of the tree structure, which corresponds to the pause structure of the
poem as indicated by punctuation, correspond to elementary units of rhyme structure. Nor is

20. Page 20
there any violation of higher levels of constituent structure by higher levels of rhyme structure.
The three W structures are most interesting. The W unit is justified, not according to
rhymes extending across its parts (which is not so), but simply because it seems to capture a
generalization about how Coleridge brought rhyme and constituent structure into register at
three points in Part 1: 1.12, 1.23, and 1.3. Each of these sections is six lines long, and each breaks
into two units, one two lines long and the other four lines long. In each case the four-line
structure is rhymed as a pair of Y units, while the two-line structure is treated as a rhymed
couplet.
37 dulcimer O
38 saw P
39 maid Q
40 played Q
41 Abora P
42 me B
43 song R
44 me B
45 long R
46 air S
47 ice N
48 there S
49a
49b Beware S
50 hair S
51 thrice N
52 dread T
53 fed T
54 Paradise N
Y
Y
Z
Y
Y
Y
Figure 9. Rhyme Scheme, Part 2
There is less to say about the rhyme structure of Part 2. Sections 2. l and 2.3 are quite
straightforward and need no comment. Section 2.2 is rather indeterminate on the matter of
correspondence between rhyme and semantic structure. Lines 42 through 45 constitute a V unit,
with the second Y subunit straddling a boundary in the semantic structure. As for the other five
lines (46-50), there is not enough rhyme structure there to support any analysis of its
correspondence with semantic structure—which is, I believe, precisely the point.
For in both Parts 1 and 2 there is a section of seven or eight lines where there is no
correspondence between rhyme and syntax. In Part 1 the rhyme structure is so strong at the
point, four rhymed couplets, that it is obviously working contrary to the semantic division. To
my musician’s ear this is like creating tension by deliberately causing the harmonic rhythm of a
piece to deviate from the metric rhythm (that is, changing chords on an unstressed beat or part
of a beat rather than on a stressed beat or part) and then resolving that tension by returning the
harmonic rhythm to the pattern of the metric rhythm. An expectation, that harmonic and metric
rhythms are synchronized, is violated and then restored.20

21. Page 21
In the poem the expectation that semantic and sonic units are synchronized is set up, and
then violated, and then again restored. This happens in both parts of the poem. Is it an accident
that this violation occurs at the point in Part 1 where the fountain, free life and spontaneous
impulse, erupts most forcefully into the poem and in Part 2 where we witness the confusion and
awe of the audience in the face of the poet and his poetry? And both violations are followed by
warnings in the text which are cued by the repetition of initial words in a line (28-29, 48-49).
Thus the general play between order and violation that Coleridge has been variously
exploring in the semantic structure of the poem is realized in the interplay between semantics
and syntax on the one hand and sound on the other. The conflict that is the content of this poem
about poetry is realized in its form as well. Thus the poem that Coleridge, for whatever reason,
thought to be incomplete turns out to have a most exhaustively organic structure.
The Relation Between Parts 1 and 2
The crux of the relationship between the two parts of the poem lies in the dual function of
the sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice. This emblem has the same position in the
combinatorial structure of Part 2 that the fountain has in Part 1. Through the action of the poetic
function, this combinatorial equivalence can be seen as the manifestation of semantic
(selectional) equivalence. The emblem and the fountain have analogous positions in the
matrices of semantic oppositions that form the semantic spaces of Parts 2 and 1 respectively.
But the emblem has another face. It is the emblem of the dialectic worked out in Part 1; it is,
if you will, the conclusion of an inquiry into the relationships between the planes of form, life,
and imagination. As such it has a very different place in the combinatorial structure of Part 1,
where it is in the dialectical synthesis, than it has in the combinatorial structure of Part 2, where
it functions as an element in the antithesis.
The relationship between the two occurrences of the emblem is that of a logical type to a
token.21
The type (in this case, line 36) is the original of which each token (line 47) is the copy.
(Note: The type, the original of the emblem, is itself a copy, an image— the reflection of the
dome on the waves.) The meaning of the token is understood by reference to its type. Given the
various associative paths that converge in the type, it is obvious that that meaning is, in fact,
Part 1 of the poem. The story of Kubla, his dome, the fountain, and Alph is the context in which
the emblem has meaning; its meaning is just that story.
If we consider the semantic space of the whole poem we get Figure 10. First, some remarks
about notation. The link between the semantic spaces of the two parts goes from the
imagination plane to an element in the ecstasy plane (recall Figure 7). Emblem is quoted in the
diagram to indicate it is a term in my analysis of the poem, not a term in the poem itself. Finally,
the emblem node of the imagination plane is the It node of Figure 5.
The effect of linking the planes of Part 1 with elements in a plane of Part 2 is to make the
entire inner workings that ordered the elements of Part 1 into objects that are ordered into
patterns in Part 2. The system has thus, through this recursive process, become an object for
itself. The processes that generate the poem operate upon themselves to do it.
In Piaget’s terms, this is the mechanism of reflective abstraction: higher levels of thought
emerge as reflections over lower levels.22
In Jakobson’s terms, this device is the metalingual
function, the means by which new elements in the code can be defined by sequences of other
elements (see also notes 14 and 17). The meaning of the emblem is the sequence of words telling
the story of Part 1. That story defines a type (line 36), a token of which appears in Part 2.

