"In many of his poems Keats starts out from the familiar and everyday but quickly takes off into different territory" - In light of this comment, explore Keats' poetic methods in "Ode to a Nightingale".

"In many of his poems Keats starts out from the familiar and everyday but quickly takes off into different territory." In light of this comment, explore Keats' poetic methods in "Ode to a Nightingale" On examination of Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" it is possible to advocate the potential contention of the hypothesis. For, whilst it may be argued that the poem terminates in the "familiar" and "everyday", the first few lines intimate nothing of the like; rather Keats alludes to a sense of inebriation, evoked by the transcendental beauty of the bird's song. By line four the destination is indubitably reached as Keats describes himself as having sunk "Lethe-wards". The use of the classical allusion is commonly identified as something of a Keatsian leitmotif. The appeal lies in the gain of a subtle facet in implication. Here, for example, "Lethe-wards" refers to the river of the lower world from which the shades drank in order to forget the past. There are two possible lines of interpretation, first; in illustrating a slip from conscious thought, second; in conveying the penetration of another world, its foundation lying in myth. This particular form of imagery remains prevalent throughout the poem, indeed within the subject matter itself: According to legend; Philomena, following her rape and torture, was transformed into a nightingale. Thus, the creature is

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  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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"Keats characteristically gives visual form to the idea that human life is soon over"Do you agree? You should base your answer on: 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and a poem of your choice.

"Keats characteristically gives visual form to the idea that human life is soon over" Do you agree? You should base your answer on: 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and a poem of your choice. John Keats is well known for his escapism-based poetry. Critics argue that this escapism is Keats way of escaping life and death, the latter, a subject well experienced by the poet. However, this could also be the basis behind Keats attitude that human life is 'short-lived.' Loosing his father at the age of eight and his mother to tuberculosis at fourteen, it is perhaps no wonder that he has this attitude. Within the poems 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and 'To Autumn' Keats gives visual form to the idea that human life is soon over. He does this through detailed descriptions of sensation. In both 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and 'To Autumn' Keats begins with an apostrophe, addressing both with respect. Personifying the Urn, Keats praises it. He calls it the "foster child of... slow time" and this shows the greatness of immortality against the mortality of human life. This comparison highlights Keats belief that human life is too soon over. Keats in 'To Autumn' personifies the autumn, however not for the same reason. He appears contradictory to his attitude in 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' portraying short life as a good thing. Throughout the poem Keats visually illustrates the abundance of the autumn. He

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On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer John Keats was a famous romantic poet from England. He was born on 31 October 1795 in Moorfields, son of the manager of a livery stable. His parents died when he was young so he had to live with his brothers and sisters. He began writing poems in 1814, when he was about 19 years old. Keats left school in 1811 to be apprenticed to the surgeon Thomas Hammond. After four years he registered as a student at Guy's Hospital. A year later he abandoned medicine to write poems all this life-time. Keats didn't stop writing poems, even when he was nursing his brother Tom that was ill of tuberculosis. During this time Keats wrote "Isabella". He wrote many poems which are still regarded as classics, including "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "The Eve of St. Agnes." He spent his whole life writing more than 30 poems and died of tuberculosis in Rome in 1821. John Keats first great poem was written on the subject of one of his inspirations, Homer. One of Keats' schoolteachers, Charles Clarke, introduced him to the George Chapman translation of Homer. Clarke and Keats stayed up all night reading Homer's translated works and after Keats got home he sat down and wrote the first poem, which he finished the next morning and posted to Clarke in the mail. That poem was called 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'. In this Keats makes particularly effective use of

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Predominately within Keats poetry one must indeed note the antithetic relationships between reality and ideals, rationality and imagination, physical sensations and logical reasoning.

