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Shakespeare's influence during the Elizabethan Era
essay of shakespeare influence in writing and literature
Shakespeare's influence during the Elizabethan Era
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In Bright Star, Keats utilises a mixture of the Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnet forms to vividly portray his thoughts on the conflict between his longing to be immortal like the steadfast star, and his longing to be together with his love. The contrast between the loneliness of forever and the intenseness of the temporary are presented in the rich natural imagery and sensuous descriptions of his true wishes with Fanny Brawne. The structure of Bright Star is unique in that it breaks free of the limitations of the sonnet form, a form that is notorious for its strict and constrained nature. The rhyme scheme falls very close to the Shakespearean rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG, in which the last two lines represent the final heroic couplet. However, the rhyme of the ninth nine (‘unchangeable’) is never continued, as the eleventh line (‘swell’), which the Shakespearean form dictates should rhyme with the ninth line, doesn’t rhyme fully. These create a sort of volta effect, emphasized by the strong determined word ‘No’, and followed by a caesura to create a pause, emphasizing the new change. This creates a lean towards the Petrarchan sonnet form, in which the volta lies at the beginning of the sestet, rather at the heroic couplet of the Shakespearean sonnet. This is made clearer as the first two quatrains deal with the subject of immortality by examining the star and how it watches down on Earth, while the final quatrain and couplet, or the sestet, which now has the rhyme scheme of EFGFHH, deal with how Keats instead wishes to be with his lover instead. The effect of the merged sonnet forms creates a free and lively mood which feels unconstrained and more natural. It also makes the sestet livelier, not only due to extra rhyme whic... ... middle of paper ... ... imagery, as both meanings could describe Keats longing, as he could wish to remain for as long as possible in the embrace of his lover, but also how he could wish to continue to hear her ‘tender-taken breath’, in which the alliteration portrays his lover as beautiful and inviting, further showing how Keats now prefers the life of reality. He forgets about the impossible, and being immortal and being alone, but rather embraces the temporary and exhilarating. Keats presents his feelings on how he no longer wishes for impossible goals, and how it is much more preferable to enjoy life as much as possible. It is of no use longing for things we cannot have, and so we must learn to live with the myriad of things we already have, of these one in particular appeals to Keats: the warmth of human companionship and the passion of love. Works Cited John Keats, Bright Star
Keats, John. “The Eve of St. Agnes”. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
The poet John Keats, who writes “Bright Star” and the poet Robert Frost, who wrote “Choose Something Like a Star” both share a common writing style which is shown through the similarity in the theme, structure and other poetic devices in their poems.
John Keats’s Bright Star and Robert Frost’s Choose Something Like A Star in which they compare the desirable, admirable, and undesirable qualities of a star with aspects that are relevant to their lives. Although Frost’s Choose Something Like A Star and Keats’s Bright Star are similar, they differ in to whom the poem is speaking to and what each author wants from the star itself and in literary devices such as structure, syntax, diction, and imagery.
While Lord Byron's poem enhances the beauty of love, Keats' does the opposite by showing the detriments of love. In “She Walks in Beauty,” the speaker asides about a beautiful angel with “a heart whose love is innocent” (3, 6). The first two lines in the first stanza portray a defining image:
To conclude it has been firmly established that Keats had a profound ability to use literary techniques. Throughout his all his Odes he uses a variety of different devices, bringing forth our senses of taste, sight, smell, hearing and touch, creating an overall unique sensual experience. In reading his poetry I have gained a new found adoration and insight to the world of poetry. Reading deeper into the use of certain words and images has demonstrated that each word is as important as the previous, or next in this establishment of arousing ones senses. The world of sense has truly been evoked throughout Keats masterpieces.
Keats finds the most beauty in what can be, rather than what is. It is a statement that, once I heard it, rang entirely true in my life: the beauty of potentiality is that there is never a solid answer, and any number of truths can at once be a reality. The piper can thus play a tune that rings wonderfully in everyone’s ear, and the motives of the man chasing the woman stay pure because he has yet to consummate his desires. The actual act has difficulty living up to our imagination—but the potential always leaves final satisfaction up to us.
John Keats is an early nineteenth century Romantic poet. In his poem “When I have Fears that I May Cease to Be,” Keats makes excellent use of a majority of poetry elements. This sonnet concentrates merely on his fear of death and his reasons for fearing it. Though Keats’ emphasizes his greatest fear of death, he offers his own resolution by asserting that love and fame lacks any importance. Keats uses articulate wording to exemplify his tone, while using images, figures of speech, symbols, and allegory to illustrate his fear of death. His use of rhythm, sounds, and patters also contribute to his concentration of fear and the effects on his life. As one of the most famous Romantic poets, John Keats utilizes the elements of poetry in “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be” to convey his fears and allow the reader to realize how much these fears affect him.
