Did Opium Make Coleridge Forget the Rest of ‘Kubla Khan’?
Lost Masterpieces
Scholars question whether the ‘person from Porlock’ Coleridge blamed for making him lose his train of thought writing ‘Kubla Khan’ was real, or just a convenient phantom scapegoat.
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
It’s a trope that’s as old as the written word: the brilliant artist whose creative genius is intricately tied to substance abuse—or so the genius usually believes.
