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Why is Kubla Khan considered an unfinished poem?

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Portrait of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge, detail of an oil painting by Washington Allston, 1814; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge described his poem "Kubla Khan" as a work conceived during an opium-induced dream. According to his account, he intended to transcribe several hundred lines that appeared to him in this state, but his recollection vanished after he was interrupted by a "person on business from Porlock". Consequently, he was able to record only the 54-line fragment that exists today.123

While this interruption is the traditional explanation for the poem's status as a fragment, some scholars suggest that the "person from Porlock" may have been an invention by Coleridge used to excuse his inability to complete the work. The phrase has since become a literary term representing a block or insufficiency in the creative process.13