Keats Attitude Towards Nature

Keats is one of the greatest lovers and admirers of nature. In his poetry, we come across exquisitely beautiful descriptions of the wonder sigts and senses of nature. He looks with child-like delight at the objects of nature and his whole being is thrilled by what he sees and hears. Everything in nature for him is full of wonder and mystery - the rising sun, the moving cloud, the growing bud and the swimming fish.

But Keats is not only the poet of nature. Infact, all the romantics love and appreciate nature with an equal ardour. The differnce is that Keats's love for nature is purely sensous and he loves the beautiful sights and scenes of nature for their own sake, while other romantics see in nature a deep meaning-ethical, moral or spiritual. For example, Wordsworth claims that nature is a moral guide and universal mentor. Coleridge adds stangeness to the beauty by giving it supernatural touch. Shelley, on the other hand, intellectualizes nature. Byron is interested in the vigorous aspects of nature and he uses nature for the purpose of satire.

So, the attitude of all other romnantics towards nature is complex, but Keats' attitude is simple. He does not try to find any hidden meaning in nature and he describes it as he sees it. He loves nature for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else.

As pains and sufferings are the part and parcel of man's life,therefore,to forget his personal sorrows. He indulges in the world of natural beauty. As in the "ode to Nightingale", Nightingale and he becomes one, his soul sings in the bird which is the symbol of joy. The song of the bird transfers him into the world of imagination and he forgets his peronal sorrows in the happy world of the nightingale:

Fade for away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leave hast never known,

The weariness the fever, and the fret

Similarly, in "Ode to Autumn" he looses himself in the loveliness of autumn. He lives wholly in the present and does not look back to the past or look forward into the future. In that state of mind, he asks:

Where are the song of spring? Ay where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too

Keats' description of nature is very beautiful and he, infact, paints the pictures with words. He is greatly impressed by Spensor and specially his "Fairie Queen.