The other day, I posted info about books and articles I am and will be reading. Today, I thought I’d look into some of what Emily Dickinson read, and the idea started when I was out for a daily run yesterday.
I’m going to run a half-marathon in November, and I’ll be honest, my training/practices runs are not where I hoped they'd be at this time. The summer’s heat wave, the fall’s “monsoon season” (LOL – we’ve had a LOT of rain), family trips and commitments, have all set me back.
Now I’m not running to win – I’m just running for fun, and I’m hoping to match or beat my time from last year.
So yesterday I was running at a casual pace, and I was listening to music at about 150 to 160 beats per minute on Spotify, and a workout-paced version of Olivia Newton John’s “Xanadu” popped on.
Hmm…as my brain was thinking about this and that as I ran along, I wondered if Dickinson had ever read Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “vision in a dream” known as “Kubla Kahn,” which begins with these lines::
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.
By the way, Wikipedia reports, “Xanadu, also known as Shangdu, was the summer capital of Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor who founded the Yuan Dynasty in China; it served as a significant political center during the 13th and 14th centuries, known for its luxurious palaces, extensive gardens, and unique blend of Mongolian and Chinese culture, as described by the Venetian explorer Marco Polo, who visited the city and greatly popularized its legend in Europe; today, the ruins of Xanadu are located in Inner Mongolia, China, and are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”
I checked the Dickinson online archive, and she never used the words “Xanadu,” “Kubla,” “Khan,” or “China” in any of her poems.
Next I checked the archive of the Dickinson family library; however – oops! – I ended up on a wild goose chase, because in my mind, I kept thinking that “Kubla Khan” was written by Percy Byssch Shelley, not Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Sooo…it turns out that the Dickinson family did, in fact, own an 1853 edition of Shelley’s “Poetical Works,” info HERE.
I’m going to run a half-marathon in November, and I’ll be honest, my training/practices runs are not where I hoped they'd be at this time. The summer’s heat wave, the fall’s “monsoon season” (LOL – we’ve had a LOT of rain), family trips and commitments, have all set me back.
Now I’m not running to win – I’m just running for fun, and I’m hoping to match or beat my time from last year.
So yesterday I was running at a casual pace, and I was listening to music at about 150 to 160 beats per minute on Spotify, and a workout-paced version of Olivia Newton John’s “Xanadu” popped on.
Hmm…as my brain was thinking about this and that as I ran along, I wondered if Dickinson had ever read Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “vision in a dream” known as “Kubla Kahn,” which begins with these lines::
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.
By the way, Wikipedia reports, “Xanadu, also known as Shangdu, was the summer capital of Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor who founded the Yuan Dynasty in China; it served as a significant political center during the 13th and 14th centuries, known for its luxurious palaces, extensive gardens, and unique blend of Mongolian and Chinese culture, as described by the Venetian explorer Marco Polo, who visited the city and greatly popularized its legend in Europe; today, the ruins of Xanadu are located in Inner Mongolia, China, and are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”
I checked the Dickinson online archive, and she never used the words “Xanadu,” “Kubla,” “Khan,” or “China” in any of her poems.
Next I checked the archive of the Dickinson family library; however – oops! – I ended up on a wild goose chase, because in my mind, I kept thinking that “Kubla Khan” was written by Percy Byssch Shelley, not Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Sooo…it turns out that the Dickinson family did, in fact, own an 1853 edition of Shelley’s “Poetical Works,” info HERE.
| Alas, I spent time trying to discover the contents of that book – looking, of course, for something that wouldn’t even be there. And FYI: You can purchase a first edition of that book HERE. You can peruse a complete copy of the book HERE – not Dickinson’s actual volume, but the book that was in her family’s library. However, you won’t find “Kubla Khan” – LOL – since it was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. |  |
Sooo…back to the Harvard archive on Dickinson’s library – and lo and behold, the family did own a copy of “The poetical and dramatic works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge”; info is HERE.
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