Keats’ Love for Fanny Brawne in The Eve of St. Agnes
“For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair. I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain” –John Keats to Fanny Brawne (Bate 538).
As the colloquial phrase goes…behind every great man, lies a great woman, but in John Keats’ case, the woman is neither great nor his superior but inspires greatness in the Romantic poet. This woman calls herself Fanny Brawne. She was intellectually inferior to Keats, but her sprightly character added rich, sensuosity to his writing. John
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Some may call her interests frivolous and fashionable, but to Keats, her worldly enjoyment gave him appreciation for physical sensibility, experiencing nature and one another through smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound.
Rather than instructing interaction with physical nature, Keats breathes nature into his poetry. For example, William Wordsworth’s “The Tables Turned” encourages one to leave the classroom and take a romp in fertile woodlands:
Enough of Science and of Art Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives (129)
Wordsworth’s poetry lectures on nature while Keats’ poetry playfully frolics in the meadow. “The Eve of St. Agnes” stimulates intensity and personal connection because the fragrances, flavors, and feel of the scene come alive. The night is “honeyed,” the fair virgins are “lilly white” (VI), and the air resounds with “timbrels” and “faery fancy” (VIII). Madeline admires the “languid moon” and her interests spring to life as a “full-blown rose” (528). Objects in nature represent human characteristics. Renaissance folklore inspires the lines: “While legioned faeries paced the coverlet/And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed” (XIX). Mystic revelry and description allows the reader to feel apart of Keats’ poem.
The quintessential sense-oriented stanza attains the intensity of emotions: And
“Ode to enchanted light,” by Pablo Neruda, is a free verse poem in which the speaker expresses an appreciation for nature’s sheer beauty. The ode deals with the serious themes of pureness, beauty, and justice. The tone of Neruda’s poem can be implied as hopeful and optimistic. “Sleeping in the Forest,” by Mary Oliver, is also a free verse lyric poem whereas the speaker is cleansed by the natural world. The speaker expresses private emotions and thoughts on nature. Both “Ode to enchanted light” and “Sleeping in the Forest” convey an appreciation of different aspects of nature.
In the romantic era, British authors and poets focused on nature and its influence. Two of those poets, Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth, wrote many pieces on the beauty of nature and their personal experiences with the beaches of England. In “Far on the sands” and “It is a beauteous evening,” Smith and Wordsworth describe their respective experiences on the shore at sunset. Both authors use structure, theme, allusions, and imagery to effectively convey their perceptions of nature. While the sonnets share a setting and the topics of nature and tranquility, Smith’s has a focus on introspection and Wordsworth’s is centered around religion. These have different focuses which achieve different effects on the reader.
Albert Einstein spoke of nature and its value when he said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” As Einstein pointed out, by looking into nature you could discover something new about yourself and the world around you. John Muir and William Wordsworth both discovered joy when they looked deep into nature. This joy gave them a new perspective on nature and life and they each expressed this joy through different works of writing. Both authors have a unique outlook on nature and its impact as well as different thoughts on how to share their relationships; Muir used diction and connotation to show his relationship in his essay “The Calypso Borealis” where Wordsworth used tone and syntax in his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.
In the romantic era, British authors and poets focused on nature and its influence. Two of those poets, Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth, wrote many pieces on the beauty of nature and their personal experiences with the beaches of England. In “Far on the sands” and “It is a beauteous evening,” Smith and Wordsworth describe their respective experiences on the shore at sunset. Smith uses tone and theme to convey her feelings of despair and isolation. Wordsworth utilizes various religious images to communicate his awe in the face of the natural world. While the sonnets share a setting and the topics of nature and tranquility, Smith and Wordsworth have different focuses which achieve different effects on the reader.
Love is everywhere, and, even though love is not tangible, people refuse to believe that it exists. Perhaps their belief in love is what creates love, or perhaps it is the other way around. The greatest love is found when one least expects it as well as in people one least expects to find it in. Such an occurrence takes place in Isabella by John Keats. In this poem, two young people, Isabella and Lorenzo, fall in love, only to find that the sweetest and deadliest love is the love hidden away from the prying eyes.
Unlike society, Wordsworth does not see nature as a commodity. The verse "Little we see in Nature that is ours" (3), shows that coexisting is the relationship envisioned. This relationship appears to be at the mercy of mankind because of the vulnerable way nature is described. The verse "This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon" (5), gives the vision of a woman exposed to the heavens. In addition, the phrase "sleeping flowers"(7) might also describe how nature is being overrun unknowingly.
Walt Whitman loved to experiment with form when it came to poetry. He used his verses to show his complete adoration of all things wild, and our role as beings in this infinitely complex and thought-provoking universe in which we exist. To say he had a bit of a “nature crush” would be an understatement – Whitman goes in to great detail of his love for the wildness and often describes his emotions in a viscerally sexual manner, using poetic devices to underline his immense feelings for environment and hammer in the imagery to readers of how majestic the world appears to him. “Romantic” poets loved the outdoors – if it wasn’t contained in four walls and a roof, they were all about it. They loved to praise the innate details that made our planet so incredible,
Many Romantic poets and artist sought solace and peace in nature; however, several recognized the power of nature and the natural world on man.