Predominately within Keats poetry one must indeed note the antithetic relationships between reality and ideals, rationality and imagination, physical sensations and logical reasoning. The conflict between beauty and sensation and the clarity of intellect and reason was felt keenly by Keats, to whom true perception was the purity of sensation, free of any intellectual restrictions. Keat's was not simply a poet who longed for a life of sensation rather than thought, but was a man who desired sensation rather than the factual truth. To Keats the sensual imagination was the core of experience and unlike intellectual analysis, it was the abject imagination that brought intensity to all things; "...the imagination has pleasures more airy and luminous than those of sense, more massive and rapturous than those of the intelligence of the pure intellectuals who hunger after truth." (George Santayana quoted in 'Introduction to Keats' William Walsh 1991, Meuthuen Press, Pg 78) Yet in ordinary life Keats could not be described as a sensual person, content with the privations and life of a hermit he maintained in the world. Keats was a platonic poet to whom ideas and abstractions were his life, having a lucid perception of essences and sensations. Furthermore, Keats concept of imagination as a power closely associated with sensation, intuition and a visionary insight; "apprehended a

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Comparison of Two Poppy Poems By Sylvia Plath.

SHABNAM ABUBAKER ENGLISH LITERATURE 2001 COMPARISON OF TWO POPPY POEMS BY SYLVIA PLATH When looking at the titles of the two poems "Poppies...." I automatically think of the war. This is because poppies are a symbolism of the war and are sold every year at the time that the war occurred. It is a symbolism of all the people that died, sort of like sympathy for them. This could relate with, or it could be about the war. Also when I looked at the pomes again I thought of flowers and how beautiful they are. I have noticed that I had the same reaction with "Tulips", as it meant two different things. The first poem "Poppies in October", also was quiet surprising at the though of the poppies appearance so late in the year, like a surprise gift. This is presumably intentionally contrasted with the second poem "Poppies in July", as this is the time for Poppies. The poppy could be represented as an unexpected gift because of the blistering red colour of them. I found out that the 'July' poem was written just when her marriage was about to break up, so the 'October' one could suggest that this break up was a surprise to her. Both the poems are very short, which suggests not having much to say which could relate to pain and loneliness. The first poem is divided into five parts, each with unequal lines and breaks. The second one is also divided into eight

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What is Keats's attitude towards Love and Philosophy?

Claire Gittoes What is Keats's attitude towards Love and Philosophy? From studying Keats poems it is apparent that Keats's has a number of different Philosophies. These philosophies can be defined as his beliefs and assessments on life. As poet this meant that these values and attitudes were conveyed in his writing. However, Keats being a human being his views and opinions about life were constantly changing in tune with his feelings. After all he was young and did not want to be defined by a system and certainly did not want to be tied down by a woman. Ultimately Keats wanted to be free, hence his idea about negative capability. Occasionally, Keats's work does agree with his recorded philosophies and these clashing seems to match Keats's own conflicted views on life and death. One may argue that Keats is somewhat hypocritical in not having the ability to strictly adhere to his theories on poetry, but when you consider Keats's view of poetry to be a larger metaphor for life and mortality, the deviations are justifiable. Keats's poetic philosophy, as explained in his letters and poetry, contains contradictions that are difficult to explain, he has quite strong views and attitudes, which can be seen in his poetry. Nevertheless, "Of all the Romantic poets Keats is in some ways the most amenable to being read for his 'philosophy.'" It could be argued that this is because there

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John Keats - Ode on Grecian Urn

John Keats Ode on Grecian Urn "Keats as a poet is abundantly and enchantingly sensuous", Arnold affirms as he sets out to prove that Keats, though lacked fixed purpose, was in his pursuit of Beauty on his way towards something moral and whole some. Indeed the virtue of Keats's poetry is that he does not philosophize. Unlike some of his romantic contemporaries, he escaped the imposed facts of the world into a sort of "sensuous mysticism" of Beauty. This fact has been, also, emphasized by Arnold when affirms that "Keats's yearning (strong) passion for the Beautiful is not a passion of the sensuous or sentimental poet. It is an intellectual and spiritual". Keats himself claimed that had he been strong enough, he would have lived alone and pursued his quest for Beauty: "I have loved the principle of Beauty in all things. I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affection and the truth of the imagination". Such facts help us to reach the conclusion that Keats was that kind of poets for whom the world of beauty was a kind of shelter or a refugee; an escape from the dreary and painful effect of ordinary experience. W. H. Hudson affirms that "with [Keats] poetry breaks away from the interests of contemporary life, returns to the past, and devotes itself to the service of beauty". This kind of interest, and such background is quite relevant to the theme and subject

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The imaginative journey.

