What are the key themes of Keats’ poetry?
- The real and the ideal
- The transient self v permanent art
- Negative capacity
- Antithesis
- Tragic genre
Explain the real and the ideal.
- Keats grappled the relationship and possible disparity between ideals such as beauty and truth and how they manifest in the real world.
- Came down to issues of perception.
- Keats was completely dedicated to the ideal of beauty, a seeming abstract concept and sceptic concept.
- Link to idealism. How the ideal and the external reality are complex, and how suffering and death are unavoidable.
- Often art and poetry is seen as an escape from realism.
How does Lamia incorporate the theme ‘the real and the ideal?
- The supernatural beauty of Lamia can never be real- it is an ideal, a construct of the mind. Thus it is bound to wither in the cold light of rationalism.
- Keats was perhaps expressing his pessimistic view of idealism.
How does the real and the ideal relate to The Eve of St Agnes?
- Keats proposes the ideal could actually exist in the real.
- Initially, the sad disparity between idealised beauty and the real world seems to be asserted- on waking, Madeline is distraught to the seemingly different appearance of the real Porphyrio to the one she had seen in her dreams.
- However, Porphyrio’s beatific passion when he is United with her could show how religious intensity with which we can view idealised beauty is manifested in the real world in the consuming experience of the senses and sexual love.
Explain ‘The transient self vs permanent art.’
- Mindfulness of the transient nature of existence and how humans are doomed to die.
- He views art as a way in which the individual, whose existence is finite, could achieve a semblance of immortality.
- Keats viewed true art as a thing which could defy the limits of time.
- Art holds a permanence which will never succumb to time.
How is ‘the transient self vs permanent art’ reflected in La Belle Dame Sans Merci?
- The pitiless lady of LBDSM is an allegorical/symbolic representation of the artistic muse (a source of inspiration), which has a hold over the night.
- Unable to extricate/free himself from the enduring hold of artistic inspiration, the knight is doomed to sacrifice his own existence to the altar of art.
How is negative capacity described by Keats in a letter to his brothers in 1817?
‘When a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching for after fact and reason.’
How does negative capacity relate to subjectivity?
- Keats advocates acceptance of the individual’s limited subjective experience, while at the same time being open to the world.
- Instead of a fixed and monolithic subjectivity, Keats wishes to fluidly interact with a variety of experiences.
- Keats is more concerned with how the exterior things reflect on the interior subjectivity.
How is negative capacity reflected in La Belle Dame Sans Merci?
- The role of the speaker, often in poetry used to convey the inner feelings of the individual, is relegated to the role of questioning and involving itself with the figure of the lone knight.
- The poetic voice merely functions as a device by which we can engage with the knight, and so its usual role is subverted.
Define ‘antithesis’.
- A proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together for contrasting effect.
- This is based on the logical phrase or term.
How does Keats’ poems generically relate to antithesis?
Keats often bases his poems around oppositions, complicating relationships between seemingly opposing ideas.
How does Lamia relate to antithesis?
- We see the tragic consequences when the discrepancies between appearance and reality are made clear.
- In the beginning they are one and the same- Lycius faithfully believes that Lamia is what she appears to be.
- When this false appearance is broken, the revelation is so violent that it kills Lycius.
How does ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ relate to antithesis?
- It is full of strong parallels which strengthen the poem’s sense of symbolism.
- The opulent scenes of merriment and warm atmosphere at the feat contrast the cold, bare surroundings of the Beadsman’s retreat.
- The relationship of the lovers exist in antithesis to the feudal power structure and the political feuds between the families.
- The vital sexuality seems to offset the terminal, sterile inaction of Angela and the Beadsman. But the two older characters die like the younger ones.
Why does Keats use conceptual polarities/ antithesis?
Used to engage the reader more fully with the sentiments he is trying to communicate, and engage them with the poem’s central ideas.
How are conceptual polarities seen in La Belle Dame Sans Merci?
- We see the polarities of death, love and sexual attraction paradoxically manifest in the figure of the lady.
- While in the odes the ideas of mortality & immortality, transience & permanence, subject & object are juxtaposed, contrasted, and questioned.
How does Lamia subvert the Aristotelian tragedy?
- The tragic hero of Lamia may start from a position of majesty and power and an hamartia being her love, but her status in many ways is complicated.
- When she first meets Lycius, her power seems almost seductive in a sinister way, and she is continuously untruthful.
- Her subsequent discovery might thus be seen as just deserts for her duplicity.
What are features of an Aristotelian tragedy?
- It mimeses real life, and its primary aim is to inspire pathos in the reader/audience through their identification with the trials of the hero.
- The tragic hero must have a high and noble social status, but ultimately experience a downfall due to their hamartia.
- The downfall inspires catharsis in the reader/audience.
Define ‘pastoral idyll’.
Meditation on the beauty of the visible world, and stimulates the poetic spirit.
What is neoclassicism?
- 1660 and 1798 marked a return to the classic Greek and Roman conventions of poetry.
- Major characteristics included the use of allusions, the heroic couplet, strict meter and rhyme, and topics discussed in the public sphere.
- In direct opposition to Renaissance attitudes, where man was seen as basically good, the Neoclassical writers portrayed man as inherently flawed.
