John Keats and His Romantic Poetry

Romantic Poets reject worldliness and the vulgar material world. Unlike the neoclassical poets, one striking feature of the romantic poets, for example, John Keats, was his belief in the importance of imagination. Keats said, 'I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination - What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.' For poets like him, they believe that imagination is the holy force or a sword of poets. Poets believe that literature and especially poetry with imagination can make a better world (Bate, 1963).

John Keats and His Poetry of the Romantic Era

John Keats is a romantic poet of the 19th century. As a “romantic”, his wish is to convey a vision that covers all the experience of good and evil, short and eternal through his poetry. Keats's poetry is characterized by sensual images, the most famous of which is the series of odes. This is a typical romantic poet because their purpose is to emphasize extreme emotions by emphasizing natural images. Keats advocates a spiritual world, and he is more willing to draw a dramatic picture of life with an outsider attitude. He shows his interest in real people who play various roles in real life. Keats developed the belief that the world was 'the valley of the soul' and that there was no other way. Critics say Keats's tendency is to discover new and enduring values, not so much to convince us that the world is full of suffering and oppression but to summon up the courage to accept that it is full of joy, health, and freedom (Gittings, 1970). These belong to others, but as long as we strive for them, they can also belong to us. The essence of Keats' thought and art is to give us the courage to believe that others are happy and to be genuinely happy about it. Keats believes that imagination can create everlasting and real art. But the imagination only exists in the human brain, which means it has limits. It is limited by this decadent world. I think this is why Keats prefers a spiritual world rather than worldliness and the vulgar material world. In the vulgar material world, it doesn’t have things that Keats is longing for.

Imagination in Keats’ Poetry

In Keats’ poem, we can find that they are full of imagination. For example, in the poem "La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad," Keats’ imagination got fully leashed. “She took me to her elfin grot and there she wept and signed full sore, and there I shut her wild wild eyes with kisses four. And there she lulled me asleep and there I dreamed -Ah! woe betide!-The latest dream I ever dreamt on the cold hill side. I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried - ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci Thee hath in thrall!’ I saw their starved lips in the gloam, with horrid warning gaped wide, and I awoke and found me here, on the cold hill’s side.” Keats told us a story about falling in love with a faery and finally finding out it is a dream. The language of this poem is French, originally the name of a song from Provence, France. Poetry is written in the form of folk songs. The poems are simple, the words are simple, the rhythm is simple and full of temptation, but it is not only a story that is common in folk songs but a colder, more attractive, filled with medieval feelings. At that time, the relationship between Keats and Fanny was developing rapidly. However, there are many doubts on the surface of the story.

The meaning of poetry never stops at the interpretation that beauty attracts men and leads them to destruction. I believe this poem has been interpreted as a metaphor for the torture of the disease and the premature death of the young, the confession of the poet's own fascination with his own poetry, and the anxiety of the love with Fanny and the death of Keats’ brother (Motion, 1997). Based on his background, we know that he is poor. He doesn’t even have money to marry Fanny. So, I think imagination is also a way of escaping the real world for Keats. He can immerse himself in his imaginary world with things he loves. In his poem "Ode on Melancholy," in general, Keats talks about the shortness of beauty and joy, and joy can become the pain. Even if joy exists, it is also a kind of 'painful pleasure.' Under this insight of life, the poet casts an ominous glimpse of human survival: the pleasure of human beings is susceptible to pain, or the inevitable orientation of pain is confusing. In his poems, Keats explores the tragic feelings of melancholy, which can breed on beauty and desire and turn them into opposites. “She dwells with Beauty -Beauty that must die; And joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips' (Keats, 1820).

Anthropomorphism in Keats' Poetry

In the performance of poetry, Keats did not let himself appear in the poem as the real subject. The main body of poetry is anthropomorphic, such as 'melancholy', 'joy', 'beauty', etc., which are inevitably gone, melancholy from the moment of joy, and joy is the lack of melancholy moments. Personalized emotions bring strange feelings and philosophical reflections in constant transformation and circulation. Keats uses his imagination to create a peculiar world that bears his understanding of happiness and suffering. Keats expresses his unique opinion that comes from his earlier artistic experience and understanding through his imaginary world and also hinted at how he dislikes the vulgar material world (Vendler, 1983).

Conclusion

We can summarize that Keats paid more attention to constructing a fantastic imagination world by using imagery, which means he also dislikes worldliness and the vulgar material world. He tries to live in his imagination to chase things that he thinks are true beauty and art. Keats not only left many knowledge legacies for the British people and the people of the world with his beautiful poems but also made an important contribution to the development of English literature (poetry) with the influence of his poetry.

References

• Bate, W. J. (1963). John Keats. Harvard University Press.
• Gittings, R. (1970). John Keats: The Living Year. Heinemann.
• Keats, J. (1820). Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems.
• Motion, A. (1997). Keats. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Vendler, H. (1983). The Odes of John Keats. Harvard University Press.