A Critical Analysis Of John Keats 'On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer'

While both Keats and Longfellow often reflect on their own unfulfilled dreams and impending deaths, the poems however contrast on their own dispositions towards death and the future. Here, Keats expresses a fear of not having enough time to accomplish all that he believes he is capable of doing,

English 1 Athini Majali Group HH 22August 2014 Friday 9:35 Tutor: Ms Ashley Graven A close reading of John Keat’s On the Sea Born in Moorgate, London, 1795, John Keats proved to be a promising poet during the short course of his life - he is hailed as one of the greatest poets of the Romantic period, one of his greatest literary works include To Autumn and The eve of St Agnes. The Romantic Movement was a reaction to the emphasis on society and logic present in the enlightenment era – the period focused extensively on individuality, human emotion and the relationship between man and nature (Abram, 283). On the Sea portrays the sea as an embodiment of nature which provides relief and freedom to man and suggests that humanity refrain from rejecting nature. This essay aims to illustrate the relationship between nature and man and re- iterate the mightiness and the spiritual effect of the sea both as a divine and a liberating force for humankind.

Keats’s “When I have fears that I may cease to be” represents the major key concepts of Romanticism values through his use of the significant metaphor that is linked with the natural world. “Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain” symbolises the pen as a tool for harvesting and “Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain”, is the product that is finalised from all the hard work on the field. Keats reflects his hard work of poetry to the importance of nature and compares it to harvesting to visualise the method of producing these products. With the importance of nature that has been comprehensively characterised in the poem, Keats poetry has shown to be effectively reflective to the values of Romanticism.

John Keats has many memorable and distinct poems. He is well known for his ability to write and adored by many. Ode on Indolence is a poem that can be relatable to its readers due to its idea of how indolence interferes with life’s opportunities, in particular the three mentioned in the poem, love, ambition and poesy. Keats refers to these three figures as “ghosts” (51) therefore insinuating that they once lived, but now they are mere figments of energy and air.

Keats’ father Benjamin worked as a waiter at a coffee shop in Greenwich Village and was therefore all too familiar with the struggle to make a better life for you and your family. Although he had a great appreciation for Keats’ work, he discouraged him from making it a career for fear that his son would not be able to support himself. On one occasion he went so far ¬¬ to purchase tubes of oil paint and then gave them to Keats under the false pretense that a starving artist had traded them for a bowl of soup. Fortunately for future readers of his works, Jack was not deterred from his passion for art. When Keats graduated from high school he was awarded the senior class medal for excellence in art. In a cruel twist of fate, his father Benjamin died of a heart attack the day before he was set to receive the award. Although his father never saw Jack receive the award, he learned of his support when asked to identify his father’s body. As he checked his father’s wallet after his death he found several preserved article clippings of all of his achievements. His father was proud of Keats and his work and remained a supporter until his last breath.

Readers of Keats’s story begin to realize that the fear of a young death is a demon that haunts us all. This was Keats’s goal as a romantic writer: to connect with the reader, to portray his ideas in the form of art, and to make the reader see from his point of view. With his use of colorful figurative language, such as repetition, imagery, and personification, Keats accomplishes his goal. The reason that Keats is so successful in painting a clear picture is because he “uses his imagination to write” (King). By writing his poem in the form of a “Shakespearean sonnet consisting of three quatrains” (King), Keats, like any great artist, clearly states the point he is trying to make. Apprehension of a young demise is a plague that haunts us all. In “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to be,” Keats takes our hands and reassures us that we are not

However, the impending death that creates the incapacity to write down thoughts does not detract from the complexity of the thoughts. On the contrary, Keats’ comparison of his imagination to harvestable grain shows confident self-recognition of his own ability, highlighting the awareness of “the poet’s own ripeness in his art” (Grosholz 604). This art “teems” in his brain and is “rich,” and these qualities compel him to pour out his feelings into this one sonnet, despite his belief that this will be the last sonnet he writes. However, his fervent but vain desire to express the entirety of his poetic notions “imparts to [him] the hunger, or poverty, necessary for production, but…also dwarfs whatever [he] has already written” (Hecht 116). Accordingly, by longing to write his unspoken wisdom, Keats rejects any greatness associated with his previous works. This untapped potential consequently creates a paradox for Keats as he is both the field of grain and its harvester (Saksono 97). Thus, he alone is capable of cultivating and sharing his work despite his waning health. The prospect of this work is still tantalizing to him, though, as Hecht states that “‘The high piled books, in charactry’ promise that if they could only be written, meaning would outlive the

