Question

Does the poem have a real geographical location? How does the poet mix up the real and the imaginary to give a sense of the surreal?

Answer 1

The genesis of this poem is a vision seen by Coleridge in a trance-like state of mind. He tried to capture its essence, but an interruption caused an irreparable break in his poetic flow.
Coleridge's poem adopts the character of Kubla Khan, the grandson of the legendary Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan took the initiative to build a summer palace in Xanadu, located in Mongolia.
In Kubla Khan, the poet talks about how Kubla sought to build a dome undisturbed by natural forces. He was against the natural forces of decay and degeneration and wanted to create a private world deprived of evolution. In contrast, the poet wants to build a dome in the air out of the natural forces, a creative cocoon that would make the poet feel happy. The poet doesn't wish to go against the natural world. Instead, he wants to build something out of the natural forces that would easily mix with the world's natural motions.
The introduction of the River Alph is another instance of how the poet combines the real and the imaginary. There is undoubtedly no river with that name though some scholars claim this to connect with the river Alpheus in Greece. The poet Coleridge continually shifts away from the real world by choosing specific figures and connecting them with imaginary concepts to provide a surrealistic effect.