Scarica Essay about JOHN KEATS e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! JOHN KEATS Part of Keats's genius is that he manages to use beautiful, sensuous language and vivid imagery to express a range of profound tensions like death, the attempt to escape from the harsh world of reality, the quest for happiness and/or beauty in art and nature, and the search for permanence in a transient world. At the start of the poem “On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer” Keats tells us that he's no backwater bumpkin; he's read lots of books and seen all the different worlds that authors can create. Particularly, he's heard and read a lot about the world of the ancient Greeks and all the surrounding areas. He's even heard of Homer. That's just a set-up, though, as he explains that he never truly experienced that world until he read Chapman's translation of Homer's work. When he read that book, it was a moment of pure discovery. He tells us that he felt like an astronomer who just discovered a new planet in his telescope, or like the explorer who stood on the western edge of the Americas and looked out on the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Way to knock it out of the park, Chapman. “Much have | travell'd in tne realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;" There's a metaphor right off the bat. What are "realms of gold"? Well, a couple of things, most likely. From the title, we understand that he is talking about the realms of literature and art. He's saying that he's read a lot of books in his day, but hadn't seen nothing until ol' Chapman came around. But he's also setting up some of the imagery of an explorer, which he will return to at the end. The new world was the place explorers went to seek fortunes, particularly on the look-out for precious metals. It's important to see this verb from Keats: "travell'd." (This is just an abbreviation of "travelled," in case you're wondering.) At this point in his life, he hadn't made any significant trips. He hadn't seen any of these things. But in the wonderful world of poetry, we don't call that fraud, we call it metaphor. And really, we've all felt that way—a great book, a great movie does have the power to take us to a whole new place. In “Where | Have Fears” Keats' speaker contemplates all of the things that he wants in life: namely, success, fame, and love. C'mon, is that too much to ask?Well, as it turns out, the speaker is pretty sure that it is. See, he doesn't want just any old fame. He wants Fame. Capital letters and neon lights. He doesn't want just any old love, either. He wants that soul-stripping, earth-shaking, sky-tumbling once-in-a- lifetime sort of rapture. To sum it all up, he wants to be the star of pretty much every romantic movie ever.Here's the problem: the speaker is also pretty sure that his life will end long before he'Il be able to achieve any of these goals. That's why his description of his desires is so tinged with desperation — chances are, his life will be over far, far too quickly. This poem charts both the speaker's desires and his despair (in that order). Come to think of it, the poem doesn't exactly end on a happy note. “Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness," He talks to the urn as if it were a beautiful woman, like many people do nowadays with their cars. He calls her the "unravish'd bride of quietness," which, if taken literally, would mean that the urn is married to a guy named Quietness. But wait — urns can't get married, so he probably just means a really old pot and quietness go hand in hand. Imagine the speaker standing in some big, empty room of a museum, and it's easy to see where the quietness thing comes from. “Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