22. Page 22
ECSTASY
LIFE
FORM
emblem
see hear
IMAGINATION
emblem
SELF POSSESSION
NOSTALGIA
Paradise
Figure 10. The Semantic Planes of”Kubla Khan”
To conclude this analysis, we must return to the sound structure. Consider Table 5. The
first column indicates either synchrony between rhyme structure and semantic/syntactic
structure or violation of that synchrony. The second and third columns indicate the appropriate
lines from Parts 1 and 2. This represents a second-order application of the poetic function and it
is one that extends across that duality of patterning that divides (and connects) sound and
sense.23
Part 1 Part 2
Synchrony 1-16 37-43
Violation 17-24 44-50
Synchrony 25-36 51-54
Table 5. Second-Order Poetic Pattern
The application of the poetic function to sound elements yields a first order poetic pattern,
such as rhyme. The pattern of Table 5 assumes rhymes among the elements it patterns. Hence
that pattern is a second order poetic pattern and the application of the poetic function that
produced it is also of the second order. This second-order application maps the equivalence
between two violations of sound/sense synchrony onto equivalent combinatorial positions (that
is, between occurrences of sound/sense synchrony) in the two parts of”Kubla Khan.”
Since this synchrony and violation pattern is linked to the mechanisms of emotion (see note

23. Page 23
20), we can speculate that the same emotional rhythm is realized in Parts l and 2 of the poem.
The difference between the sections is semantic. But the paths walked through the two semantic
spaces have the same dialectical form. The second-order poetic patterning of the poem suggests
that that dialectic is one of emotion, of desire. But what is the nature of a desire that can realize
itself in two such different realms? Or, to impose a different Gestalt on the perceptual data,
what is the nature of a desire that states a problematic in one realm (Part 1) and works out its
consequences in another (Part 2)?
Some Concluding Questions
Let us return to the beginning of this investigation—the constituent structure of the poem
(Figures 1 and 6). It seems to me that the overriding question is: What is the nature of mind and
language such that one finds pleasure in structuring the other in such patterns?24
In answering
that question we must remember that that constituent structure is just the trace of a dynamic
process, a process of creation and response. To answer that question, we need, in the words of
Stanley Fish, ”a method, a machine if you will, which in its operation makes observable, or at
least accessible, what goes on below the level of self-conscious response.”25
Fish’s subsequent
work makes it obvious that he meant machine only in the most metaphorical sense.
But the problems raised by ”Kubla Khan” demand a more rigorous notion of the needed
machine. The semantic planes model has its origins in computer simulations of human mental
processes. Within this framework the semantic planes represent the deep structure beneath the
text, while the constituent structure trees represent surface structure. A text, a surface structure,
is generated as a path through the associative networks of concepts (nodes) that are organized
in planes. What are the types of paths that generate poetic texts? Since the use of the poetic
function is not limited to poems, that use doesn’t constitute a sufficient criterion for a definition
of poetry. But we have seen that ”Kubla Khan” generates its meaning through the interplay of
the poetic and the metalingual functions—the metalingual function links the emblem token in
line 47 with its defining matrix, Part 1, while the second-order poetic function equates the role
of that token in its context with the role of the fountain in its context. Do we find similar
interplay in other poems? Could that interplay provide a means of defining poetic texts?
Beyond this, since poetry reflects structures of desire, how are emotion and motivation linked
into the semantic deep structures so that states of affective disequilibrium can generate poems
as they move through semantic space toward equilibrium?
These questions are different from those generally asked by literary critics. They are not
interpretive questions. The analytic method illustrated above does not yield a statement of the
form: hence the meaning of text X is proposition Y. Rather it yields a description of the path in
semantic space that generates the object text. There is nothing new in the idea that structuralist
analysis is nonhermeneutic.26
But there is an aspect of this shift from hermeneutics that hasn’t
received sufficient theoretical attention.
The hermeneutic critic is, ultimately, asking: What is the meaning of life? What is man’s
place in the scheme of things? What does this text tell us of that scheme? These are not properly
scientific questions and we should not expect a science of man to answer them. But that science
must answer closely related questions: What is the nature of the human mind such that it
continually inquires into its own nature, into its place in the world? What is the nature of a
poem such that it stills, for the moment, such questioning? A science that fails to address such
questions may indeed be a science, but it will not be profoundly of man.

