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

The similarities between the poems lie in their abilities to utilize imagery as a means to enhance the concept of the fleeting nature that life ultimately has and to also help further elaborate the speaker’s opinion towards their own situation. In Keats’ poem, dark and imaginative images are used to help match with the speaker’s belief that both love and death arise from fate itself. Here, Keats describes the beauty and mystery of love with images of “shadows” and “huge cloudy symbols of a high romance” to illustrate his belief that love comes from fate, and that he is sad to miss out on such an opportunity when it comes time for his own death.

After a four week survey of a multitude of children’s book authors and illustrators, and learning to analyze their works and the methods used to make them effective literary pieces for children, it is certainly appropriate to apply these new skills to evaluate a single author’s works. Specifically, this paper focuses on the life and works of Ezra Jack Keats, a writer and illustrator of books for children who single handedly expanded the point of view of the genre to include the experiences of multicultural children with his Caldecott Award winning book “Snowy Day.” The creation of Peter as a character is ground breaking in and of itself, but after reading the text the reader is driven to wonder why “Peter” was created. Was he a vehicle for

In “To Autumn,” a poem by John Keats, we see a multi-leveled examination of mortality concealed within a seemingly simple ode to the fall season. The poem opens with an overwhelming appeal to the senses. Anyone familiar with the common motifs of Autumn will identify heavily with the first stanza, for Autumn is a time of ripening pumpkins and relaxed musings. The second stanza has a tone reminiscent of the feeling that accompanies the end of a hard day’s work. However, as the second part of this poem ends, the reader feels a dull pang of some unidentified negative emotion. This emotion is similar to the guilt of relaxed, yet hardworking men who are too proud to be lazy, even for a moment. The ending stanza of the poem arrives and passes like the end of Autumn, swiftly (Keats 763-764). The speaker in the poem seems to be scrambling to appreciate the wonders of Autumn before the swift, bitter end. The progression of ideas, imagery, and tone are highly reminiscent to the thoughts of a man who, at the end of his life, is trying to find meaning and beauty in his life as he approaches his swift, bitter end. The poignancy of this poem is found in the distinct levels by which Keats communicates emotions. In the progression of Keats’ “To Autumn,” there are three basic levels of understanding: the outright evolution of ideas seen in the initial reading, the contradictory tone changes, and the subtle paradoxes found

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

The first part of the poem explains Keats’ ignorance before reading, as well as the greek gods revealing elements of sky, sea, and land to Homer and then Keats. The first few lines express how Keats was ignorant because of him not understanding Homer’s writing. Later he explains how he has heard of Homer, and how Homer wants to see, “dolphin-coral in deep seas.” The importance of mentioning coral here is that coral is known for its bright colors and funky shapes, something one can only witness with their eyes, which Homer wishes he was able to. Then, Keats blatantly mentions how Homer is blind, but then says, “the

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

becoming any worse in the future since “a thing of beauty is a joy for

Showing, that to him, existence and purpose is more important than any other distraction in life. Unfortunately, it seems to John Keats that life itself is the distraction. Constantly being obsessed with any aspect of life is an unhealthy way to live. The tone is identified immediately when Keats begins with a very common human fear, the fear of death. His sense of paranoia to premature death reinforces the central idea in that it reveals the authors personal struggles with the concept of life and death.

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

In the year of 1819, John Keats, the last of the Romantic poets, was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which he contracted from attempting to nurse his brother back to heath. Alongside the knowledge that his death was surely upon him, Keats published his most distinguished works in that same year. “Ode to a Grecian Urn” was one of five Odes Keats wrote. In this poem, John Keats uses his theory of negative capability to embody his attitude towards the Grecian Urn, thus further explaining the poet’s universal explanation of how art should be interpreted and why.

In his poem "Ode to a Nightingale," John Keats uses powerful, distinct symbolism and imagery. The nightingale, for instance, is interpreted by many to be a symbol of Keats ' poetic inspiration and satisfaction. This symbolism can be seen by the vivid descriptions Keats hives the nightingale. However, the nightingale is definitely not the only item of symbolism in "Ode to a Nightingale." In a short piece of art, Keats apparently has mastered using many different items, phrases, and brilliant, descriptive metaphorical text to symbolize something he yearns for. Countless pieces of the poem indicate that he also wishes for immortality and the ability to escape from reality and into another state of consciousness and the ecstasy of the

​Torn between two worlds, Keats battled his own personal life between his engagement to Fanny Browne and the death of his brother. Also the poem was written approximately two years before he died. These life changing events resulted in Keats writing one of his most famous poems, Ode to a Nightingale. This poem is an escape from reality in trying to find a happy place such as the singing of the Nightingale (Fiero 9). The poem is a parallel to Keats thoughts and desires, which are directly connected to his reasoning for writing the poem, its connections to understanding nature as well as its reflection of the human consciousness and natural environment.

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