The voice I hear

The voice I hear this passing night was heard
     In ancient days by emperor and clown:

                          from  Ode to a Nightingale  

It was amazing that when I visited John Keats House on 20 April, I heard the birds sang loud and clear on the trees behind the House. I immediately thought of this Ode. It was already past almost 200 years and more since John Keats lived here and wrote this Ode. The world had been changed so much! And the birds still sing here that is just wonderful.

I walked on the heath that John Keats had walked before. The trees are here as well as the ponds. It is quiet and peaceful as like 200 years ago. I walked on the Well Walk too.

When I am getting older, I find things are changing!! Even the earth and the mother Nature are changing too. May be what is not change is Change itself. So this moment is valuable because there will not be the same moment again. Fom this point of view, we all will pass into history. But when reading John Keats, I connect to his present moment. Just like reading the Ode to the Nightingale, I felt the feeling of John Keats and shared his thought. That made John Keats became my friend, a very close friend for me cause I can read into his heart when I read his poetry and his letters. And I can share my feeling and thoughts here related to him. I feel so good to know him and become a friend of John Keats.

As when, upon a tranced summer night,

As when, upon a tranced summer night,
Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
Save from one gradual solitary gust
Which come upon the silence, and dies off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave;

                               Hyperion Book 1  line 72-77

I like these few lines which gives me a very serene atmosphere of a very dark and quiet night under huge tall trees in a deep forest. I like John Keats's poetry for it can lead me deep into the nature with solitude and a simple existance and content. I like the way he described the air, the sound, and the stillness.

What was your dream?

"What was your dream? Tell it me and I will tell you the interpretation thereof."

                                                         Letter to Fanny Brawne on 8 July 1819

Is John Keats the first one, ahead than Sigmund Freud to talk about the Interpretation of Dreams?
John Keats use the word-'dream' a lot in his letters:

" (talking about Mr Brown's coming back)--it broke in upon me like a Thunderbolt-I had got in a dream among my Books--really luxuriating in a solitude and silence you alone should have disturb'd--"
                                                        
                                                       letter to Fanny Brawne on 6 August 1819

" My sweet Fanny,
      On awakening from my three days dream ( 'I cry to dream again" ) I found one and another astonish'd at my idleness and thoughtlessness---"

                                                       Letter to Fanny Brawne on 19 October 1819

Dream is a very fascinating matter in our life and John Keats mentioned it a lot. Either he dream about something or used it as a way to tell about his ideas in poetry or as a metaphor to express his feeling and thought. Later in my blog, I would like to talk more about these. Now I would like to share about my dream.

I found these few months, I had some special dreams which were quite different from what I usually have. I remembered one which was about three weeks ago, the dream was like a movie totally out of my life context. In the dream, I was completely an other person, not the I. And I could finish my dream and then awake and remembered what my dream was and had the feeling and the idea that this was absolutely a new kind to dream to me. It was very interesting!

Then last Saturday, I had an other dream which I found it can be put into a plot of a movie about the friendship of two women from their teenage to their middle age.

What was your dream? Do you interprete your dream? I will share my dream tomorrow and then talk about my interpretation.

The sensuous luxury of Romance vs The bitter-sweet of Tragedy

Sonnet on Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

O golden tongued Romance, with serene lute!
    Fair plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!
    Leave melodising on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for, once again, the fierce dispute
    Bwtwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
    Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit:
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
    Begetters of our deep eternal theme!
When through the old oak forest I am gone,
    Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But, when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.

This is the sonnet Keats's critics used to tell the two stages of his Poetry: from sensuous luxury Romance to the realistic bitter-sweet of Tragedy like Shakespeare's King Lear.

Regarding to the change of Keats's poetry mentioned above and the Shakespearen Keats we talked about yesterday, I would like to keep quoting Beth Lau's essay here cause it gave me so much ideas and understanding on Keats poetry and its relation with Shakespeare.

