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Pausanias
Pausanias was a Greek travel writer in the second century AD, who described
natural phenomena, and cities, covering their daily life, ceremonies,
beliefs, and artwork in such detail that even today we can recognize what he
was talking about.
The anthropologist Sir James Frazer said, "Without him, the ruins of Greece
would for the most part be a labyrinth without a clue, a riddle without an
answer."
Coleridge's copy of Thomas Taylor's 1794 translation ended up in William
Wordsworth's library. Coleridge had probably read the original Greek, as
well.
Pausanias, The Description of Greece, translated by Thomas Taylor, 1794 |
Alph, the first of rivers The story of the river Alpheus descending into the earth, and then rising up in fountains appears in Pausanias, whom Coleridge probably read in the original, as well as in Thomas Taylor's translation. Coleridge could not get enough of Taylor, according to Lowes. Speaking of this story, Lowes says that Coleridge "Could scarcely have escaped it in Pausanias." Pausanias does draw an explicit parallel between the Nile and the Alpheus, a connection that Lowes feels lies behind much of the imagery in Kubla Khan. Like Alph, the sacred river in Kubla Khan, the Alpheus runs far below the earth, emerges in a fountain, and runs toward the sea. |
Other sources
William Bartram |
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