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What is keats’ personal philosophy on life and death as depicted in some of his works, especially “ode on a grecian urn” – and now “ode to a nightinga...
Keats attitudes towards death
The poetic works of henry wadsworth longfellow
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A Comparison of “When I Have Fears” and “Mezzo Cammin” When asked, many people would say that their biggest fear is death. That was the same for the Romanticism poet John Keats and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a later poet whom was heavily influenced by the Romanticism movement. John Keats experienced death early in life with the passing of both his parents and later the passing of his brother from tuberculosis. Keats too unfortunately passed away at only twenty-one years old, but not before writing some of the most known Romantic poems to date. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow first experienced death with the passing of his beloved, Mary, and later the passing of his second wife, Fanny. This led him to start writing poetry in the first place where …show more content…
Keats fears that he will not be able to accomplish all that he wants to do but he also recognizes how big and grand the world has become and does not want to leave it just yet. Through this recognition he realizes that his goals are meaningless compared to the grand scheme of life. Keats is grateful for the love and passion that he has already experienced and his regret is that he will no longer be able to experience it. Longfellow is regretful of his inaction in his past that is haunted by sorrows and death and thinks that he does not have a future. His overall tone of death is fearful and grim while Keats’s is more appreciative. Similarities in the poems lie in their beginnings, both of which have resentfulness towards the short-lived nature of life. Keats’s fear of ceasing to be parallels Longfellow saying, “half of [his] life is gone”. Keats uses the repetition of the word “before” as an anaphora to emphasize his concern of passing away before he can obtain his literary goals or utilize his opportunity to “ripen the full grain” (College Board). Similarly, Longfellow too expresses his failure to “fulfill the aspiration of [his] youth, to build, Some tower of song with lofty parapet.” The overall tones and emotions of each poem are similar but each underscores different situations and
Baron, forlorn in the loss of his Madeline. Does Keats merely make tribute to this classic idea of
Time is endlessly flowing by and its unwanted yet pending arrival of death is noted in the two poems “When I Have Fears,” by John Keats and “Mezzo Cammin,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Keats speaks with no energy; only an elegiac tone of euphoric sounds wondering if his life ends early with his never attained fame. He mentions never finding a “fair creature” (9) of his own, only experiencing unrequited love and feeling a deep loss of youth’s passion. Though melancholy, “Mezzo Cammin,” takes a more conversational tone as Longfellow faces what is commonly known as a midlife crisis. The two poems progressions contrast as Keats blames his sorrow for his lack of expression while Longfellow looks at life’s failures as passions never pursued. In spite of this contrast, both finish with similar references to death. The comparable rhyme and rhythm of both poems shows how both men safely followed a practiced path, never straying for any spontaneous chances. The ending tones evoking death ultimately reveal their indications towards it quickly advancing before accomplish...
Peoples’ personal life experiences usually affect the topic of their work. John Keats was a famous poet who grew up in an idyllic life until tragedy continuously stroked until his death at twenty-five years old. At eight years old, his father died in a tragic riding accident. Six years later, his mother died of tuberculosis (TB). In the midst of his troubles, his teacher strongly encouraged his reading and literacy ambitions. Living next to an insane asylum, Keats eventually started to develop physical and emotional problems. Diagnosed with TB, Keats helplessly watched his beloved brother die from the final stages of the same disease. Furthermore, he was unable to marry his fiancée, Fanny Brawne. Drawing from his individual experiences, Keats wrote very vividly about the pains and suffering he was going through. He expressed his unfulfillment as a writer, his love and struggles, the fleetingness of life and happiness, and his inner conflicts. Jack Stillinger writes, “It is this combined experience of suffering, death, and love all at once, against a background of serious conversation, reading, and thinking, that accounts for Keats's sudden rise to excellence in his poetry” (qtd. in Everett). All of Keats’s life experiences combined to make works of arts that could only be inspired by individual human experiences. John Keats’s background directly affects the topic of his works in order to realistically articulate his feelings in poetic form.
...agery artistically to creatively examine, whether death really is the end of all humanity or whether life was merely purgatorial, a period of time allocated on earth for the purpose of atoning for our sins just like the ‘purgatorial rails’ in this poem. Alternatively it can be argued that religion is not life affirming and only death reveals, the indoctrinatory nature of religious teachings. For example the ‘sculptured dead’ were ‘imprisoned in black’ connoting everlasting torment. It almost contradictorily argues that faith on one hand is a sufferance gladly taken by citizens so they may reap their rewards in the afterlife but on the other hand Keats is demonstrating how religion is restricted and there is really no life after death. This is interesting because it controversially subverts conventions of the time that he was writing in.
...tion between loneliness and death. The first three lines of each stanza in this poem generally have four feet, while the last line have only two or three. This change calls attention to the last line, in which Keats makes references to images.
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.