Beth said, ' the conflict (the fierce dispute) Keats describes in this sonnet between "Romance" or a literature of sensuous luxury, remote from familiar existence, characterized as an exotic, deceptive women ( golden-tounged Romance, with serene lute!/Fair plumed syren, queen of far-away!),  and a literature that confronts the harsh facts of life and exhibits traditionally masculine qualities of judgement and self-determination( Let me not wander in a barren dream....Give me new phoenix wings to fly at my desire!) was central to Keats's career.'

' In fact, Keats's career is often described as an evolution from Romance or " the realm...Of Flora, and old Pan" to a more tragic or realistic mode that accepts "the agonies, the strife/Of human hearts" as Keats Characterized the two types and stages of poetry in ' Sleep and Poetry'(101-2,124-5)

Beth comment that Shakespeare play that itself is structured around similiar conflicts between a feminine world of luxury and emotion and a masculine world of stoicism, duty and reason, however, is not King Lear but Antony and Cleopatra. Beth continued to pointed out that this play which had so much Keats's study on the margin and so much similiar conflicts:romance and reality, or masculine and feminine attributes, even in Keats's letter, Keats mentioned the same conflict in his own treatment as 'Sensations and Thought', that show its significient influence on him.

Beth then pointed out that when Keats fell deeply in love for the first time with Fanny Brawne, his conflicts between love and ambition, romance and reality took on new urgency. And his conflicting feeling towards women hampered him more. In one way he had anxieties about his attractiveness to the opposite sex for his short stature. On the other hand, he distrust women just as in his letters to Fanny, he was haunted by the fear of her being a little inclined to the Cressid. More, it is clear experssion of jealousy, possessiveness and doubts about her love to him. At other times, he declears his absolute devotion to her. And then he regarded his love for her as a threat to his poetic ambitions.

Keats's true feeling of love and the conflicts it raised exactly like the Shakespeare play-Antony and Cleopatra. Beth pointed out that in the play, Keats would have found strikingly similiar conflicts between a realm of love, sensuality and abandoment to another, represented by Cleopatra's Egypt, and the Roman world of duty, self-discipline and masculine reputation and power in the public realm, presided over by Octavius Caesar. And also both of them had doubts of loyalty to the other.

Beth's essay still has more analysis and disclose of the characterstics of Keats's poetry and the influence and relation with his presider, Shakespeare's work. But now is enough. I found it was very interesting to read her essay. It gave me so more ideas and insight about Keats and his work. I enjoy reading a good book. It gives me so much pleasure of knowing.





'

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

A Thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness;

Endymion  Book 1  line 1-3

In John Keats poetry, we always easy to find fine phases and beautiful imagery. There are over 4000 lines in Endymion which I hardly go through all from Book 1 to Book 4. In my experience, it bore me to continue reading it cause it is too much luxurious description of the scenery. However, if I randomly pick up a few lines and read them slowly and more focus, in stead of boring, I find the description is beautiful and vivid, and my enjoyment increase. The imagery can keep in my mind for my meditation after. John Keats beautiful verses seem sprinkling inside his poetry and stimulate your appreciation for his art.

Then I read this book: Great Shakespearens-Lamb, Hazlitt, Keats  Vol 4 today and I understood the style and the characteristics of his poetry. Beth Lau, a professor of English at California State University, who wrote the part on Keats, gave me a very good explanation of my experience.

'From Keats's letters, marginalia and poems reveal a number of significant patterns in his response to Shakespeare. On such pattern is his tendency to focus on discrete, isolated passages, often with little regard for the larger context. ' Beth Lau commented. She also quoted John Keats letter to Reynolds to show John Keats focused on particular beautiful imagery and fine phases in Shakespeare's work as:

'I neer found so many beautis in the sonnets - they seem to be full of fine things said unintentionally - in the intensity of working out conceits.....' Keats letter continues, 'He [Shakespeare] overwhelms a genuine Lover of Poesy with all manner of abuse, talking about - "a poets rage/And stretched metre of an antique song" - Which by the by will be a capital Motto for my Poem [Endymion] - wont it? - He speaks too of "Time's antique pen" - and "Aprils first born flowers" and "deaths eternal cold" '

Beth also quoted John Keats's biography author Bate and his other critics like Jack Stillinger to show Keats's Shakespearen style as:

Bate: Keats reminds us of Shakespeare' in his use of vivid imagery that combines several senses.