The first stanza begins with Keats painting a picture of Autumn as being a “season of mist and mellow fruitfulness”. This is used in conjunction with the use of the image of a “maturing sun” which ripens the Autumn harvest of views and the fruits. The excessiveness of the Autumn harvest is achieved with the use of hyperbole. He describes the fruit being ripened to the core, the gourds are swelled, the hazel nuts plumped and trees bend from the weight of the apples. So the first stanza describes quiet vividly the fullness and abundance of life.
Arguably one of John Keats’ most famous poems, “Ode to a nightingale” in and of itself is an allegory on the frail, conflicting aspects of life while also standing as a commentary on the want to escape life’s problems and the unavoidability of death. Keats’ poem utilizes a heavy amount of symbolism, simile and allusion to idealize nature as a perfect, almost mystical, world that holds no problems while using imagery taken from nature, combined with alliteration and assonance, to idealize the dream of escape from the problems life often presents; more specifically, aging and our inevitable deaths by allowing the reader to feel as if they are experiencing the speaker’s experience listening to the nightingale.
The first stanza is crowded with sensual and concrete images of nature and its ripeness during the first stages of Autumn. Autumn is characterized as a “season of…mellow fruitfulness” (1). It is a season that “bend[s] with apples the mossed cottage-trees” (5), “fill[s] all fruit with ripeness to the core” (6), “swell[s] the gourd, and plump[s] the hazel shells” (7), and “set[s] budding more” (8). The verbs that Keats uses represent the bustling activity of Autumn and also reflect the profusion of growth. Autumn also acts as the subject of all the verbs, indicating its dynamic behavior. Furthermore, the multitude of these images depicting the ripening of nature contributes to the sense of abundance that characterizes the first stanza. The stanza also contains many short phrases, again calling up images of abundance. Keats, through his use of sensual imagery, draws readers into the real world where there will ultimately be decay and death. The sound devices in this stanza further develop the sensual imagery and...
In order to experience true sorrow one must feel true joy to see the beauty of melancholy. However, Keats’s poem is not all dark imagery, for interwoven into this poem is an emerging possibility of resurrection and the chance at a new life. The speaker in this poem starts by strongly advising against the actions and as the poem continues urges a person to take different actions. In this poem, the speaker tells of how to embrace life by needing the experience of melancholy to appreciate the true joy and beauty of
In “Ode to A Nightingale,” a prominent significance to Keats is his idea of the conflicted interplay in human life of living and death, mortal and immortal, and feeling versus the lack of feeling or inability to feel. “The ideal condition towards which Keats always strives because it is his ideal, is one in which mortal and immortal,…beauty and truth are one” (Wasserman). The narrator plunges into a dreamlike state when hearing a nightingale sing. As the nightingale sings, he shares its elation and feels the conflicting response of agony when he comes down from his dreamlike ecstasy and realizes that unlike the nightingale in his imagination, “Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird,” his life is finite (61). “Where palsy shakes a few, sad last gray hairs, where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies” (25-26).
Keats presents a stark contrast between the real and the surreal by examining the power of dreams. For the narrators of each work, dream works as a gateway to the unconscious, or rather, a more surreal and natural state of mind. Keats presents the world as a place where one cannot escape from his/her troubles. For the narrator in “Ode to a Nightingale” he attempts to artificially medicate himself as a means of forgetting about the troubles of the real world which cause him to feel a “drowsy numbness” (Ode to a Nightingale 1) which “pains / My senses, as though of hemlock I had drunk,” (1-2). The narrator, seemingly in search for both inspiration and relief, drowns out these feelings through an overindulgence in wine as a way to “leave
When talking about poetry and Romanticism, one of the most common names that come to mind is John Keats. Keats’ lifestyle was somewhat different from his contemporaries and did not fit the Romantic era framework, this is most likely the reason he stood out from the rest. Keats wrote many poems that are still relevant, amongst them Ode to a Nightingale, which was published for the very first time in July, 1819. The realistic depth and lyrical beauty that resonates in Ode to a Nightingale is astounding. Though, his career was rather short, Keats expressed a deep yearning to rise above misery and celebrate life via his consciousness and imagination. Themes of life and death play out in a number of his poems. This essay seeks to discuss Keats’s representation of mortality and immortality, specifically in his poem Ode to a Nightingale.