** Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Translation into Turkish by Emrecan Koç**
Kübilay Han-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
**
Yahut bir görü, düş içinden bir kesit.
**
Aziz Alp nehrinin, insanoğlunun ölçüsünü
Aşan oymakları arasından,
Güngörmez nehre aktığı yolda,
Xanadu’da, verdi inşa hükmünü Kubilay Han
Görkemli safa kümbetinin.
Surlar ve burçlarla çevrelenmiş
Yirmibeş dekarlık mümbit toprak;
Ve ışıltılı, büklüm büklüm oluklarıyla,
İçlerinde buhur kokulu ağaçlar olan bahçeler,
Ve nebetat’ın gün düşen yüzünü sarıp sarmalayan,
Doruklar kadar kadim koruluklar vardı orada.
Ama yahu! Sedir koruluğuna yamaç, çayırlı tepeye
Boynunu büken o engin ve hulyalı gedik!
Zalim bir mahal! İfrit muhipine ağıtlar çığıran
Bir kadınca musallata uğramış küçülen bir
Mehtabın altında, daimi mukaddes ve mest!
Ve bu gedikten, hengamesi bitmez bir köpürtü,
Tıpkı bu dünya derin derin soluklanırmışçasına,
İhtişamlı bir gayzer, bir anlık fışkırır.
Ara ara gelen bu tez kükremeler arasında
Yerden seken dolu taneleri gibi, yahut bir harmancının
Döveni altında ezilen buğdaylar gibi uçuşan kallavi kayalar!
Ve bu raks eden taşlar arasından, birden ve ebedi,
Kükrer bir anlığına kutsal nehir.
Ormanların ve yayvan çayırların arasından
Karmaş dolaş, uzunca akar lâhut nehir
Ve varır insanoğlunun ölçüsünü aşan oymaklara
Ve batar bir keşmekeşle, ruhsuz okyanusa
Ve bunca keşmekeş arasında Kubilay Han
Uzaklardan işitti atalarının savaş celp eden sesini
Dalgaların ortasında süzüldü
Safa kümbetinin gölgesi;
Orada duyuldu gayzerden ve oymaklardan
Gelen seslerin ilintili nizamı.
Nadide bir hünerin kerameti olmalı bu,
Buz dolu oymaklarıyla güneşlik bir safa kümbeti!
Zamanında, bir düş gördüm;
Santur çalgısıyla genç bir kız,
Habeşistanlı genç bir kız,
Santuruyla, Abora dağını anlatan
Bir şarkı eşliğinde, bir müzik çaldı.
O ahengini ve şarkısını
İçimde ihya edebilsem,
Onca yoğun bir haz, alır götürürdü beni.
O sesli ve uzun müziği duysam yine,
O kümbeti inşa ederdim semâya,
O güneşli kümbet! O buzdan oymaklar!
Şarkıyı duyan tüm ahali görürdü onları,
Ve tuttururdu bir terane, Bakın! Bakın!
Işıldayan gözlerine, havada süzülen saçlarına bakın!
Çevreleyin etrafını üç defa,
Kapatın gözlerinizi hürmet ve huşuyla!
Zira beslendi o cennetin çam balından,
Ve içti cennetin sütünden!
** **** A Reflection on My Process of Translation and Romantic Poetry**
First of all, I choose *Kubla Khan *as my poetry translation assignment because among the countless poems of Romantic Era, this particular poem has something quite different than the others. It has all the qualities of Romantic Period and has a strong imagery of nature but the difference is it is pretty exotic in that it reflects a completely different cultural and historical magnificence than the established European or Western culture. This exotic taste is thanks to the subject-matter of this poem that separates it from contemporary poems by a continent and more than 500 years. Kubla Khan, a misspelling of Kublai Khan who ruled the Mongol Empire and founded Yuan Dynasty as the father of Temür Khan.
Another interesting factor about this poem is it is a fragment of a dream that Coleridge was able to remember. It is said that he was reading a travelogue about Xanadu and Kublai Khan and was using opium when he fell asleep to have this vision. This also adds up to its exoticness. The poem is interpreted by scholars as an allegory of poetry itself or human creativity. In the poem, many direct opposites are juxtaposed such as sunny pleasure dome and icy caves or bright gardens and geysers. So, one of the interpretations say that the pleasure dome with its gardens symbolize the conscious mind while the *lifeless ocean *symbolizes the subconscious minds. In dialectics, the trio of thesis, antithesis and synthesis is a method of persuasion, namely rhetoric and drawing conclusions previously used by ancient philosophers but coined by the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. This method is visible in the poem through the mentioned opposites coming together, which, according to Aristotle, helps the audience to understand the point the writer is trying to make.
