Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" is noted for its visual richness, supposedly inspired by opium. But who knows? I decided to see what ChatGPT could do when asked to provide illustrations. I chose to confine the experiment to the first 36 lines. Since those lines fall into three sections – it's really quite obvious, but see my analysis in Articulate Vision: A Structuralist Reading of ”Kubla Khan” – and then gave then to ChatGPT one section at a time, asking it to create an illustration. Once I had done that I asked it to translate those three illustrations into the style of William Blake, and then Hokusai (my favorite). Here's the results of this exercise.
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Here’s the opening lines from Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.” I want you to draw a picture of the pleasure-dome.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns meaureless 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.
Here’s some more lines from “Kubla Khan.” Create a picture of the fountain.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a 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,
Of 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 taverns endless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
Here’s six more lines from “Kubla Khan.” Create an image of THAT scene.
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!
In the stye of William Blake.
In the style of Hokusai.
