Unlike Byron who was a lord, and Shelley who belonged to an aristocratic family, Keats came of a poor family, and at an early age he had to work as adoctor’s assistant. But his medical studies did not stand in the way of his passion for writing poetry which was roused by his reading of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, which revealed to him the vast worldof poetry. He also became interested in the beauty of nature. His first volume of poems appeared in 1817 and his first long poem Endymion in 1818, which opened with the following memorable lines:A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;Its loveliness increases; it will neverPass into nothingness; but still will keepA bower quiet for us; and sleepFull of sweet dreams, and healthy, and quiet breathing.This poem was severely criticised by contemporary critics, which must have shocked Keats. Besides this a number of other calamities engulfed him. He had lost his father when he was only nine; his mother and brother died of tuberculosis, and he himself was suffering from this deadly disease. All these misfortunes were intensified by his disappointment in love for Fanny Brawne whom Keats loved passionately. But he remained undaunted, and under the shadow of death and in midst of most excruciating sufferings Keats broughtout his last volume of poems in the year 1820 (which is called the ‘Living Year’ in his life.) The Poems of 1820 are Keats’ enduring monument. They include the three narratives, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and Lamia: the unfinished epic Hyperion; the Odes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and a few sonnets.In Isabella Keats made an attempt to turn a somewhat repellent and tragic love story of Isabella and Lorenzo, who was murdered by Isabella’s brothers, into a thing of beauty by means of fine narrative skill and beautiful phraseology. In Lamia Keats narrated the story of a beautiful enchantress, who turns from a serpent into a glorious woman and fills every human sense with delight, until as theresult of the foolish philosophy of old Apollonius, she vanishes for ever from her lover’s sight. The Eveof St. Agnes, which is the most perfect of Keat’s medieval poems, is surpassingly beautiful in its descriptions. Hyperion which is a magnificent fragment deals with the overthrow of the Titans by the young sun-god Apollo. This poem shows the influence of Milton as Endymion of Spenser. La Belle Dame Sans Merci, which captures the spirit of the Middle Ages, has a haunting melody. Though small, it is a most perfect work of art.Of the odes, those To a Nightingale, On a Grecian Urn and To Autumn stand out above the rest, and are among the masterpieces of poetic art. In Ode to a Nightingale we find a love of sensuous beauty, and a touch of pessimism. In Ode on a Grecian Urn we see Keats’s love for Greek mythology and art. It is this Ode which ends with the following most memorable lines in the whole of Keats’s poetry.‘Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty’,--that is allYea know on earth, and all ye need to know.The Ode to Autumn, in which Keats has glorified Nature, is a poem which for richness and colour hasnever been surpassed. Though Keats died young, when he had attained barely the age of twenty-five, and had only a few years in which he could effectively write poetry, his achievement in the field of poetry is so great, that we wonder what he might have accomplished if he had lived longer. For a longtime his poetry was considered merely as sensuous having no depth of thought. But with the help of his letters critics have reinterpreted his poems, and now
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 18:07:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015