《忽必烈汗》(Kubla Khan/ˌkʊbləˈkɑːn/)是塞繆爾·泰勒·柯勒律治寫的一首詩,1797年完成,1816年出版。根據柯勒律治自己寫的序,這首詩的靈感來自他讀了一部描寫忽必烈時代元上都的作品後,晚上吸食鴉片後做的夢。醒來的他開始複述夢中想到的詩句,直到被「波洛克來客」(Person from Porlock)打斷。這導致他忘掉了後面的內容,這首詩也因此無法按原定的200至300行寫完。他一開始沒有打算出版這首詩,僅留下來給朋友私下閱讀,直到1816年在拜倫勳爵的推動下才正式出版。
根據他自己寫的序言,他當時正在讀塞繆爾·珀切斯的《珀切斯的朝聖》(Purchas his Pilgrimes),其中有一則忽必烈的故事,他讀完後就睡着了。然後,他說他「在深度睡眠中持續了大約三個小時…在這段時間裡,他堅信這首詩不可能少於兩三百行....醒來時他全詩都記得很清楚,便拿起筆、墨水和紙,立即急切地寫下記着的詩」[註 2]。但不幸地是他被打斷了:[12]「此時,他不幸被來自波洛克的一個有事的人叫了出來……在回到房間時,他震驚而沮喪地發現,雖然他對之前的幻覺還保留着一些模糊混沌的回憶,但除了八或十個零散的句子和圖像外,其餘的都已經消失了」[註 3]。「波洛克來客」(Person from Porlock)這個說法由此而來,後世被用來描述被打斷的天才想法。約翰·利文斯頓·洛斯教授這首詩時就告訴他的學生,文學史上最該死的就是這個「來自波洛克的有事的人」[13]。
1816年5月25日,它與《克里斯特貝爾》(Christabel )、《睡眠的痛苦》(The Pains of Sleep)一起出版[21]。柯勒律治還給《忽必烈汗》加了一個副標題「片段」(A Fragment),告訴讀者它本來就是不完整的[22]。該作品的初版分為兩節,第一節在第30行結束[23]。柯勒律治在世時,這首詩一共出版了四次,最後一次出版於1834年的《詩作》(Poetical Works)中[24]。最後一次出版的標題進一步擴展為「或夢中的幻象。一個片段」(Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment)。在後世的一些柯勒律治詩歌選集中,序言與副標題一起被刪除。有時現代版本的序言會缺少第一段和最後一段。[25]
"I should much wish, like the Indian Vishna, to float about along an infinite ocean cradled in the flower of the Lotos, & wake once in a million years for a few minutes – just to know I was going to sleep a million years more...I can at times feel strong the beauties, you describe, in themselves, & for themselves – but more frequently all things appear little – all the knowledge, that can be acquired, child's play – the universe itself – what but an immense heap of little things?...My mind feels as if it ached to behold & know something great – something one & indivisible – and it is only in the faith of this that rocks or waterfalls, mountains or caverns give me the sense of sublimity or majesty!"[7]
"continued for about three hours in a profound sleep... during which time he had the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two or three hundred lines ... On Awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved."[11]
"At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock... and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purpose of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away."[11]
她寫給托馬斯·普爾:"Oh! when will he ever give his friends anything but pain? he has been so unwise as to publish his fragments of 'Christabel' & 'Kubla-Khan'...we were all sadly vexed when we read the advertisement of these things."[19]
蘭姆寫給華茲華斯"Coleridge is printing Xtabel by Lord Byron's recommendation to Murray, with what he calls a vision of Kubla Khan – which said vision he repeats so enchantingly that it irradiates & brings Heaven & Elysian bowers into my parlour while he sings or says it; but there is an observation: 'never tell thy dreams,' and I am almost afraid that 'Kubla Khan' is an owl that won't bear daylight. I fear lest it should be discovered by the lantern of typography and clear reducing to letters, no better than nonsense or no sense."[20]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep, 2nd edition, William Bulmer, London, 1816. Reproduced in The Complete Poems, ed. William Keach, Penguin Books, 2004.
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