Keats 'Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art'
- Created by: Holly8988
- Created on: 05-01-20 11:16
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- 'Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art'
- Form/ structure
- Shakespearean sonnet
- One of the great sonnets
- One of the last poems he wrote before his death
- Original copy written on blank page at the back of the poetical works of Shakespeare - shows inspiration and indebtedness to him.
- Italian sonnet in terms of structure - shift doesn't come at the end of line 12. A curious blend of English and Italian sonnets.
- About being steadfast/permanenet/ robust enough to stand strong and be unwavering. Draws on metaphorical potential of a star which is steadfast.
- "Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night / And watching, with eternal lids apart"- gives reasons why the star is steadfast, but the reasons why he doesn't like its steadfastness. Eternal suggests a kind of grandeur about the star & an innocence and purity.
- Humanity by contrast is impure -> why he likes the innocence the star provides.
- "The moving waters at their priestlike task / Of pure ablution round earth's human stores"
- Ablutions - religious rite of cleansing to rid of impurity. These cleanse humanities' shores - humanity is sinful and impure.
- Uses ascetic, religious imagery - e.g. monk or nun shuts themselves away from experience and richness of life.
- Keats would not like life of a hermit - removing himself from the world means a removal of sensuousness and nature e.g. all things that give him joy.
- "No - yet still steadfast, still unchangeable"
- Takes everything he previously expressed and reverses it.
- "Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, / To feel for ever its soft swell"
- "ripening" - imagery drawn from natural world like fruit or flowers blossoming. Image of growth & nourishment he is attracted to.
- "swell" - sensory pleasure of feeling her breath. He wants to remain on Fanny's breast & wants warm, sensuous imagery of the last 6 lines.
- "awake for ever in a sweet unrest"
- "sweet unrest" - oxymoronic phrase. Likes unity of piano and pleasure - rich sensory experience. becomes sweet sharing the unrest of Fanny.
- "Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath"
- repetition of 'still' - freq used by Romantic poets. First 'still' means motionless, second 'still' mean continuing. The ambiguity.
- Form/ structure
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