Monday, July 7, 2008

JOHN KEATS


JOHN KEATS 1795-1821

John Keats has been labeled as one of the leading poets of the English Romantic era. Keats did not live a very long life, but in his 26 years he wrote some of the leading poems during this time. After reading several of his odes, I seen where he used very elaborate words to describe the visual imagery that he wanted the reader to imagine.
In one of Keats writings, To Autumn, simple as it may be Keats used the elaborate words I spoke of to describe the coming of the season of Autumn. In this poem Keats wrote:
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells…
In this passage Keats uses elaborate words to paint an extraordinary picture of the end of summer. I think Keats uses the exaggeration that the fruit on the vines are over run, the tree bend because the apples are weighing them down, all of the fruit is fully ripened, and the gourds are ready to be picked, are all elaborate ways Keats use to let the readers know that autumn is coming.
In John Keats “Ode to a Nightingale” he opens this writging up with a personal heartache. He wrote this in the first two lines when he wrote:
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk

I believe that Keats is writing about how he is feeling so down that he would want to drink hemlock to help him deal with his heartache. Keats never made reference to any flying until the 31st line of the ode when he writes:
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards

Keats again uses elaborate words to help paint the visual imagery of what he is trying to say.
Keats uses these words to help him set himself apart from other poets of this time. Keats dies at a very young age but in his 26 years of life, he made a mark on poetry during this era.

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