Jack Stillinger: Keats is definitely " with Shakespeare" in the 'particularity and concreteness'' of his 'diction and imagery.....There is a striking quantity of things in Keats's poetry, things that can be visualized or that stimulate the auditory and other senses.

And Beth concluded: Virtually everyone who writes on Keats and Shakespeare agrees that the rich, sensuous imagery, the striking epithets and condensed language that characterizes Keats's best poetry are reminiscent of the same qualities in Shakespeare's verse and are likely to have been influenced or enhanced by the Romantic poet's in-depth study of his Presider's works.

The above passages I copied from Beth's essay on the Shakespearen Keats let me know more about Keats poetry and I enjoyed reading her critic on Keats.

Things cannot to the will be settled, but they tease us out of thought

In the letter to Reynolds,wrote on 25 March 1818, John Keats wrote in verse. It was the Epistle to John Hamilton Reynolds. Here I quoted the line 67 to 85:

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,
Would all their colours from the sunset take:
From something of material sublime,
Rather than shadow our own soul's daytime
In the dark void of night. For in the world
We jostle, - but my flag is not unfurl'd
On the Admiral-staff, - and so philosophise
I dare not yet! Oh, never will the prize,
High reason, and the love of good and ill,
Be my award! Things cannot to the will
Be settled, but they tease us out of thought;
Or is it that imagination brought
Beyond its proper bound, yet still confin'd,
Lost in a sort of purgatory blind,
Cannot refer to any standard law
Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw
In happiness, to see beyond our bourn, -
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
It spoils the singing of the nightingale.

Life is not easy for everyone. It is exceptional hard for those who do not have mean to support the passion for their ideal. This was happened both to John Keats and Reynolds. John Keats gave up his study in Medicine and a career as a surgeon for poetry without mean to support his life. In the oppositive direction, Reynolds obeyed his future wife and gave up poetry to study Law. They both were troubled by the world. Those were things that cannot be settled to the will and teased them out of thought.

Even though John Keats always stressed: 'O for a life of Sensation rather than of Thoughts!' However, in his letters and poetry, we often can find his philosophising on life. That makes his poetry and letters appeal to me. It gives me feeling at the same time in sympathy with thoughts.

I like the above lines. It described our conflicting desires in life so precise and our frustration such miserable that makes you enjoy his poetry in heart and in mind.

Rich in the simple worship of a day.

Continuing my agrument on Jon Mee's explanation of John Keats's intention on writing his letters on my last blog. I can give an other example to show John Keats is a genuine person who did not act or perform a role to his friends.  Also he was very affectionate and caring to his friends.  On 3 May 1818, a letter to Reynold who was suffering a long term illness, John Keats wrote in the beginning of the letter:

 " My dear Reynolds,  What I complain of is that I have been in so an uneasy a state of Mind as not to be fit to write to an invalid(means Reynolds). I cannot write to any length under a dis-guised feeling. I should have loaded you with an addition of gloom, which I am sure you do not want. I am now thank God in a humour to give you ...."

John Keats was very self-conscious of his emotional state and also cared about his friend and did not want to pass his moodiness through his letter to Reynolds. That is what his character is: true to himself, not suppress his emotion and at the same time care about his friends' feeling.

In the same letter, he consoled Reynolds who had to give up poetry for the career of law, he wrote: I do not see a Mind like yours is not capable of harbouring and digesting the whole Mystery of Law as easily as Parson Hugh does Pepins - which did not hinder him from his poetic Canary---Were I to study physic or rather Medicine again, --I feel it would not make the least difference in my Poetry; when the Mind is in its infancy a Bias is in reality a Bias, but when we have acquired more strength, a Bias becomes no Bias. Every department of knowledge we see excellent and calculated towards a great whole.