. . I am certain that he has some spell that attaches them to him, or else he has fortunately met a set of friends that I did not believe that could be found in this world.” Friendship was very meaningful to Keats and he took it very personally. The respect and kindness with which Keats interacted with his friends was true is what attracted people to him the most. Though it is quite noticeable that he was never one to be good with women, but when it came to men he was amiable and loquacious. His
Pre-Raphaelite art was a movement was born of poetry, English Romanti cism texts inspired the young artists of the Brotherhood. The first of these texts The Eve of St Agnes, a poem by John Keats and key text from Romanticism that served as inspiration for John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt and spawned the dawn of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. A romantic tale of elopement and awakening sexuality, young Porphyro hides in Madeline’s bed chamber,
The beauty of nature is often overlooked and underappreciated in today’s society. The neglect and lack of respect given to such a beautiful creation by members of society is widely reflected in Romantic poetry. The romantic era began in 1798, where writers such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge expressed their opinions and feelings towards nature. Overall such writers typically express a positive outlook on the natural world around them, however some stray the other way. Specifically Coleridge and Wordsworth began to express the feeling of disconnect towards nature. Both writers began to feel as though they could not understand nature and cannot connect with the beauty it gives off as expressed in poems such as “Dejection”, “London 1802”, and “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”. Not only did some of these writers begin to feel a disconnect but a select few also begin to feel as though people are disrespecting the balance of nature and are trying to disrupt the balance and manipulate it. Writers such as Mary Shelley, author of the novel Frankenstein, expresses the concern of people taking the laws of nature and twisting them. Writers and people living during this time period not only express an appreciation for nature but also the truth about the human relationship with nature. The relationship between humans and nature is on of mistreatment.
Thomas Keats and Frances Jennings gave birth to John Keats on 31 October 1795 at his grandfather’s livery stable in London, United Kingdom.(“Keats, John (1795-1821).”) His father died in a riding accident when John was only 8 years old. As for John’s mother, she died when he was 14 years old due to tuberculosis.(“Keats, John (1795-1821).”) John had two younger brothers, George and Tom, and a younger sister named Fanny. John and his brother’s George and their younger brother went to John Clarke’s school at Enfield. Keats got guidance, encouragement and a strong friendship from his teacher, Charles Cowden Clarke.(“John Keats”.) Charles was the headmaster and a person of a strong literary interests and radical political
During The Romantic Period, nature was predominately used for symbolism in literature and writers, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, are influential in capturing nature in their works. Coleridge, like many other romantics, worships nature and believes nature is an educator to children, an experience of which he himself was deprived. Furthermore, Coleridge’s pieces of literature, especially his poem “Frost in Midnight,” illustrate how the natural world was viewed during the Romantic Era and connect its beauty to the power of teaching children. While the poem laments on the missed opportunities of the author’s sheltered, city-bound childhood, the poem mainly focuses on the experiences and exposures to the natural world he desires for his son, Hartley (Greenblatt 1698). In the last two stanzas of “Frost at Midnight,” Coleridge abides by the themes of early English Romanticism in arguing the importance of allowing nature to act as the most influential educator for his child.
In the preface to Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth remarks on the subject matter of his and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s joint collection of poetry, “Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity” (295). It seems fitting that Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” and Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” both found a home in this book of poetry because both celebrate nature’s ability to mold a person spiritually, philosophically, morally, and aesthetically. However, both writers come from very different perspectives. While Wordsworth was raised in the beautiful countryside of the Lake District, Coleridge was brought to London at an early age. Their environments had a profound affect on these writers. At the end of the poems, Wordsworth vows that he will always be a lover of nature, while Coleridge vows to raise his son to experience this same love because he was deprived of this relationship as child. Both of these poems remark on nature’s gifts to man, but “Frost At Midnight” reveals that a childhood apart from nature can have damaging repercussions for the adult, such as feelings of loneliness and hopelessness.
Contrasting with the Neoclassical Period, the Romantic Period in British Literature was marked not by reason and rationalism, but by feelings, emotion, and nature. Of the writers of the Romantic era, William Wordsworth was one of the most representative, spearheading the movement by co-authoring “Lyrical Ballads” with his contemporary Samuel Coleridge. Thus, to gain a better understanding the Romantic period as a whole, it is useful to focus on the works of William Wordsworth, the period’s flagship writer. To do this, one can conduct a close reading of “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” and compare the progression and emphasis of the poem to that of “Elegiac Stanzas”. In doing so, one can see Wordsworth’s focus on the sublimity of nature and the attributes that are associated with the passage of time.