John Keats Sonnet Analysis

For my sonnet project, I’ve been researching more in-depth with the origins of sonnets and how they came to be. I’ve been looking at how they came to be during the Romantic period especially, since that is the period of time in which Keats produced his poetry. Some of the problems and issues that I still want to pursue for my project have been how the sonnet is uttered. Since the sonnet is a type of lyric, I’ve been looking into how the sonnet seems to be a more intimate ordeal as opposed to the lyric which was usually performed. Specifically how a poet can articulate a fourteen lined poem that can identify with whoever is reading it. If it even can identify with a reader or if it could strictly be one with the poet only. The introduction to

I’ve learned that Keats was a fond lover of nature and going through his sonnets, I can see how that influenced him. I think since Keats was so known, as I’ve been learning, for his love for nature, I wanted to focus more on his more morbid sonnets. I want to see the more emotional depth put into them and his utterances in the sonnets. I want to focus on the sonnets where he’s questioning his mortality and death. I definitely plan to focus on “When I have fears that I may cease to be” in my project. After reading through his 64 sonnets thoroughly, I compiled a list of other sonnets that I thought fit the category. They are: “After dark vapors have oppressed our plains,” “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles,” Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell,” and “Sonnet to sleep.” And I might even add “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou artk I thought these sonnets had a gloomier aspect than his nature sonnets or his dedication ones, like “To My Brothers,” “To Leigh Hunt, Esq.,” for example. I thought he had quite a few of love sonnets as well, “Oh! How I love, on a fair summer’s eve,” or “Ah! who can e’er forget so fair a being,” and since the theme of love is such a big part of sonnets, I wanted to focus on another emotion that goes into crafting them. I thought that the fact he was dying so young from

In Dubow’s article, I got both sides of the argument but I still want to analyze and look further into it. Romanticism seemed to be the time in which a sonnet moved past being simply a love poem and focused more on other emotions and events, such as death, nature, politics, deeper appreciations for things, imagination, and just overall a more heightened focus on the human condition. I’ve been researching just how that all has affected the sonnet as a lyric. The issues my project is researching is just how the sonnet is a lyric. How a sonnet is read as a lyric, as well. The Dubrow article has been specifically helpful in starting to resolve these issues because of the way it presents both the lyric and the sonnet (and how the sonnet is a lyric.) There’s still a bit confusion as to how a sonnet can and can’t be a lyric, according to Dubrow’s article. I’m researching how the sonnet transformed during the Romantic period and more than just how it became more emotionally in depth. I want to focus on those sonnets I mentioned where Keats focuses on a gloomier subject as opposed to nature or love or even his letters he wrote to his friends and