This book endorses Coleridge's statement: "nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so". It conceives of "Kubla Khan" as of a hypnotic poem, in which the "obtrusive rhythms" produce a hypnotic, emotionally heightened response, giving false security to the "Platonic Censor", so that our imagination is left free to explore higher levels of uncertainty. Critics intolerant of uncertainty tend to account for the poem's effect by extraneous background information. The book consists of three parts employing different research methods. Part One is speculative, and discusses three aspects of a complex aesthetic event: the verbal structure of "Kubla Khan", validity in interpretation, and the influence of the critic's decision style on his critical decisions. The other two parts are empirical. Part Two explores reader response to gestalt qualities of rhyme patterns and hypnotic poems in perspective of decision style and professional training. Part Three submits four recordings of the poem by leading British actors to instrumental investigation.

Table of contents

Kubla Khan: Or a Vision in a Dream, a Fragment by Samuel Taylor Coleridge ix Introduction 1 Part One: Criticism and Meta-Criticism 1. "Kubla Khan" and the Implied Critic’s Decision Style 11 2. The Texture and Structure of "Kubla Khan" 79 Part Two: The Reader and Real Readers 3. Gestalt Qualities in Poetry and the Reader’s Absorption Style 115 Part Three: Vox Humana 4. Performing "Kubla Khan" — An Instrumental Study of Four Readings 143 Afterword Integration and Wider Perspectives 205 References 235 Index 245