Keats' Poems and Letters John Keats

Much of the literary work that sprung out of the Romantic period centered around images of nature and the strong emotions that these evoked; the works of John Keats and of Percy Bysshe Shelley are no exception. Both written in 1819 and published...

The philosophical concept of The Sublime, though typically hard to define due to its complex nature, is most often described as an object or a surrounding which evokes a feeling of profound awe when viewed. The key difference between the concept...

The need to escape from agitation into tranquility is often sought after means to terminate suffering. The term “escape”, derived from the French “eschaper,” is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a noun, “the action of escaping, or the...

John Keats’ canonical Romantic poem “Lamia” emphasizes natural malevolence despite intention. Within “Lamia,” the reader is told of the titular character Lamia’s desire to have Lycius love her. Although her way to human form is not necessarily...

In an 1817 letter to his brothers, George and Thomas, John Keats describes a manner of thought that he calls “negative capability.” According to Keats, this is “when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable...

Throughout the analysis of the two pieces, “When I have Fears,” and “Mezzo Cammin” there was a similar theme, and use of language to portray it. The former poem was written by John Keats, in 1818, just several years before his death. It expresses...

When we think about author and reader in tandem, a question or issue often comes immediately to a head: should the reader’s interpretation of a text take precedence over authorial authority? This question seems particularly pertinent with regards...

As a Romantic, Keats maintained a tragic concern with the importance of dramatic irony - or, as noted by Schlegel, the ‘secret irony’ in which the audience is aware of the protagonist’s situation and his own ignorance of it. In ‘Lamia’, this...

Keats is able to portray love in many different lights throughout the poem by linking ideas and meanings, like symbolism. His different uses of structure within the poem, come considered unusual for a ballad, also have connotations towards how...

Aesthetic critics and writers of the 18th century wrestled with a number of questions regarding beauty, nature, mimesis, art, and the sublime and how they all related to one another. One of these queries concerned mind and matter – that is,...

Both John Keats's 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' and Christina Rossetti's 'In An Artist's Studio' both tackle similar themes; adoration for art be it one's own in Rossetti's poem, or the art of another in Keats's, with Keats admiring the...

Much like how Paradise Lost by John Milton is easily misunderstood without knowledge of Christian theology, much of Keats’s poetry is easily misread without a passing knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology. This is especially true in “Ode to...

Keats’s Hyperion was not completed, a fact that is in some ways central to its current reception. Either lauded or dismissed by critics, as an artistic endeavour it was a failure. Central to this failure seems to be the Keat’s confusion of stasis...

John Keats’ poetry revolves around what poetry itself is and what, for him, poetry is. The man is considered one of the late Romantics of the nineteenth century. During his short life, his poems were, for the most part, not well received by the...

William Blake’s attitude about the poor in his poetry suggests that he is angry at his country, Britain, for allowing so many of its citizens, especially children, to be poor when it’s supposed to be a wealthy global superpower. This is shown...

Abstract

Emerging out of the need for freedom of self-expression in literature, romanticism materialized as the age of unrequited love, sentimentality, melancholy and death. It was a reaction against the rationality of the previous age where...

Keats evidently uses his poetry as a form of escapism, thus valuing emotions and imagination over logic an reality, as he is able to craft his own form of reality through his writing. Many have speculated that this is due to his, arguably,...

“He lived in mythology and a fairyland”: this sentiment expressed by Hopkins demonstrates how Keats could easily be perceived as fully immersing himself in an imaginative dream world, yet fails to encompass the notion that he does attempt to play...

John Keats’ The Eve of St. Agnes explores the supernatural love of Madeline and Porphyro. Keats uses the holy trance of Madeline to explore her relationship with Porphyro, as well as love’s place in their world. The callous environments...

Within the canon of English Romantic literature, John Keats’ work is distinguished by its willingness to portray beauty as a blissful and unfathomable mystery. In contrast to the founding generation of Romantics most prominent during the late 18th...

With reference to John Keats, Sidney Colvin comments that “the spirit which animates him is essentially the spirit of delight: delight in the beauty of nature and the vividness of sensation.” Indeed, Keats’ treatment of nature- truthful to the...

The theme of gender and power is prevalent in both Keats’ poetry and Tender is the Night. The power wielded by men and women within both Keats’ poems and Fitzgerald’s novel is often conflicting; Keats writes of beautiful and destructive...

John Keats’ poems “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” and “When I have fears that I may cease to be” both revolve around the topics of death and the fragility of life. He writes of his desire to stay in his present state, afraid of...

In attempting to maneuver the changing modern world, early 20th century poets struggled to reconcile ‘old’ world views with the new normal. In a letter to his brothers, English Romantic poet Keats mediated this pervasive sense of inner conflict by...