Keats’ poetry explores many issues and themes, accompanied by language and technique that clearly demonstrates the romantic era. His poems ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Bright Star’ examine themes such as mortality and idealism of love. Mortality were common themes that were presented in these poems as Keats’ has used his imagination in order to touch each of the five senses. He also explores the idea that the nightingale’s song allows Keats to travel in a world of beauty. Keats draws from mythology and christianity to further develop these ideas. Keats’ wrote ‘Ode To A Nightingale’ as an immortal bird’s song that enabled him to escape reality and live only to admire the beauty of nature around him. ‘Bright Star’ also discusses the immortal as Keats shows a sense of yearning to be like a star in it’s steadfast abilities. The visual representation reveal these ideas as each image reflects Keats’ obsession with nature and how through this mindset he was able
One of our greatest fears is the fear of death. Immortality is something any of us would take in a heartbeat, so we do not have to face death. But this is something that we cannot run away from. Mortality is an unpleasant thought that sits in the back of our minds form our day to day lives. Yet, this fear is something that is developed more over time as we grow older. Children believe that the world is such a wonderful place, they fell invincible. They also have wonderful creative skills and imaginations which is often revealed to us when they can play one game for hours at one time. Yet, as a child ages, this imagination and creativity can disappear. This is what William Wordsworth is terrified of. Wordsworth is an English poet as well as his colleague Samuel Taylor Coleridge published the first edition of Lyrical Ballads and it changed everything as mentioned Evelyn Toynton, “In early 1798, Coleridge and a little-known poet named William Wordsworth decided to publish a joint volume of their poems.” (Toynton, Evelyn). William expressed this fear of premature mortality of the imagination in each of his works, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, The Prelude, The World is Too Much with Us, and London, 1802.
Throughout Keats’s work, there are clear connections between the effect of the senses on emotion. Keats tends to apply synesthetic to his analogies with the interactions with man and the world to create different views and understandings. By doing this, Keats can arouse different emotions to the work by which he intends for the reader to determine on their own, based on how they perceive it. This is most notable in Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, for example, “Tasting of Flora, and Country Green” (827). Keats accentuates emotion also through his relationship with poetry, and death.
Imagery and symbolism merged to express his imagination, he became a unique poet in an evolving world where Romanticism was quickly expanding globally, not into a movement, but a way of thinking. Keats’ mother and brother, and eventually he too, passed away of tuberculosis. At the time of his brother 's passing, he developed ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’. ‘La Belle’ expressed Keats’ intellect and creativity, although at the same time he himself expressed his angst and depression for the loss of his brother. His poem ‘Bright Star’ was written in a part of his life in which a woman had influenced Keats’ greatly, so much in fact that he was driven to write ‘Bright Star’ in appreciation and celebration of the love of his life. These poems reflect Keats’ intellect, originality, creativity, and his ability to merge the contextual aspects of his life and his imagination with the ideals and concepts of Romanticism to create powerful
Keats was inspired by spring to create his previous odes; this is because they were written in the spring of 1819. Spring is usually associated with inspiring music, because it represents a time of optimism and rebirth. “The speaker’s mentioning of the spring in the beginning of the third in Keats’s poem signals that spring is associated with the rebirth of the sun and thus with youth, whereas autumn with sunset and old age.”(Karadas 104) Thus we see the images in the third stanza are all associated with the dark. This achieved by he image of the “barred clouds” blooming and “the soft –dying day” (line 25). However, by focusing primarily on autumn and then implementing the idea of spring in the last stanza; Keats cre...
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
However, once he hit his second stanza was written the message of encouragement allowed itself to flourish, and gave way to a splendid involving poem. Throughout the poem the words dark, dreary, wind, weary and day were used repeatedly, this is an obvious choice of words to lend to the ear of the reader to give them a thought of his own visions of melancholy existence. But also at the end you can tell where his thoughts began to liven and his small but reoccurring voice of reason and hope chimed in to relieve the poem of encapsulating despair, the mention of past memories in the second stanza mimics that of the third line in the first stanza that talks of clinging vines, and is an accompaniment to the already established emotion. Longfellow’s The Rainy Day compared to other authors or even Longfellow’s own works; may be a shorter, less complicated poem, but what it has is a simple, pure and I dare to say it; raw feeling of time, place and
The following two poems “A Psalm of Life” and “ The Tide Rises, the tide Falls” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s, both share a common theme of death. The main philosophical point of the poem “ A Psalm of Life”is to live life to the fullest rather than just allowing life to pass by. The main philosophical point of the poem “ The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” is that people come and go but and that the memories that they have left soon begin to disappear and forgotten over time. Although these two poems share the theme of death they both show a different way they see death and the mood. In the poem “ A Psalm of Life” he doesn’t really think of death instead he lives in the moment and the mood in the poem is encouraging and hopeful. Rather than in the poem “ The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” he is accepting the fact that you cannot fight death that it will happen sooner or later and the mood is more calming.
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.