What he said above also shown his idea on Knowledge philosophically and looked at things in different perspective, an paradoxical way. And then, he continued to share his idea on Knowledge which he was also want to equipped himself with in his future plan of life. He wrote:

"An extensive knowledge is needful to thinking people -- it takes away the heat and fever; and helps, by widening speculation, to ease the Burden of Mystery: a thing I begin to understand a little, and which weighed upon you in the most gloomy and true sentence in your letter. " Then he started a discussion on the use of knowledge and its relation with the Burden of Life Mystery which I won't quote at present.

Then he sent Reynolds a few lines which he wrote on May-day, the famouse fragment-an Ode to Maia:

Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
                  May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?
                  Or may I woo thee
In earlier Siclian? or thy smiles
Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By Bards who died content in pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
O give me their vigour, and unheard,
Save of the quiet Primrose, and the span
Of Heaven, and few ears
Rounded by thee my song should die away
Content as theirs
Rich in the simple worship of a day. --

I love the last sentence: Content as theirs   Rich in the simple worship of a day.
People should be content if they can enjoy their life passionately in a very simple way.
Don't need money, don't need material goods, fame, power, such and such.
Just like this morning, I listened to the beautiful classical paino music on Music On-line. I felt very nice and I thought: Life is Enjoyable!!

I always made an awkward bow

Yesterday, I picked up the book-John Keats, Selected Letters and read the introduction which wrote by Jon Mee.

He pointed out some characteristics of John Keats letters such as they were entertaining with an audience in mind, and they were written in his self-consciously attempted to protray himself in particular light regarding to the reciever of the letter. Just like with Reynolds he is often playful and punning as well as forthcoming about the politics of literature and his literary career; and with Bailey he strives to present himself as serious minded and philosophically inclined.  I agreed with these as most of his letters readers can feel it and his critics had also mentioned about it.

What I disagreed with Jon Mee is the reason or the motivation he explained why John Keats wrote his letters in this way. Jon Mee said John Keats's love of London's theatre life permeate his correspondence and he seemed like an actor to act for different roles to different people. His extemporary manner in his letter was not a simply unmediated expressions of feeling, but just like he 'plays the lover' with Fanny; dramatizing his feelings with literary allusions to Rousseau and quotations from Shakespeare. And by doing that he have fashioned himself. Jon Mee said John Keats seemed to put ideas forward so as to explore and test them out in the letters, so he puts on different kinds of identity as if rehearsing different ideas of himself. He even quoted John Keats's last letter the last sentence: 'I always made an awkward bow.' as an example that John Keats invoked the idea of his life as an improperly concluded series of performances. I used most of Jon Mee words in this paragraph cause I cannot agree with him in any sense.

John Keats likes Shakespeare and his plays. That is all we know. He quoted a lot of Shakespear's words in his letters when the life's situation happened the same. Give an example, in his last letter to Fanny Brawne, he was in absolutely despair and misery, he wrote,'If my health would bear it, I could write a Poem which I have in my head, which would be a consolation for people in such a situation as mine. I would show some one in Love as I am, with a person living in such Liberty as you do. Shakespeare always sums up matters in the most sovereign manner. Hamlet's heart was full of such Misery as mine is when he said to Ophelia " Go to a Nunnery, go, go!" (the Captal Letter is what John Keats used, I only Black it.) That is the way he quoted Shakespeare.

As men with literacy, we all sometimes like to quote some phases in literature we read before to express our situation and our feeling. Jon Mee cannot take these kind of expressions in his letters to indicate that John Keats loves London's therater life so much as when he communicate to his friendin a letter, he was performing a role or rehearsing an identity. I feel sorry that when John Keats was in misery and despair in separation from his lover, Jon Mee still said that John Keats was performing. He denied John Keats's true feeling and that is not acceptable for any one who knows John Keats. What makes John Keats a great man and a great poet is his passionate character and his love and affection to his friends and poetry. He said to Bailey in his letter, ' I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affection.' An other letter to Reynolds, he said,'I could not live without the love of my friends.' And Jon Mee took his affection as an acting. How far he misunderstood John Keats.

