some time ago the worthless word for the day was: porlock

to interrupt an artist engaged in aesthetic creation


"The Coleridge story, upon which the idea entirely rests, and not on the charcteristics of people in Porlock generally(!), is of course that Coleridge "dreamt" Kubla Khan and on awakening started to write it down but was interrupted by the person on business from Porlock -- and later could remember no more of his 'dream poem'. Strictly, to porlock should mean to interrupt an artist engaged in aesthetic creation. One might extend it to the interruption of any sustained serious theoretical or scholarly reflection or activity. I would be against weakening it to mean any sort of unwelcome interruption."
- Iris Murdoch, in a letter to Norman W. Schur

and, yes, some sources have Coleridge falling asleep and dreaming from taking opium.


(w.m.)