Mortality is a moving and compelling subject. This end is a confirmation of one’s humanity and the end of one’s substance. Perhaps that is why so many writers and poets muse about their own death in their writings. Keats and John Donne are two such examples of musing poets who share the human condition experience in When I Have Fears and Holy Sonnet 1.
Keats begins each quatrain of the Shakespearean sonnet with a modifier, and each modifier indexes the subject of that quatrain. The modifier therefore gives his sonnet a three part structure. The first quatrain is what he fears; the second quatrain is what he beholds; the third quatrain is what he feels; and the ending couplet sums up all of the quatrains. However, the structure could
…show more content…
He also calls the addressed “fair creature of the hour,” and recognizes the constraint of time on love, for an hour is fleeting. He also recognizes the fickleness of it – who is to say someone else will be his addressed the next hour? He continues to suggest that the addressed has some sort of deceptive and illusory “faery power” that creates an “unreflecting love.” Deception and illusion typically are detrimental for those who experience it. Keats does not reflect on losing the chance for love as something terribly unhappy, for he has a pre-existing negative perception of love. Love is also “unreflecting,” so love won’t be reciprocated. Keats then ends the segment about love half a line earlier in this quatrain than all other quatrains.
Keats introduces the summation of the poem early, in the second part of the last line in quatrain four. This choice reflects how great his impending death weighs on his mind. In the final couplet, Keats’s dark views of love leave him to “stand alone” and not experience the love mentioned in the previous quatrain. Of course, “alone” might not necessarily mean devoid of love; he could mean that he’s alone because of his hopeless thoughts on the subject. Or he could mean he is alone because he does not have the emblems “Love” and “Fame.” “Wide world” dwarfs him, making it even sadder that in spite of all the vast opportunities he has had with different cultures,
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.
By simply reading the title of the poem, one realizes that Yeats is giving out a warning to never love wholeheartedly. In the opening lines of the poem, “Never give all the heart, for love / Will hardly seem worth thinking of”, the speaker continues his warning.
From the first few lines Keats alludes to the great romances of the previous ages as opposed to William Shakespeare's great tragedies. While it could be discerned that Keats is referring to his poem
During the first twelve lines of the shakespearean sonnet, Keats uses a variety of high level abstract diction and symbols while also including figurative language, in order to explain his complex fears. Keats simply wants to express his fears, including any goals he wishes to
Conversely, Keats does not conclude with a positive image of love; the knight’s pain is shown when Keats metaphorically places him ‘on the cold hill’s side’ along with the many other ‘pale kings and princes
Death is a theme that is used all too often in literature. Usually when people encounter death, they come to expect certain feelings. Whether someone they know has passed away, or they are just reading a play in which someone dies; death is often associated with feelings of anger, depression, and denial. In a play titled Wit, Margaret Edson depicts stages of dying through a woman who is diagnosed with ovarian cancer. In his holy sonnet “Death, Be Not Proud”, John Donne challenges death in a way that illustrates his belief that there is an afterlife.
The poems share commonalities in their beginnings illuminating both Keats and Longfellow’s resent over death. In Keats’s poem, his first line illuminates the whole focus of fear of death when he states, “I may cease to be.” Keats’s quote parallels Longfellow’s first line, “half of my life is gone.” Keats then uses “before” as a metaphorical anaphora to emphasize the idea that he will die before he accomplishes all that he
Everyone will die one day. It is a true, but unpleasant fact. Since death is therefore universal, it is easy to understand why a theme of death occurs so often in films and literature. Poetry is no exception to this trend. Poetry is filled with references to death or dying, as death is one of the most significant human conditions. A number of poets in particular have used death frequently in their writing. Emily Dickinson and Dylan Thomas are two of those poets. Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 and lived in Massachusetts. Much of her work had strong themes of death and it is believed now that she was depressed. Her poetry consists mostly of slant rhyme or near rhyme, which is seen in her famous poem “Because I could not stop for Death”. Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 and was from South Wales. He struggled with alcoholism for much of his life. When he wrote his famous poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” his father was in the midst of a battle with cancer and it is believed the poem is about his father. These two poems both have a theme of death and explore human mortality, however each poet has a different approach to this theme.