John Keats may agreed with Shakepeare's play-As you like it in which Jaques said: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances.' He said Shakespeare lived a life without letting others know him but his play are his life allegory. We all agree that plays show our life and human characters sometimes truer than the real world can show. And we react to different people in different way in our life. But we cannot say that in this way we act and perform in our life. That is what I cannot agree with Jon Mee's comment on John Keats.

John Keats said he is the Chameleon poet with out his own identity, his own self. He is continually in for and filling some other body. Like if a Sparrow come before his Window, he take part in its existence and pick about the gravel. I think most writers are like this and they try to project themselves into different characters when they are writing their stories. I do not agree with Jon Mee that John Keats have to fashion himself by putting on different identity when he wrote to his friends as a reherasing different ideas of himself. In this protray of John Keats, Jon Mee made John Keats like a novice actor or writer, always try to practise acting or writing even when he write to his friends. I definitely cannot agree. On the contrary, John Keats always praise people with disinteresting quality and he always put the interest of his friends and his family first.

At their age, writing letters is just like having a converstation with friends. As John Keats loved and beloved by his friends who also knew each other as a literary circle. So they circulated John Keats's letters among friends to update their news of each other. Thus, when John Keats write to his friends, he always bear his friends interest in mind and address to the particular reciever and attend to his interest. At the same time, he also attend to other friends that might see the letters later so he always tried to make the content ot the letter interesting and entertaining just like he did in a conversation. That is why he wrote with audience in mind. But that does not mean he is acting.

For the last sentence in John Keats's last letter in this world that Jon Mee quoted: I always made an awkward bow. Jon Mee tried to use this as an illustration of John Keats performance. I think Jon Mee is too cruel to John Keats, misunderstood John Keats so much. As the last letter to his friend in this world, Jon Mee still thought John Keats performed his idea of his identity. I think Jon Mee do not have feeling regarding to the situation. In fact, the sentence before this last sentence is: I can scarcely bid you good bye even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. Which he meant it was so hard for him to say the last word "good bye" to his dearest friend, Brown, who repersented his connection to England, his home country and all his life, John Keats can only give a gesture-a bow.
Like people in despair, they are dumb.

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;

from Epistles to George Felton Mathew,  line 1-2

Come back from the vacation in Hong Kong, I found some of my friends do try to know John Keats and read some information on him which make me feel encouraging. And I start to get an idea that I should learn to type in Chinese so that I can wrtie in Chinese and they can read my mail more easily. And I will write one mail about John Keats every week so that they can know him and like him as I do. We need friends to share our lives and sharing make our lives happier that is what doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.

And I re-read this blog today and I enjoyed reading it. It is encouraging for me to keep writing every day and to have some thing I am enjoying now and then after.

I randomly picked up some lines from John Keats poems and I found that they can read separately and still feel good. Just like the following lines:

O Poesy! for thee I hold my pen
That am not yet a glorious denizen
Of thy wide heaven - Should I rather kneel
Upon some mountain-top until I feel
A glowing splendour round about me hung,
And echo back the voice of thine own tongue?

Sleep and Poetry   line 47-52

The picture is very comic, to imagine John Keats kneel down to plead for the Poesy. He was so devoted to poetry that he looked a bit mad and crazy and silly. It makes John Keats interesting as a person and I like him for this. John Keats makes me think that life can be so treasurable and enjoyable if you have passion in some thing and you throw heart and head into it.