Working at E.J. Pratt Library (located at 71 Queen’s Park Crescent E) with archivist Roma Kail and her team, I examined the critique génétique (primary sources) of Canadian writer and poet Raymond Knister for my archives project. I focused on the manuscript and research material of Knister’s novel, My Star Predominant: Portrait of John Keats, as well as his correspondence and newspaper clippings about his death. In doing so, I was able to write the history of the research and writing process of My Star Predominant, as well as Knister’s relationship with Pelham Edgar, Frederick Phillip Grove, and his wife. Furthermore, by examining the newspapers clippings about his death, I identified inaccuracies that are often present in secondary

Keats, like all the other poets of this time found inspiration in nature except he dug deepen and found not only nature’s beauty as inspiration but its sounds as well. While reading Keats poems, I found that a lot of the things he was describing symbolized music. For instance in “ode to a Nightingale” Keats states: “Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird” (61). The bird can be seen a representation of life. Birds create the music of nature when they chirp and fly around. Keats takes this and compares it to life and death. I kind of see this as an idea that when you find a passion and focus on it, it can take you away from your problems. I can relate to this because I am a musician. When I am sad or frustrated we turn to the things we love

Hi guys! For me, poem is very hard to interpret. There is no right or wrong when interpreting a poem, but I sometimes don’t understand what the poet’s message is. However, after researching about the poet, era that it was written in and the poetic devices used, it made me

John Keats was a well established English poet in the early 19th century. His work is greatly influenced by his family, studies, political views, and life experiences. Keats was born October 31st, 1795 in a stable to his devoted parents, Thomas and Frances Keats (15). Before Keats’s twentieth birthday he would experience many hardships from the passing of both of his parents as well as his grandmother. Thomas Keats died in 1804 after an accident occurred while riding his horse, leaving John Keats as the ‘man’ of the house at the young age of nine. Less than five years passed before Frances Keats fell ill and passed after contracting tuberculosis. At a young age Keats experienced great loss and suffering that would linger with him for the entirety

Primarily, Keats’s use of this theme shows the importance of human life. As Keats states with his line, “Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed, / But Death intenser -Death is Life's high meed,” (), life has many intense elements, but death ultimately serves as the highest point of life. Because of the intense questioning of death by Keats’s narrator, Keats shows the importance of living life before the finality of death inevitably hits. Keats also allows a certain amount of personal freedom through his use of the glorification of the ordinary with the way that he begins his poem. As the poem begins, Keats tells that, “No God, no Demon of severe response, / Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell,” (). This line intends to show the complicated nature of religion and the mute lips which it comes from. Keats essentially throws religion out the window with this line, and he states that there are more important elements in life than religion such as the importance of living itself. In relation to this statement of life’s more important elements, Keats does acknowledge death’s ability through lines such as, “Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease, / My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads;” (), and “Yet would I on this very midnight cease,” (), but he also places a heavy importance on living life simply because it is to be lived rather than dreaded or pondered. Lastly, Keats provides a final layer of depth by implying that his narrator laughed because of life and death. Keats shows this through his constant questioning of life and death in the context of laughing. By providing a satire to both life’s purpose and death’s inevitability, Keats shows us the greatest example of glorification of the ordinary which he has to offer throughout his poem by illustrating that death should be disregarded and life should be lived in

Keats is known for his distinct odes that signify his achievement and accomplishments as a poet. The opposing ideas surrounding the poets causes them to contemplate and understand the world within them.

The twenty-four old romantic poet John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” written in the spring of 1819 was one of his last of six odes. That he ever wrote for he died of tuberculosis a year later. Although, his time as a poet was short he was an essential part of The Romantic period (1789-1832). His groundbreaking poetry created a paradigm shift in the way poetry was composed and comprehended. Indeed, the Romantic period provided a shift from reason to belief in the senses and intuition. “Keats’s poem is able to address some of the most common assumptions and valorizations in the study of Romantic poetry, such as the opposition between “organic culture” and the alienation of modernity”. (O’Rourke, 53) The irony of Keats’s Urn is he likens

Keats' Attitude Toward Art Revealed in His Poetry In order to be able to comprehend John Keats attitude toward art it is highly important to be aware of what he considers art to be. If it’s true art, it is certainly very beautiful and not heading toward becoming any worse in the future since “a thing of beauty is a joy for