The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #97: Kubla Khan

General Introduction
– We read the poem
– Listener feedback
– The best listener email ever

The Back Story
– Laudanum
– Seeing images
– The disruptive doorbell
– The precession of the back story
– Writers and drugs

The History
– The real Kublai Khan
– Khan’s pleasure dome
– Orientalism
– The medieval world of the fairy

Biographia Literaria
– Coleridge’s role in Lyrical Ballads
– The two sides of the imagination
– Material conditions

The Natural World of the Poem
– Reconciling opposites
– The uncanny valley
– Landscape of landmarks
– Stream of impressions

The Poem’s Incompleteness– Should we care about the back story?
– Is the poem even incomplete?
– Poem or gossip?
– Coleridge’s intent
– Validation and authentication

Holiness
– The holiness of the alien place
– Sublimity
– Vs. Christian usage

We Sermonize
– Poet and prophet
– Strange negativity