Poignant And Emotional Letter Displays Keat example essay topic

(1) When considering the volume, quality and maturity of his compositions, one could be forgiven for picturing John Keats as a figure of great stature striding across the pages of great English poetry of the romantic period. In truth, he was a sickly figure, barely five feet tall, who died prematurely at the age of twenty-six from tuberculosis. His work was not critically acclaimed, nor was he considered among the senior poets during his lifetime. However, his great self-confidence, evident from his letter to his brother George "I think I shall be among the English poets after my death" (October 1818), allied with his supreme talent and sensitivity, resulted, albeit posthumously, in his being included amongst the truly great in his field. This confidence is even more surprising as he wrote the aforementioned letter to inform his brother of some particularly hostile reviews of his work. Keats was born in London in 1795, the son of a livery stable manager and the eldest of four children.

His father died when he was eight years old, and his mother, of Tuberculosis, when he was fourteen. After finishing school he was apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary and then moved to Guys hospital in London as a student eventually being granted a licence to practice as a surgeon-apothecary. A year later he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to the writing of poetry. When his brother George emigrated to America Keats nursed his younger brother Tom, until he died of tuberculosis in 1818. At the age of 23 Keats met, fell in love with, and subsequently became engaged to eighteen year old Fanny Brawne, who was living in Wentworth palace at the time, where Keat's friends Charles and Maria Dikes were also resident, but as his doctors had already diagnosed the Tuberculosis from which he would prematurely perish, and also his poor financial situation, they were destined never to marry. Some of his love letters to Fanny Brawne subsequently became as famous as his poems, not least, one written from Rome less than one year before his death.

This particularly poignant and emotional letter displays Keat,'s intense and unwavering love for her. .".. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the grace fullest... even if you did not love me I could not help an entire devotion to you: how much more deeply then must I feel for you knowing you love me... ". (March 1820). Although it is known that Keats and Fanny often embraced and also exchanged verbal endearments it is not known if they ever enjoyed a sexual relationship.

The fact that in one of his letters, written to Charles Brown, when he was dying he says "I should have had her when I was in health, and I should have remained well. I can bear to die-I cannot bear to leave her" would seem to suggest that their relationship was not consummated. (2) In both his letters and poetry Keats had a great sensitivity towards, and obvious love of, the natural world in its entirety. This is evidenced by the vast amount of natural imagery and countless descriptions of animals and plants present in his work. his powers of observation in respect of this are remarkable, not only because of their intensity and accuracy, but the way in which the poet links human activity with the world of nature. "The grass, the thicket, and the fruit tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral elegant ine; Fast adding violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child.

The coming Musk-Rose, full of dewy wine, The murderous haunt of flies on summer eves". (Ode to a Nightingale) "Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river's allows, born aloft, Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies... ". (To Autumn) Quite obviously Keats was acutely aware of the forces within nature, the "otherness" of the world of nature and the links between the sensitivity of humankind and the sensations abounding in the natural world.

Images also played a large part in the works of keats, "I never lik'd the stubble fields so much as now... Aye better than the chilly Green of the Spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks warm... in the same way As some pictures look warm... this struck me so much that I composed upon It". (Letter to Reynolds September 1819) The above extract plainly shows the origins of "To Autumn" Keat's letters are an illumination on his life as a whole, and in the vast majority of cases the background from which his poetry emerges. He immortalized the beauty he loved and his personal tragedy and suffering in his poems. These things are all echoed in his letters which are, ultimately a mirror image of himself.

(3) John Keats was a master in the use of rhythm and rhyme, personal experience and tragedies, together with a good knowledge of historical events and mythology, and great use of imagery and emotion within his poetry. For instance, the opening line of "Ode to a Nightingale". In just three small words:" My heart aches... ".

He managed to convey to the reader an image of utter desolation, immense pain and sorrow. Later on in the third stanza of the same piece of work, he drew on personal tragedy, the death of his younger brother Tom, five months earlier, from the same tuberculosis that killed his mother and afflicted him, "Here, where men sit and here each other groan, Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre thin, and dies... ". This is one of Keat's most highly emotive and deeply harrowing passages. It is achieved with stunning use of language and imagery. It is difficult to imagine someone writing such words without having experienced deeply emotional and personal tragedy.

Another side of keats is revealed in his letters, his political stance, his hatred of tyranny and his sympathy with those enduring great suffering and loss. He went so far as to outline his views on the French revolution and it's consequences for England in one of his letters to George and Georgina Keats. Keats skilful use of imagery is once again in evidence in his poem "Hyperion", "Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as stone, Still as the silence round about his lair, Forest on forest hung about his head, Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summers day Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.

A stream went voiceless by still deadened more By reason of his fallen divinity, Spreading a shade, the naiad 'mid her reeds Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips... ". (4) where he creates an extremely oppressive scene of stillness and silence which conveys the loss of Saturn's power and creativity. As the dead leaf falls to rest and the stream goes by silently the sense of gloom and silence becomes tangible and the naiad who presses her cold finger to her lips gives rise, in the reader, to an overwhelming sense of numbness and cold.

Imagery is further put to good use in "Ode to a Nightingale"Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple stained mouth... ". One can almost see and touch the wine. John Keats died a painful death from tuberculosis in Rome in 1821, after doctors tried to starve the disease from him.

He remembered words from a play "Pilaster, or Love Lies-A bleeding, by Beaumont and Fletcher in 1611, "All your bitter deeds shall be in water writ" and told his friend Thomas Severn, that he wanted on his grave, as an epitaph, the one line "Here lies one whose name was writ in water", and it was so. During his short, some might say tragic life, Keats developed a profound philosophy about his life and place within the universe and society, which he used extensively in his poetry, They were inseparable from his life. He devoted most of his life to the perfection of poetry marked by vivid imagery, great sensuous appeal and an attempt to express a philosophy through classical legend. He was not recognized during his lifetime as one of the senior poets, but has since been accorded that well earned accolade. He suffered great personal tragedy during his brief life, which, ironically, has contributed greatly to the brilliance of his works.