X is for....

...Xanadu
I have no beautiful photograph or painting of Xanadu.  In fact it is probably more appropriate that I do not. For Xanadu is perhaps a product of one's imagination -- a utopia.  What would be utopian for me may not be so for you.

The name Xanadu is an ancient name for Shanghai the summer capital residence of the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, which was originally described by Marco Polo who is believed to have visited the city during his travels in the 1300's. The city had every outward sign of pastoral beauty, material luxury and opulance. It was eventually destroyed and so the transient and dreamlike quality, as with a mirage, was ascribed to it.  Today we might call it Utopia or Shangri La.

Many writers over past years have attempted to describe or even create their perfect society.  Thomas Moore wrote "Utopia", Henry David Thoreau wrote  "Walden". The English romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge made the name Xanadu famous through his unfinished poem "Kubla Khan".

It is slightly bemusing to me that my gracious and rather proper English teacher in high school extolled the merits of this poem, even as far as to having us memorize some of it.  Bemused, because the poem was written by Coleridge after waking from an opium induced haze in which he dreamed of visiting Xanadu. Upon awakening he immediately sat down to write about his experience. Surely Miss Eaton would not have wanted to encourage her impressionable young pupils to follow Coleridge's example in order to produce a literary masterpiece!  That would be like the hippies of the 70's justifying their use of LSD to enhance their creative powers.

Unfortunately Coleridge had written only two stanzas when a visitor arrived and interrupted his efforts.  Afterwards he was never able to recall the rest of his experience and the poem remained unfinished.  In one sense that is perhaps appropriate for as mankind has and still is searching to create his own Xanadu, it slips from his grasp as ephemeral and fleeting as mists rising at the beginning of a hot summer's day.

So X is for Xanadu and that is whatever you would like to make it.

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KUBLA KHAN

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea

through which the river runs.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

(For more of this poem please refer to Wikipedia)

This page is my contribution to Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC WEDNESDAY.  Please click on the link to see more imaginative contributions.