John Keats(1795-1821) belonged to the second generation of the Romantic Age. He is famous for his odes which are written in 1819. His influences as a poet emerge from his famous odes beacuse of his unique writing skills. His writings embody the Romantic essence of negative capability, hellinism, sensuousness, imagination , interconnection between man and nature, beauty, medievalism and others.
The important essence of Keat’s poem is the spirit of medievalism. “The Eve of St.Agnes”(1820) shows the influences of Spenser as it is written in Spenserian Stanza and set in a medieval castle and medieval beliefs. Madeline’s assurance of her ritual rites and fasting to enable a vision of her lover is a clear reflection of the medieval cultural beliefs and the sensuous touch is dived in the poem when Porphyro makes her dream come true.
The faculty of Keatsian imagination in the poem of “The Eve of St.Agnes” is the connection between conscious and unconscious creative mind through the representation of conflict between thought and feeling. It is the thought of Madeline’s belief to see a vision of her lover in her dream and the feelings of Porphyro for her which enabled her dream to come true shows the imaginative faculty that connects the realm of unconscious to conscious mind. Keats stated in his letter to his friend Benjamin Bailey “The imagination may be compared to Adam’s Dream- he awake and found it truth”.
The application of hellenism is important with Keats and are usually drawn from Greek images and objects. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a classic example weaved with Greek imageries and hellenistic writings where the sequential images on the urn are frozen in time. The depiction of “Sylvan” , “Tempe” and the “dales of Arcady” reflects the the Greek natural landscape and beauty of the Urn which are objectified to represent the timeless existence of Greek culture.
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” shows the Romantic maturity of the concept of beauty. Romantics believed that the beauty is the ultimate truth to perceive the world and to comprehend the world of nature. The concept of beauty is interconnected with life as a pictorial sets of images that provides some cognitive insights into culture and life of the Ancient Greece. Thus, the beauty remains immortal in the form of an image and the concept of such immortal beauty evokes the truth of life which the urn provides as he suggests “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”.
Keat’s coined the term negative capability which is the ability to negate oneself and objectify oneself in a particular object. It is about substracting one’s self and objectifying in the other objects to portray objectively. “Ode to a Nightingale” is a beautiful poem where Keats is able to negate himself and objectify himself in the melodious voices of a nightingale that eases his pain. He further highlights the desire to taste the “draught of vintage” which is of “flora and the country green ” to aid him to leave the world and fade away to the wrold of a nightingale.
Keats was considered as a sensuous poet. The sensuousness comes from his use of senses that he applies in his poems to soothe his subjective emotions and sprouts the pleasure from it. “Ode to a Nightingale” exemplifies the ideal world in the realm of nightingale where he feels the immense pleasure as he states “the flowers are at my feet” neither intoxicate the fumes of “what soft incense hangs upon the boughs”. Furthermore , he highlights the elevation of the senses which connects to the past the voice of the nightingale had been heard “In ancient days by emperor and clown” and diminishes the pain of “the sad heart of Ruth” as it had a “charm’d magic ceasements” on the listeners.
Romantic poems are subjective in its essence and expresses poet’s own personal emotions and personality. “ode to Autumn” is the finest ode that expresses Keats own personal emotions. The images in the poem imbues the objectified personal emotions of Keats. The image of “maturing sun” shows the poet’s own personal emotion delineating his life to an old age as he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and an impending death. Keats own personality is also evoked when he highlights that the flowers that will bloom later will be feed upon by the bees and shall think of unending “warm days”. The image shows a clear picture of Keats greatest works will bloom after the autumn season as “summer has o’er- brimm’d their clammy cells”.
Hence, in conclusion John Keats was the finest Romantic poet. His classicism shows very much influenced from Homer and Edmund Spenser. He had placed himself as a great Romantic poet in the English literature. His writings are shows much insights into the essence of Romantic poems and he was original in his aspect of writing with his own development of negative capability which he induced in his six great odes.
