Scarlett Neely Mr. Cascio English 1302-5 3 April 2016 John Keats John Keats was a young poet whose work continues to heavily influence the literary world today. His contributions to the Romantic Period are considered to some to be unmatched by even some of the more experienced poets of the time, including William Blake. Through his use of vivid imagery and magical language, Keats was able to paint beautiful pictures through his poems all while conveying deep philosophical meanings that were prevalent in the writings of the Romantics. What makes John Keats continue to be relevant today is not only the concepts he wrote about, but the manner in which he wrote them. The suffering that he endured from his personal life as well as the extreme empathy he held for humankind shines through his writings and gives his works a very wistful and sad quality that leaves the reader pondering life and all of the beautiful yet mysterious aspects it holds. …show more content…
From an early age, Keats experienced great loss. At only eight years old he lost his father, giving him his first glance into the delicacy of human life. Seven years later he lost his mother to tuberculosis, and literature became his only comfort as he assumed the hardships of life and loneliness. At Enfield Academy, where Keats attended school throughout his childhood, the headmaster John Clarke kept a special eye on the orphaned Keats, and encouraged his love of reading and literature. In the Fall of 1810, following the death of his mother, Keats withdrew from Enfield to pursue studies to become a surgeon, and eventually became a licensed apothecary in 1816 after studying in a London
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.
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.
John Keats was a famous British author in the nineteenth century. He was born in London, England in 1795. His mom died early in his life from tuberculosis and his father died from fatal injuries after falling off a horse. This led him and his younger brothers to be placed under the care of Richard Abbey. At age fifteen Keats was an apprenticed to an apothecary. He wanted to write and not go into to medical but Abbey would not let him. Keats secretly wrote on the side and used some inheritance to fund his writing behind Abbey’s back. In 1816 Keats met Leigh Hunt and decided to pursue being a poet. Hunt actually published Keats first poem and helped him jumpstart his career. His first major poem was “Endymion: A Poetic Romance” . Soon after Endymion was published, Keats started show early symptoms
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.
John Keats was born on Halloween in the year 1795 in London. He was one of five siblings with four sisters and one brother. Keats’s mother and father were stable keepers and they lived good and balanced lives. Keats started his education at a boys' school in Enfield run by a man named John Clarke. Keats had multiple cases where he would get in a fight with other kids. One classmate stated that Keats "would become great - but rather in some military capacity than in literature.” In April 1804 Keats' father Thomas was thrown from his horse and got a brain injury, he died a few days later and was found where he had been thrown to the ground. The next year, she took her four children to her mother’s house and left them in her care, abandoning the family for three and a half years. These were horrible things to live through and no doubt had a major impact on Keats and his writing. When Keats finally found his mother she was suffering from tuberculosis and although Keats tried to care for her, she died soon after. Now Keats and his siblings were left under the care of their grandmother once again and she gave a known
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
I picked this poem because it was it was the most moving one I read. Keats was diagnosed with tuberculosis at a young age. His family members died from the same lung condition, so he knew his fate. A few nights before Keats died at 26, he wrote When I Have Fears. This poems talks about his worry of not living a fulfilled life because he we going to die so young. “Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,” (Line 2 Cease.) Keats was sad that he was not going to finish all the writing he wished to do in his lifetime. Not only that, Keats was newly engaged to the love of his life. Quickly after the engagement, Keats discovered he was sick. This poem captures his sorrow of not living a long and happy life with his fiance. This poem became my favorite, because of all of the meaning it stood for in Keats life and how incredibly moving it
During the romanticism era, Line 1-8 talks about how Keats is afraid that he won’t be able to become a writer. The poem was written during Romanticism where a lung disease, tuberculosis was widespread over Europe. Even Keats mother died from this disease when Keats was a child. Because he grew up alone, he didn’t have anyone to tell about his feelings therefore he started writing poems to express his feelings. He was worried that he may die at a young age with tuberculosis before he could write down all the ideas in his head. Line 9-12 is about Keats fear that he will lose his beloved one. It is normal to lose your beloved ones during your life. However, Keats lost both of his parents when he was still young therefore he didn’t receive the love that he needed when he was young. Because of this, he was very desperate for a love which is another reason why he wrote this poem to show his passion for love. Background of the poet and the era are a significant context which contribute to my
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
intellectual and imaginative climate,” perhaps a “spirit of an age”,” (Greenblatt, 8th ed. 6). As this quote displays, the Romantic period of literature held a closely associated atmosphere with the time. Four ideas, impulse of feeling, glorification of the ordinary, the supernatural, and individualism or alienation all serve as readily available examples of themes which display the atmosphere discussed by this quote. Out of all of these themes, glorification of the ordinary serves as the main focus of Keats’s poem “Why Did I Laugh Tonight? No Voice Will Tell”.
John Keats, the youngest of his peers, Percy Shelley and George Byron, was born October 31, 1795, the oldest of five children. John’s father died from being thrown from a horse when John was only nine. His mother quickly remarried and moved away from the children for four years. His grandfather died a year later, leaving a sizable estate, although badly managed. As a result, John struggled with money issues all his life. He also struggled with illness.
The works written by Keats illustrate his way of thinking through massive imagery and sweet beauty. Keats didn’t receive a grand amount of formal learning, in fact he learned very little that way. After focusing on his aspiring career as a surgeon, he put poetry aside, however, he found himself losing his touch in surgery, therefore, he moved back to his beloved poetry.
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
Many messages are displayed in the literature of John Keats. Mostly throughout his stories he talks about himself and his feelings. And he really represents himself throughout his poems. One message can be found in each of the Keats poems, “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer”, “When I have Fears that I May Cease to Be “, “Ode to a nightingale”, and of course “Ode On a Grecian Urn”. Romance, forgotten fame, importance of knowledge, acceptance of death.
Keats was very aware of his own mortality and his poetry reflected the intensity and the passion of a man who didn't have very long to live. His poetry remains some of the densest prose ever penned because, like his brief existence, he had to condense so much life into so little space. The thought of impending death would be enough to make anyone fall into hopeless despair but Keats's incredible talents and commitment to live in the moment perhaps allowed him to three lifetimes.