24. Page 24
Notes
1
I realize the term structuralist conjures up an outmoded list of influential predecessors.
However, that list—Levi-Strauss, Jakobson, Piaget, among others—more accurately indicates
my origins than would the lists suggested by more modern terms—grammatology, semiology,
post-structuralist. There is, however, one influence whose name will not be summoned by
structuralism: Earl Wasserman. I first studied poetry under him and he helped me entertain
some of the perceptions and ideas that have informed this essay. While I suspect he would
ultimately have balked at my structural designs, I know he understood one of the perceptions
from which they flow: poetry and mathematics are profoundly similar. Behind these influences
is another: Richard Macksey. He influenced my choice of influences, insisting only that they be
diverse and of high quality. He is a rare man, one who has devoted his considerable creative
powers and energies to fostering creativity in others—often at the expense of his own work.
2
Roman Jakobson and Lawrence Jones, Shakespeare's Verbal Art in Th' Expence of Spirit (The
Hague: Mouton, 1970), Roman Jakobson and Claude Levi-Strauss, “Charles Baudelaire’s ‘Les
Chats’,” in Michael Lane, ed., Introduction to Structuralism (New York: Basic, 1970), 202-21;
Michael Riffaterre, Semiotics of Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1978); Nicholas
Ruwet, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in Macksey and Donato, eds., The Languages of Criticism and
the Sciences of Man (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press,1970), 296-313.
3
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970);
Margaret Masterman, “The Nature of a Paradigm,” in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave, eds.,
Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970), 59-89.
4
For a readable account of recursion in linguistic models, see John Lyons, Noam Chomsky
(Baltimore: Penguin, 1978); a more abstract treatment can be found in Marvin Minsky,
Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967). On LISP: Clark
Weissman, LISP 1.5 Primer (Belmont, Cal.: Dickenson,1967).
5
Roman Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in Thomas Sebeok, ed., Style in Language
(Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press,1960), 350-77.
6
Any account of “Kubla Khan” must face the question of its alleged incompleteness. My
basic sympathies are with Humphrey House; without that Preface no one would ever have
thought the poem incomplete—see Coleridge: The Clark Lectures 1951-52 (London: Rupert Hart-
Davis, 1953). As for that Preface, Kenneth Burke has argued that the poem so defied Coleridge's
aesthetic theories that he did not know what rationally to make of it—" 'Kubla Khan,' Proto-
Surrealist Poem," in Language as Symbolic Action (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1968), 201-
22.
7
William Empson and David Pirie, Coleridge's Verse (New York: Schocken, 1973), 249.
8
Burke, 208-09.
9
Coleridge, The Statesman's Manual, ed. R.J. White, in Lay Sermons (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1972), 29.
10
Kathleen Coburn, ed., Inquiring Spirit: A Coleridge Reader (Minerva Press, 1968), 106-l0.
11
Ulric Neisser, Cognitive Psychology (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967), 259-67,
Arthur Freund, "Word and Phrase Recognition in Speech Processing," in Dominic Massaro, ed.,
Understanding Language (New York: Academic Press, 1975), 357-90.
12
“The Structural Study of Myth,” in Structural Anthropology (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor
Books, 1967), 202-28.
13
Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1976), 121ff. For reviews of
more recent work in the area, see William Benzon and David Hays, “Computational Linguistics
and the Humanist,” Computers and the Humanities, 10 (1976), 265-74; Robert Young, “Text
Understanding: A Survey,” American Journal of Computational Linguistics (1977), Microfiche 70.
For technically more detailed application of these models to poetry, see William Benzon,

25. Page 25
“Cognitive Networks and Literary Semantics,” MLN, 91 (1976), 95282, “Cognitive Science and
Literary Theory,” Diss. SUNY at Buffalo 1978.
14
This is the process of abstraction as defined by David Hays, “The Meaning of a Term is a
Function of the Theory in Which it Occurs,” SIGLASH Newsletter, 6, No. 4 ( l973), 8-11; Cognitive
Structures (New Haven: HRAF Press, 1980).
15
This is the spatiotemporal point with respect to which deixis is determined, see John
Lyons, Semantics, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977), 677-703.
16
Kathleen Coburn, ed., The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1957) entry 240.
17
See note 14. Also, as abstractions get embedded in abstractions (planes within planes), a
theory of abstractive rank becomes relevant; see Benzon, “Cognitive Science,” 150-219, “Lust in
Action: An Abstraction,” Language and Style, l 4 (Fall 1981), 251-70.
18
For a fuller treatment, see William Benzon, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the
Semiotics of Ontology,” Semiotica, 21 (1977), 267-71.
19
L.S. Vygotskv, Thought and Language (Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, l 962); A.R. Luria,
Cognitive Development (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1976); Gail Zivin, ed., The
Development of Self-Regulation Through Private Speech (New York Wiley-lnterscience, 1979).
20
On expectation and affect, see George Mandler, Mind and Emotion (New York: Wiley,
1975), 153-74.
21
John Lyons, Semantics, Vol . l (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977), 20.
22
Jean Piaget, Biology and Knowledge (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971), The Grasp of
Consciousness (Harvard Univ. Press, 1976).
23
Charles Hockett, “The Origin of Speech,” Scientific American, September 1960.
24
For a good critical review of this general problem of patterning, see R.G. Peterson,
“Critical Calculations: Measure and Symmetry in Literature,” PMLA, 9l (1976), 367-75.
25
Stanley Fish, Self-Consuming Artifacts (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press,1972), 392.
26
For example, see Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca. N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press,
1975), 31.