Kubla Khan

Abstract

Walter Ong remarks that ‘For anyone who has a sense of what words are in a primary oral culture, or a culture not far removed from primary orality it is not surprising that the Hebrew term dabar means “word” and “event”.’¹ Conventionally the Greek word λóγoç is translated as ‘word’ or ‘reason’. In the first words of the Gospel of St John, the word λóγoç as word spoken takes on not only the sense of the thought or reason in the mind of God, but also signifies the event of the creation and, further than that, its cause and origin. ‘Ev cxpxfí ^v 0 óyoç, KOU ó X.óyoç r\v jrpòç xòv 8eóv, KOU 8eòç r\v ó X.óyoç.’² In cultures which are still emerging from orality verbalization is thought of not just as the emission of a significant sound meaning something, but also as event or action in which poet and audience are mutually involved. Coleridge’s culture wasn’t oral, but his habit of mind was. That was one of the reasons why the logos was such an important concept for him.