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How does keats reflect on romanticism
How does keats reflect on romanticism
How does keats reflect on romanticism
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In Ode to Psyche by John Keats, the speaker addresses the goddess, Psyche and implores her to hear his ‘tuneless’ words. By calling his words tuneless, he is beginning the poem by being self-deprecating and flagellating himself, which he does often in his work. Keats was an English Romantic poet. This is one of six odes that Keats composed in 1819, a couple years before he passed away of Tuberculosis. The form of this five stanza poem is more loosely structured than his other odes. The stanzas vary in rhyme and metrical scheme and the number of lines is irregular. Due to his disease, he was unable to travel and was well read from being confined indoors. Also, because of his confinement and his inability to personally explore nature; his unique perspective and imagery was shaped by literature and …show more content…
This poem exemplifies Romanticism through passionate imagery, “Mid hush 'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed/ Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,/They lay calm-breathing, on the bedded grass” (Keats 191). The speaker has either seen or dreamed that he has seen the winged goddess Psyche while he was wandering in a forest. Keats personifies flowers and gives them breath. He also has them ‘lay,’ which is an atypical description for flowers because they grow upwards from their roots. Keats gives body and breath to these plants, while also reaching the senses of smell, sight, and touch. The flowers are sexualized, like a woman’s body, as they lay on the ‘bedded’ ground. These images further the scene that the speaker imagines, which is “two fair creatures, couched side by side/ In deepest grass, beneath the whisp 'ring roof” (Keats 191). He’s able to elicit the sights and sounds of humanity, through nature, which he masters at a young age. The roof is also personified by speaking softly. He’s placing human qualities on objects like the roof and flowers, instead of the two creatures, which gives the poem a greater
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
Nature’s beauty has the ability to both entice its audience and frighten them. Mary Oliver in her passage explains her experiences with the two sides of nature. Her experiences with the owls elicit both an awe response and a frightened one. In connection, her experiences with a field of flowers draws a similar response where she is both astonished by them and overwhelmed. Oliver’s complex responses display the two sides of nature. It's ability to be both captivating yet overwhelming in its complexity. In “Owl” Mary Oliver uses descriptions of nature demonstrated by owls and fields of flowers in order to convey her complex responses to the two sides of nature.
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Readers of Keats’ poetry have long spoken of the enchanting power of his language, and in one of his most famous works, “The Eve of St. Agnes”; the reader is positively enchanted by the protagonist, Madeline. She’s pure, virginal, positively otherworldly, and “seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest” (Keats 77). Madeline also displays trappings of religious symbols throughout the work. She is called a “Mission’d spirit and a “seraph fair” (Keats 72-3). The reader could scarcely read the poem without immediately associating Madeline with the most divine cherubs in Heaven. Her virginity is repeatedly mentioned and referenced; even her room, or the maiden’s chamber, is “silken, hush’d, and chaste” (Keats 76). Young Porphyro with “heart on fire” for Madeline simply couldn’t resist this angel (Keats 71). One might connect that, similarly, young John Keats could not resist his own angel, Fanny Brawne. At the time of the composition of “The Eve of St. Agnes” Keats was heavy in the thralls of his engagement to Fanny. In her book, John Keats: The Making of a Poet, Aileen Ward proclaims “The Eve of St. Agnes” to be "the first confident flush of [Keats's] love for Fanny Brawne" (Ward 310). However, if Madeline is meant to be a manifestation of Fanny Brawne, Keats must not think of his fiancé as merely an angel, but something more.
There are many different themes that can be used to make a poem both successful and memorable. Such is that of the universal theme of love. This theme can be developed throughout a poem through an authors use of form and content. “She Walks in Beauty,” by George Gordon, Lord Byron, is a poem that contains an intriguing form with captivating content. Lord Byron, a nineteenth-century poet, writes this poem through the use of similes and metaphors to describe a beautiful woman. His patterns and rhyme scheme enthrall the reader into the poem. Another poem with the theme of love is John Keats' “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” meaning “the beautiful lady without mercy.” Keats, another nineteenth-century writer, uses progression and compelling language throughout this poem to engage the reader. While both of these poems revolve around the theme of love, they are incongruous to each other in many ways.
The air has a distinct sweetness as even the natural world seems to lead the couple down the road with ‘the honey breathing heather’ that lay to their left and right making it appear as though the air is thick with sweetness. While the repetition of the ‘h’ sound gives the poem an airy quality and reminds the reader of the alliteration of ‘west wind’, again drawing attention to the way the natural world appears to be encouraging the couple. ‘Her swift feet seem to float’, the soft alliteration of the ‘f ‘adds to the feeling of ease and floating while the repetition of the ‘t ‘sound at the end of each word adds to the quickness of the descent as the words are articulated cleanly and smoothly.
