KublaEmpirical Kubla1Empirical



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Performing "Kubla Khan"

First five lines









             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.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there 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.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart the cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks, at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prohesying war!
      The shadow of the dome of pleasure
      Floated midway on the waves;
      Where was heard the mingled measure
      From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

      A damsel with a dulcimer
      In a vision once I saw:
      It was an Abyssinian maid,
      And on her dulcimer she played,
      Singing of Mount Abora.
      Could I revive within me
      Her symphony and song,
      To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.





Listen to four readings of "Kubla Khan"

Sheen Richardson Jennings Pack





Listen to readings of the following run-on line
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns

Sheen Richardson Jennings Pack












Listen to Jennings' and Sheen's reading of "caverns"

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Listen to Sheen's reading of "down" excised from "Down to a sunless sea", and [n] excised from "down". Notice the slightly rising-and-falling pitch contour on [n] -- both visible and audible.

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Listen to readings of the following three lines by Sheen, Richardson, and Jennings

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
      Down to a sunless sea.


Sheen Richardson Jennings





The amplitude envelope in Figure 3 shows that "ran" is louder than the adjacent syllables. Notice, however, that amplitude is less effective as a cue for stress than pitch or duration. The louder "Where" bears less stress than "ran", on which relative loudness is combined with relative duration.






Listen to Sheen's reading of the phrases "river, ran" and "measureless to man"


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Listen to three readings of the first line of the poem: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan"


Sheen Richardson Jennings


Listen to Sheen's reading of the words "Kubla Khan" as excised from the title and the first line of the poem:


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Listen to the words "Kubla Khan" spoken by a female speaker in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary -- Audio Edition


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Listen to the words "Kubla Khan" as excised from the first line of the poem, in the four readings by Sheen, Jennings, Richardson and Pack, and as spoken by a female speaker in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary -- Audio Edition (in this order). Notice that Sheen and Richardson deviate from the dictionary pattern; Jennings and Pack's intonation is very similar to it (small rise and long fall on "Khan").


S & J R & P & MW










For some reason, I can't help hearing a small rise of intonation at the onset of Jennings' Khan. The pitch extract, however, clearly shows a 1.5 Hz descent from the bottom of Kubla to the top of Khan. When excising the sequence [laka], or the first [a] followed by the beginning of the second [a], one unambiguously hears a downward step. You too may listen to them.


click here




Listen to two readings of the first two lines of the poem: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree"


Richardson Jennings
















Listen to two readings of lines 4-5 of the poem: "Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea"


Richardson Jennings













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