Your kindness affects me so sensibly

In the letter to his poet freind, John Hamilton Reynolds, on 2 March 1817, John Keats expressed his thankfulness to Reynolds cause he had sent him a poem which gave praise to John Keats as a poet and which was a great encouragement to him as he just started his carreer as writing poetry. And I like this poem cause it tell the style and the poetical nature of John Keats's poetry in his early stage.
Here is this poem:

Thy thoughts, dear Keats, are like fresh gathered leaves,
Or white flowers pluck'd from some sweet lily bed;
They set the heart a-breathing, and they shed
Tho grow of meadows, morning and spring eves
O'ver the excited soul. - Thy genius weaves
Songs that shell make the age be nature - led,
And win that coronal for thy young head
Which time's strange hand of freshness ne'er breaves,
Go on! and keep thee to thine own green way,
Singing in that same key which Chaucer sung;
Be thou companion of the summer day.
Roaming the fields and older woods among.
So shall thy Muse be ever in her May
And thy luxuriant spirit ever young.

I think this poem did excetly shown the colour, the things, the mood and the time that John Keats often used in his poetry especially in the early stage.

To strive to be a poet

I started reading John Keats's letters again from its very beginning. I found his letters were full of beautiful words and also full of his affections for poetry and his freinds.

In his letter to Leigh Hunt on May 10, 1817 at Margate where he tried to concentrate himself on writing the Endymion. And he shared his struggle with his friend:

" I went to Isle of Wight. thought so much about poetry so long together, that I could not get to sleep at night."

" Another thing, I was too much in solitude and consquently was obliged to be in continual burning of thought, as an only resource."

"  I have asked myself so often why I should be a poet my self than other men, seeing how great a thing it is, - how great things are to be gained by it, what a thing to be in the mouth of fame, - that at last the idea has grown so monstrously beyond my seeming power of attainment, that the other day I nearly consented with myself to drop into a phaeton.  "

Then in the end of the letter, he again self mocked on to be the poet:

" Does Shelly go on telling strange stories of the deaths of kings? Tell him, there are strange stories of the deaths of poets. Some have died before they were conceived."

" Does Mrs S cut bread and butter as neatly as ever? Tell her to procure some fatal scissors, and cut the thread of life of all to-be-the desappointed poets."

" Does Mrs Hunt tear linen as straight as ever? Tell her to tear from the book of life all blank leaves."

John Keats is truely a very funny guy!! If I can has one third of his humour, life will have more laugh and fun. This is an aim I also strive for, learn to be more humourous towards life.

I can feel his struggle to be a poet to do great things. He had not much confident at the beginning. However, his strength is in his way of thinking, always think both ways, paradoxically.  On the same day, he wrote an other letter to Haydon to share about the problem of no money they both had. He wrote:

" However, I must think that difficulties nerve the Spirit of a Man - they make our Prime Objects a Refuge as well as a Passion."

He also shared with Haydon about his temperaament which often drove him to despair.

" You tell me never to despair - I wish it was as easy for me to observe the saying - truth is I have a horrid Morbidity of Temperament which has shown itself at intervals - it is I have no doubt the greatest Enemy and stumbling-block I have to fear - I may even say that it is likely to be the cause of my disappointment.  "

Then his strength of thinking paradoxically also saved him from sinking into the bottom or running himself to one dead end.

" However every ill has its share of good - this very bane would at any time enable me to look with an obstinate eye on the Devil Himslef - aye to be as proud of being the lowest of the human race as Alfred could be in being of the highest. I feel confident I should have been a rebel angel had the opportunity been  mine. "

From John Keats, who thought paradoxically and illustrated so much about it in his letters that I was being inspired to look into this way of thinking. And later, I will have some my own ideas about it.

I can feel John Keats's Passion on Poetry and his Idealism on devoting himself  to do great things - poetry.

" I know no one but you who can be fully sensible of the turmoil and anxiety, to sacrifice of all what is called comfort, the readiness to measure time by what is done and to die in six hours could plans be brought to conclusions - the looking upon the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth and its contents, as material to form greater things - that is to say ethereal things - but here I am talking like a Madman, - greater things than our Creator himself made !! "

In stead of talking about Haydon, indeed, he was talking about himself, his devotion to write poetry.
Life will not be empty and dull if I can have passion on doing something. And I can achieve something at the end which I can feel content and am proud of. In previous reading, I knew that John Keats believed that poetry should be a friend to sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man. I think the man who has this belief and put them into his letters and poetry do truely lift my thoughts.

