John Keats uses often uses pain and suffering in his poetry and blends this with sensuous delight and pleasure but pain and suffering are not always paradoxically a source of poetic pleasure in his work.

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        John Keats uses often uses pain and suffering in his poetry and blends this with sensuous delight and pleasure but pain and suffering are not always paradoxically a source of poetic pleasure in his work.

        A good example of Keats using pain and suffering, as a form of poetic pleasure is “Ode On Melancholy” (Roe 67). This poem is about pleasure and pain and starts in the first stanza with pain. In this stanza there is a lot of diction to do with depression. The stanza contains many words telling the reader not to turn to narcotics when depressed. These words of depression and pain include “Lethe”, “Wolf’s bane”, “ Nightshade” and “Beatle” (Roe 67). “Lethe” is one of the rivers of hell, “Wolf’s bane” is a dull yellow plant, “Nightshade” is a plant with poisonous berries and a “Beatle” is an ugly insect. This diction shows the depressed mood of the first stanza and is an argument against a good life and all the pleasurable things in it. This is summed up by the final line of the stanza “And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul”, which shows Keats feels a good experience usually brings intense anguish.

        Stanza two tells the reader four things that should be done when melancholy strikes. Melancholy means “Sadness and gloom” (Makins 339). But before these four solutions to melancholy are given the mood of the stanza is set up with the simile “Like a weeping cloud” (Roe 67). This shows emotion and that melancholy can make you cry. Keats four solutions to melancholy are shown in the final six lines of the stanza. The main idea of them is try to enjoy the bad experiences that follow the good. Try to enjoy a lover’s anger even when it seems impossible, as the person will not be a lover forever. These solutions lead into the final stanza, which shows why Keats feels you should make the most of all moments, as pleasure will never last. This is shown by the phrase “Aching pleasure” (Roe 67). Keats then blends pleasure and pain with the metaphor: “Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:” (Roe 67). The bee sucks sweet nectar, which is a pleasurable experience but this turns to poison which brings pain and suffering. This shows that pain and suffering are a source of poetic pleasure in Keats poetry.

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        In the final part of the poem Keats asks the question if it is worth experiencing pleasure when all that follows is pain and suffering. Keats feels that only those who experience pleasure will suffer from melancholy. The line “His soul shall taste the sadness of her might” (Roe 67) shows that nothing can be done once pleasure has turned to pain. This is similar to the knight’s situation in “La Belle Dam Sans Merci” (Roe 58) where the knight can’t do anything about his situation. The lines which show this are “ And this is why I sojourn here / ...

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