There are various interpretations like this but from a romantic approach, its imagery concerning nature is highly prominent. An outstanding example is that the poem begins like it is going to talk about a magnificent palace built for Kubla Khan but it barely talks about it. Instead, its focus is always on the river *Alph *and its course and on the garden of the dome at first. The river, thusly nature is always addressed as holy and sacred, reflecting the point of view Romantic poets had during the period. Also, a chasm in the river is addressed as romantic, reflecting the attitude of the poetic personae to the nature and the river itself particularly. There are caves, cedar forests, fountains, dales and caverns everywhere scattered in the poem as should be expected from a romantic poem.
Personification is another powerful characteristic of Romantic poetry in that it gives life to the holy nature. For example, the poem describes the bouncing fragments of rocks out of geyser as dancing, thusly romanticizing the way the reader perceives them which would otherwise be discerned as tumultuous and chaotic. A sublimity is prominent throughout the poetry that takes the reader beyond the ordinary world to a bizarre place where everything seems both so familiar and also so unusual at the same time. This is the aim of sublimity that was taken up by Kant and Wordsworth along with other Romantic poets and Philosophers and which has its roots in Longinus’s *On The Sublime. ***
Another important reason why I chose this poem is the imaginative side of it. Every poem from the Romantic era possesses imagination but this is different in that it is not an “imagined” imagination but a natural imagination because the writer took the inspiration for this poem in his dream and this phenomenon generally creates mesmerizing results. For example, Howard Philips Lovecraft also had dreams in which he saw indescribably terrible creatures before he pioneered horror fiction, creating the most powerful and imaginative mythos of his age. So, Kubla Khan is a masterpiece in terms of reflecting the imaginative side of the Romantic Era. Moreover, it also makes me wonder and come up with new ideas about the possible outcomes if he could remember the whole vision he had. When he woke up, he directly started to write this poem but at some point, he was visited by someone on a business account and kept busy for 1 hour. When he went back to his poem, he could no longer remember the rest of the dream he had.
Additionally, the poem is full of supernatural elements and metaphors. For example, Kubla Khan hears ancestral voices coming out of the sunless sea where the river Alph poured. The voices prophesy a war coming forth. This is of course a metaphor and a personal interpretation of Kubla Khan that adds more and more subjectivity to the poem. Or, at the end of the last stanza, poetic persona is said to have eaten honey-dew and drunk the milk of Paradise. Honey dew is the food mentioned in the Hebrew Bible that was given to Israeli people by God when they were desperate smack dab in the middle of a dessert. Thus, it is a holy food of gods along with the milk of Paradise. *Dulce et decorum est *to use these supernatural foods in a romantic poem.
As for the writer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he was a unique literary figure in terms of many aspects. First of all, he is regarded to have “been rebuked and mocked for the ambitious projects he pro- posed, launched, but left undone: an eight- to ten-volume history of literature. an epic poem on the origin of evil, and so on. He had extraordinary literary gifts. but was an undisciplined author who failed to make full use of his exceptional talents-as he himself knew well. Coleridge wrote in his copy of his book *The Statesman’s Manual *(I81~) that while he had produced a number of significant works, he stood in the world’s eyes as “the wild eccentric Genius· that has published ·nothing but fragments & splendid Tirades.” (Leitch, 668-669) He was called an undisciplined author because he defied responsibility and wrote as he like unlike the traditions. He wrote fragments which were sometimes criticised by public as not being complete but he went onto his own way. His friendship with William Wordsworth, whom Coleridge addressed as “a very dear friend of mine, who is in my opinion the best poet of the age.” (Leitch, 669) contributed heavily on Coleridge’s poetry in line with the Romantic movement.
One of the greatest figures of the movement, William Wordsworth, had a deep friendship with Coleridge, they had a collaborative work with the name of “Lyrical Ballads” that has become the manifestation of Romantic Movement. In the preface of the work, he, with the help of Coleridge, explained the characteristics of romantic poetry and explained why he wrote the poems the way he did along with explaining the subject-matter choosing process. In a part, with which I will finish my essay soon, he talks about the low and rustic life as a subject matter of Romantic poetry. In Kubla Khan, the depictions are highly rustic but at first sight, the stately pleasure dome and the Khanate may not seem “low”. However, the poetic personae, at the end of the poem, explains that if he could remember a piece of poetry, he could also build a pleasure dome in the sky, implying that he envies the palace but he is also among common people, thusly resembling “low”. And here is the quotation from the essay;
Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.(Wordsworth, 1)
Works Cited
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan.
Leitch, Vincent B. “Samuel Taylor Coleridge.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 1st ed., Norton, New York, USA, 2001, pp. 668–669.
Owen, Wilfred. “Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est.
*Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T.V.F.(1993). Antithesis. Princeton University Press. ***
Wordsworth, William. “Preface To Lyrical Ballads.” Preface to Lyrical Ballads, University of Pennsylvania, 2001, https://web.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/Spring2001/040/preface1802.html.
Wikipedia contributors. “Kublai Khan.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 8 Jan. 2022. Web. 13 Jan. 2022.