The Human Seasons

This is a sonnet which John Keats compared human's mind in different life stage with the year's four seasons.

Four seasons fill the measure of the year;
     There are four seasons in the mind of man;
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
     Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
      Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming nigh
      His nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
      He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness - to let fair things
      Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

It seems Winter and old age both are never being welcome. Only their coming are unchangeable.
Getting old and being closer to the other end seems helplessly and hopelessly to us. Are they so bad?
For my own experience, I think getting old is good cause it comes with more life experience and more self-knowledge and sometimes also one has more liberty. When our children have grown up. They manage their lives and we are free to live a life as we want to. And as we know more about ourselves and the world. We will not make as many mistakes as we were young to achieve our dreams and we are also more focus and also more capable to enjoy our life and to relate with others in the way we choose.

I aslo find in Shakespeare's play-As you like it, Shakespeare also use the character, Jaque, to tell the same topic. different life stage. And I would like to show it here. As John Keats read Shakespeare so much. I would think lots of John Keats's poetical theme come from him.

In Act 2 scene 7

Jaques:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances.
And one man in his time plays many parts.
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier
Full of strange oaths and breaded like the pard
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel
Seeking the bubble reputation.
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly with good capon lined.
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut.
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
|Into the lean and slippered pantaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion.
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

It is a very rich discription of human life stages. I started to like Shakespeare's art.

A Party of Lovers

Yesterday, I just finished reading Shakespeare's As you like it. And I found it is interesting. Then I rememberd John Keats also had a poem described a party of lovers. His poem is kind of an outsider's point of view and feeling: he found their behaviour not very make sense. The first part of the poem is:

A Party of Lovers

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes,
Nibble their toast and cool their tea with sighs:
Or else forget the purpose of the night,
Forget their tea, forget their night,
See, with cross'd arms they sit - Ah! happy crew,
The fire is going out and no one rings
For coals, and therefore no coals Betty brings..
.........

When people are in love, their world is one - both absorb in the other, Nothing and no one is existed in between them.

Then when John Keats fell in love with Fanny, he wrote:
" I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again - my Life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was disolving - ..."

In an other letter, he wrote:
"I never felt my Mind repose upon anything with complete and undistracted enjoyment - upon no person but you. When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of the window: you always concentrate my whole sense....."

Now John Keats was in love. He experienced the power of loving. In As you like it, Shakespear also described what is to love from a insider's point of view, and the description is very beautifully writen

Phebe        Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love
Silvius       It is to be all made of sighs and tears,
                  And so am I for Phebe.
Phebe        And I for Ganymede
Orando      And I for Rosalind
Rosalind   And I for no women.
Silvius       It is to be all made of faith and service,
                  And so am I for Phebe.
       .............
Silvius       It is to be all made of fantasy,
                  All made of passion, and all made of wishes,
                  All adoration, duty, and observance,
                  All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
                  All purity, all trial, all observance;
                  And so am I for Phebe.

John Keats is called a Shakespearean and he liked Shakespear so much and called him his presider that make me start to read Shakespeare. And I started to like Shakespeare's work.

Commerce with the world

In the same latter 23 Oct 1818, John Keats shared with his brother what he felt when he commerced with the world.

" Think of my Pleasure in Solitude in comparison of my commerce with the world - there I am a child - there they do not know me, not even my most intimate acquaintance - I give in to their feelings as though I were refraining from irritating a little child. "

As the Chameleon poet, he has no self, no identity. As the man, John Keats, he has his identity and his self, but he still chose to hide it. He is not egocentric and he thinks paradoxically too and he conceived all ideas are end in speculation. More, he wanted harmony among friends. So he chose to give in to their feeling and not to make himself irritated when disagreeing with them. And he understood what his friends think about him.

