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“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Enrichment: Science
Coleridge used dreams as the inspiration for both “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner” and “Kubla Khan.” He claimed to have dreamt “Kubla Khan” word for
word, after falling asleep while reading a passage about the real Kubla Khan, a
figure in Chinese history. He modeled “TheRime of the Ancient Mariner” on a
dream of his friend Mr. Cruikshank. In both poems, Coleridge writes of fantastic
events that have a dreamlike (or nightmarish) quality.
People have been fascinated by dreams for centuries and have developed
many theories over the years about their cause and significance. Today,
psychologists and biologists know that dreams occur during a stage of sleep
called REM, or rapid eye movement, and some researchers believe that dreams
are caused by random chemical stimuli in the brain. The brain tries to make
sense of the activity, and the result is a dream. The meaning of dreams is a topic
of controversy. Although dreams bear some relation to events and emotions that
occur in waking hours, the nature of that relationship remains unclear.
A. DIRECTIONS: Answer the following questions about the dreamlike elements in
“The Rime ofthe Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan.”
1. Review the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and list at least five examples of
dreamlike events or characters.
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B. DIRECTIONS: Find out more about dreams, using an encyclopedia, almanac, or
the Internet.
Choose one aspect of the scientific study of dreams, such as how dream activity
is recorded or how many times the average person dreams during eight hours of
sleep. Compile the information in a short written report.
Grade 12, Unit 4
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ANSWERS
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Enrichment: Science
Suggested Responses
A. 1. Students might list fantastic, nightmarish elements such as the skeleton ship,
the waking dead sailors, and the haunting, lingering quality of the dead
albatross from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and the dancing rocks and the
sunny ice caves from “Kubla Khan.”
2. Students should refer to the “damsel with a dulcimer” seen by the narrator “in
a vision.” As the narrator remembers this dream, he feels that if he could only
recall her song, he would be delighted and inspired by it. Students might then
note that there seems to be a parallel between the song the narrator heard in
his dream and the text of “Kubla Khan,” which Coleridge heard in his own
dream.
Grade 12, Unit 4
2