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
This poem helps us to recognize and appreciate beauty through its dream sequence and symbolism. The poem opens with the Dreamer describing this
Keats begins with the poem with a question, “O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?”. He does this to ask the “knight-at-arms” what has made him this weak, this pale, dying in a field somewhere and the knight’s answer takes up the rest of the poem. The imagery in my visual representation depicting a heart broken and weakened by the icy, deceptive lips of ‘femme fatale’ is both powerful and highly symbolic because it expresses the coldness and the deviousness of the deceptive witch that has weakened the knight. The icy cold lips of the witch symbolise her deceptive nature, and the way she tricks the knight into a deathly sleep, which is also visualised in my representation. His deathly sleep is also represented in a ‘before/after’ representation in which an image of the beautiful woman in the meadows is shown, and after his nightmare, the icy cold, desolate and dark hill side upon which the knight awakes is shown in the neighbouring image. The speaker says that the "sedge" have all died out from around the lake, and "no birds sing”. We can deduce that it 's autumn since all the birds have migrated, and the plants have “withered." The speaker continues to address this sick, depressed "knight at arms." He asks about the "lily" on the knight 's "brow," suggesting that the knight 's face is pale like a lily.
From the very title we find that this “Ode” is different. It is the “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” as opposed to “Ode to a Nightingale,” or “Ode to Psyche.” The word “on” provides a little more interpretive flexibility. On one hand, the word on can be taken to mean “about” or “concerning,” suggesting that this is an ode about a Grecian Urn. This is in fact true. However, it can also suggest that this ode is taking place quite literally on the Grecian Urn—the ode itself would therefore not be Keats’ own poetry, but the actual Urn. This interpretation is backed up by in Stanza I. when Keats calls the Urn “Sylvan historian, who canst thus express / A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme” (lines 3-4). The urn can express the tale more sweetly because it presents the ode without the passage of time. Thus all the paintings are forever frozen and ever becoming, and any fulfillment would betray potential.
Many literary critics have observed that over the course of W. B. Yeats’ poetic career, readers can perceive a distinct change in the style of his writing. Most notably, he appears to adopt a far more cynical tone in the poems he generated in the later half of his life than in his earlier pastoral works. This somewhat depressing trend is often attributed to the fact that he is simply becoming more conservative and pessimistic in his declining years, but in truth it represents a far more significant change in his life. Throughout Yeats’ career, the poet is constantly trying to determine exactly what inspires him; early on, in such poems as “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and “The Wild Swans at Coole,” Yeats obviously looks towards nature to find his muse, thereby generating idyllic pastoral scenery that is reminiscent of the nature-based poetry of Wordsworth. However, his later works are darkened not by his own perspective, but by the fact that he is no longer certain that nature is truly the fountain that he taps for inspiration. A number of his later poems, such as “Leda and the Swan” and “The Circus Animals’ Desertion,” employ symbolism and metaphor in order to reflect the author’s battle to find his true source. Yeats spends his career dealing with this conflict, and he eventually concludes that while nature itself may have been the source of the general ideas for many of his poems, the works themselves came to life only after he reached into the depths of his heart and sought the fuel of pure human emotions and experiences. Ultimately, he discovers that the only true inspiration comes from the trivial and mundane influences found in everyday life; the purest poetic inspiration is humanity itself.
In “I wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” William Wordsworth accomplishes his ideal of nature by using personification, alliteration, and simile within his poem to convey to the reader how nature’s beauty uplifts his spirits and takes him away from his boring daily routine. Wordsworth relates himself in solidarity to that of a cloud wandering alone, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” (line 1). Comparing the cloud and himself to that of a lonely human in low spirits of isolation, simultaneously the author compares the daffodils he comes across as he “floats on high o’er vales and hills” (line 2) to that of a crowd of people dancing (lines 3-6 and again in 12). Watching and admiring the dancing daffodils as he floats on by relating them to various beauties of
Figurative language is used by William Wordsworth to show the exchange between man and nature. The poet uses various examples of personification throughout the poem. When the poet says:”I wandered lonely as a cloud” (line 1),”when all at once I saw a crowd” (line 3), and “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (line 6) shows the exchange between the poet and nature since the poet compares himself to a cloud, and compares the daffodils to humans. Moreover, humans connect with God through nature, so the exchange between the speaker and nature led to the connection with God. The pleasant moment of remembering the daffodils does not happen to the poet all time, but he visualizes them only in his “vacant or pensive mode”(line 20). However, the whole poem is full of metaphors describing the isolation of the speaker from society, and experiences the beauty of nature that comforts him. The meta...
I can picture him seeing life and feeling it in every flower, ant, and piece of grass that crosses his path. The emotion he feels is strongly suggested in this line "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Not only is this showing the kind of fulfillment he receives from nature, but also the power that nature possesses in his mind.... ... middle of paper ... ...