The imaginative journey transcends physical boundaries, occurring in the realms of our minds as a vast source of inspiration limited only by its own genius. Through the imaginative journey and the spiritual growth that it offers, composers hope to effectively challenge our way of thinking and broaden our understanding of the world. The representation of an effective imaginative journey contains universal aspects, detailed in The Town Where Time Stands Still by Shirley Goek-lin Lim, evident in all texts as varied as Coleridge's poems, Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds by Ray Bradbury and Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats. The Town Where Time Stands Still describes any journey as the "search for the genii loci", that is the search for spiritual meaning in destination. Through the "purer realm of travel", a metaphor for the imaginative journey, travellers through an "unconscious, compulsion" seek "to be moved rather than to move". Lim's definition is one which encompasses all imaginative journeys, especially those of Coleridge, where the "external geography" of the physical realm often catalyses the more important spiritual journey of the "internal psychology" that occurs within the realms of our imagination. In Kubla Khan, Coleridge portrays the external geography of 'Xanadu' through juxtaposed images of "sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice". The contrast of 'holy

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Deep sleep allows the body an escape from time, achieving physical and psychological rejuvenation.

Deep sleep allows the body an escape from time, achieving physical and psychological rejuvenation. Various stages of the sleep process pass sequentially before reaching deep sleep. Robert Frost's poem "After Apple-Picking," clearly describes the troubled reality of one individual's inability to reach deep sleep. The consequences are distressing and exhausting dreams that consume physical and psychological energy. The speaker in "After Apple-Picking" characterizes his dreams as intense and haunting in a sleep stage called "human sleep." He yearns to reach a deep state of sleep to gain physical and psychological renewal. Frost uses the term "woodchuck sleep" to represent this sleep stage. Critic Roy Scheele refers to "woodchuck sleep" as "completely forgetful sleep" (Scheele 148). The speaker is locked into "human sleep" and experiences intense work dreams. The third, fourth, and fifth lines of the poem reflect his shortcomings that are manifested in the intense work dreams. The first is an empty barrel he did not fill. The second is two or three apples he did not pick upon some bough. In the speaker's dream state he obsesses about every single apple he did not harvest. These reflections of his shortcomings represent a lack of personal worth and inability to achieve goals. These reminders are agonizing to him. His only desire is to pass this dream state into

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In both Sidney's Astrophel and Stella XXXIX, and Keats' To Sleep, sleep represents this kind of escape for the speakers.

It is a time-honoured and universal truth: there come times in every person's life when circumstances can prove too much to bear, and all they desire is to escape and retreat from the world for a period. In both Sidney's Astrophel and Stella XXXIX, and Keats' To Sleep, sleep represents this kind of escape for the speakers, one from his situation, and the other from himself. The deep need of each voice to pull away from his world is fully translated in the sonnets through both the formal and thematic structures of the poems, as well as through the lexicon and poetic devices of each. Both the formal and thematic structures of the poems demonstrate how important the need to escape is for each of the voices. In Sidney's Astrophel and Stella XXXIX, the poem is in the form of a sonnet, with a rhyming scheme abababab-cdcd-ee. The poet uses this form to emphasize the desperation felt by the speaker to feel free of the turmoil in side him. The first body of rhymes, making up eight consecutive verses, represents the actual conflict raging in the mind of Astrophel. It is a high-energy group, filled with short phrases ("The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release") contrasting with longer, more powerful statements ("Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw"). This especially long series of rhymes illustrates to the listener how utterly consumed Astrophel is with this conflict.

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