Keats, Beauty and Romance

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  • Keats, Beauty, and Romance
    • On the Sea
      • Divine Imagery
        • "mighty"
          • Powerful and godlike. Contrasts with peacefulness of previous imagery. Both peaceful and powerful at the same time.
        • "til the spell of Hecate"
          • Greek goddess of the moon (sea), night, ghosts.
        • "the winds of Heaven"
          • Aeolus - god of winds. Peaceful god-like sea. Unleashed power. Highlights power and magic
        • "as if the sea-nymphs quired!"
          • Personification of the Romantic experience. Romanticism will trap you and put you in danger (?)
            • Link to King Lear
      • Emptiness
        • "gluts... caverns"
          • Nature fills the caverns and people up. Makes people feel complete. Essential part of Keats' human experience
        • "old cavern's mouth"
          • More imagery of emptiness. We are the caverns and we want to be full of nature and wonder and love and inspiration.
        • "desolate"
          • Empty beach. Not enough people are seeing it. Lives are empty without beauty and nature
      • Sibilance, Alliteration & Cacophony
        • "whisperings.. desolate shores... shadowy sound"
          • Sibilance - waves, peaceful. Melodic and hypnotic
        • "eye-balls vexed and tired"
          • Medical. Cacophonous. Keats' medical history. Pain or discord.
        • "twice ten thousand"
          • Routine alliteration. Rhythm of the sea, in and out, dependable.
    • La Belle Dame Sans Merci
      • Nature as Inspiration
        • "withered"... "no birds sing"... "harvest's done"
          • When it is winter, the Knight is without inspiration. Winter could be representative of writers' block, science, etc.
        • "relish sweet... honey wild, and manna dew"
          • Nature provides the two characters with food. It inspires life in everything
        • "i made a garland for her head"
          • When nature is back to life, Keats is able to create. Nature serves as his inspiration
      • Romanticism Allows for Magic
        • "a faery's child"... "a faery's song"
          • Link to the Faerie Queene. La Belle Dame is supernatural and lives in nature. Keats sees nature as something magical
        • "elfin grot"
          • A beautiful and magic sanctuary. Keats feels that Romanticism will not question magic and beauty.
        • "and there I dreamed" (Magical dream - phenomenon)
          • The dream is a magical phenomenon. Keats sees nature and Romanticism as something powerful and otherworldly. It gives the Knight an epiphany like it has to Keats in poems such as Nightingale and Bright Star!
    • Ode to a Nightingale
      • The Nightingale
        • "light winged dryad"
          • The Nightingale has freedom and can fly away. Has been compared to a Greek nymph, something of great beauty and almost otherworldly. It is able to transcend.
        • "immortal bird, no hungry generations tread thee down"
          • Keats wants to be immortal like the bird. Could be immortal because it's part of Nature. It is safe from the greed of the Industrial Revolution
        • "still woudst thou sing"
          • The Nightingale is representative of nature, which will carry on living long after Keats is gone. It is, in a sense, immortal
      • Tranquil Natural Imagery
        • "of beechen green"
          • Green = life, growth, comfort, nature and fertility. Keats feels totally at peace in nature
        • "incense" "fruit-tree"
          • The land of the Nightingale has an abundance of nature-induced beauty and is an eutopic image of euphoria for Keats
        • "past near the meadows, over the still stream"
          • Even Keats' real life contains perfect natural imagery and is one of the things that convinces him to stay alive
      • Escaping Science
        • "dull opiate"
          • Keats is looking for any way to escape the modern world and his knowledge of death. He wants to use drugs or alcohol to numb the pain - both of which are natural and do not traditionally come from science
        • "weariness, fever and the fret"
          • Keats sees the modern world as full of illness and worry. He wants to transcend and escape into nature with the Nightingale
        • "half in love with Easeful Death"
          • Keats is desperate to escape a world that is burdened with science and the Industrial Revolution - but he also wants to stay because he loves nature and Romance

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