John Keats’ poem, When I have fears that I may cease to be, is a well-known work that embodies many Romantic principles. The poem, explored in the context of Keats’ suffering from consumption, laments human impermanence while simultaneously exploring philosophical notions. Keats implements the use of the Shakespearean sonnet with each quatrain, beginning with the ambiguous, but time-bound word ‘when,’ manifesting these ideas in unique ways. When I have fears that I may cease to be uses the structure of the sonnet to delineate between the realms of reality and fantasy, while contributing to the overarching concept of eternity and ultimately reaches the conclusion that even lofty ideas that appear eternal ultimately erode.
Both men feel that time is escaping them. While keats is fearful that time is moving too quickly for him to accomplish anything, Longfellow fears he has wasted his time: “half of life is gone”. The difference is that Keats is hopeful that he has the chance to accomplish something. Keats begins each line with a dependent clause, leaving room for possibility, possibility that his life can become anything if he wills it. He also includes metaphors to represent the possibility of his success in his writing with “high-piled books”. This presence of hope is what differentiates Keats from Longfellow. In the middle of the of “When I Have Fears”, Keats has a change in tone which also illustrates his hopefulness. He admires the mystery and power of love with its “shadows” and “magic hand of chance”. His enchantment of the concept reiterates his youthfulness and ignorance to life. While Keats longs for love, Longfellow has “sorrow” from “care that almost killed” him. Longfellow was able to experience love in his past yet was unhappy with its outcome. Therefore, Keats is in desperation for love as a symbol of fulfillment, and Longfellow regrets that love has taken away his time ergo not having achieved his
The poem “Because I could not stop for Death (479)” by Emily Dickinson describes author’s concept of the last seconds of a life as well as her concept of the death. The poem follows a comparatively simple “ABCB” rhyme scheme, which indicates that the poetess’s goal is not to exercise her writing skills, but to reflect her opinion. By this poem Emily Dickinson presents a new way of thinking about the death. The speaker of the poem, assumingly a female, does not expect her own death - her life is so active and busy that she does not have time to think about dying. However, the death is inevitable, thus when the time comes, her Death arrives. The death is personified as a man that takes the speaker for a ride across her life. As the speaker enters
Pop culture icon and music sensation Kanye West once said, “Nothing in life is promised, except death.” Death can be interpreted in many different ways; some people fear death, while others view death as the pathway to eternal life. Death is a guaranteed and an unavoidable part of life, and it can have varying impacts on people, whether they are positive or negative. Death is an intriguing topic often found in poetry. John Donne’s “Holy Sonnets: Death, Be Not Proud,” William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73,” and Thomas Gray’s “On the Death of Richard West” discuss the topic of death and impart their own opinions of death.
We are looking to find how death and dying have been treated in poetry, and compare and contrast how the idea is perceived. Since the dawn of literacy, death and dying have been an omnipresent theme, which can be explained by the importance that death takes place in everyone’s life; death is universal, and some say that it is the fear of death that induces people to write about it. This brings us to trying to understand death, or rather understanding the technicalities that are associated to death.
The poem ends with a dark, depressing thought that Keats has. If he does not find love before he dies, then he believes his life was meaningless. He says that he will “stand on the shore of the wide world alone,” almost referring back to how he thought his mind was as big as an ocean. When Keats uses the phrase “unreflecting love” in what he desires, he
The third stanza begins with Keats addressing the mistress as she “Dwells with beauty – beauty that must die”. Continuing with the metaphor of the mistress and the feeling of sadness, Keats says that beauty must die. By saying that the mistress is beautiful, Keats is implying that sadness and happiness are linked. The happiness, which is the beauty of the mistress, in life is evanescent and continuously leaving. This comparison of happiness and sadness and the beauty of the woman reinforces the idea that happiness isn’t permanent. It is short-lived and comes with its repercussions.