"Some think me middling, others silly, others foolish - every one thinks he see my weak side against my will, when in truth it is with my will - I am content to be thought all this because I have in my own breast so great a resource.   This is one great reason why they like me so; because they can all show to advantage in a room and eclipse to be a good Poet.  I hope I am not here playing tricks - to make the angles weep - : I think not: for I have not the least contempt for my spieces,"

People all want to hide their weakness and want other to think them great. But John Keats is extraordinary that he hid his greatness and shown his weakness. And he understood human nature and accepted human weakness. The most common human weakness is self-decieve and thinks oneself is higher than the other. But John Keats seized the Truth. As a great man, he looks up to live up to the Greatness, the Beauty, the Truth. That is what he strifes for:

" Though it may sound paradoxical, my greatest elevations of soul leave me every time more humbled"

By perserving this letter which he wrote to his brother, we can share his inner feeling and thought and understand the man, his characters and how he related to his friends. This shows the great man.

That is why the more we read John Keats, the more we know him and the more we love him!!

The Poetical Mind and the Heart's Affection

In John Keats, the poetical character has no self, no identity. The poet is continually in for and filling some other body. Then what is the poetical mind? How does it look like?

In his letter on 23 Oct 1818 to his brother George and his sister in law Georgiana who are newly married, he compared the domestic happiness of marriage with the sublimity of his Solitude in writing poetry. He prefered the latter. He wrote,
" Nowithstanding your happiness and your recommendation I hope I shall never marry."

" Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at the end of a Journey or a Walk; though the Carpet were of Silk, the Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and Sofa stuffed with Cygnet's down; the food Manna, the Wine beyond Claret, the Window opening on Winander mere, "

This is the domestic life he imagined. But he did not believe his would be as fine as this.

"I should not feel - or rather my Happiness would not be so fine, as my Solitude is sublime."

 Then he wrote, " Then instead of what I have described, there is a sublimity to welcome me home- the roaring of the wind is my wife and the Stars through the window pane are my children."

And he told the reason why he would rather being single.

" The mighty abstract Idea I have of Beauty in all things strifes the more divided and minute domestic happiness - an amiable wife and sweet children I contemplate as a part of that Beauty, but I must have a thousand of those beautiful particles to fill up my heart."

And what does his poetical mind looks like:

" I feel more and more every day as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds - No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the office which is equivalent to a King's bodyguard - then "Tragedy with sceptred pall comes sweeping by."

" According to my state of mind I am with Achilles shouting in the Trenches, or with Theocritus in the Vales of Sicily. Or I throw my whole being into Troilus, and repeating those lines, " I wander like a lost Soul upon the stygian Banks staying for waftage."

And then he concluded, " I melt into the air with a voluptuousness so delicate that I am content to be alone.

One more reason he rejected domestic life is that he did not have a good opinion on women.

" These things, combined with the opinion I have of the generality of women - who appear to me as children to whom I would rather give a sugar Plum than my time, form a barrier against Matrimony which I rejoice in."

The above opinions he shared with his brother let us know what his ideas on domestic life of marriage and on his solitude for poetry and also have a impression on his poetical mind.

It is interesting to see how he changed after he met Fanny Brawne. Let's see how he felt for Fanny in the following poem:

" What can I do to drive away
Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen,
Ay, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!
Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,
What can I do to kill it and be free
In my old liberty?
When every fair one that I saw was fair,
Enough to catch me in but half a snare,
Not keep me there;
When, howe'er poor or parti-coloured things,
My muse had wings,
And ever ready was to take her course
Wither I bent her force,
Unintellectual, yet divine to me -
Divine, I say! What sea-bird o'er the sea
Is a philosopher the while he goes
Winging alone where the great water throes?

How shall I do
To get anew
Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more
Above, above
The reach of fluttering Love,
And make him cower lowly while I soar?
......  "

As what he said, The love for Fanny is unintellectual, yet Divine! And only one particle - Fanny, can take over all his heart, no more for the other one thousand particles. Fanny is truely Divine to him. And this is exactly what he believe:
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of Heart's Affection!!

My reflection

I started this blog for four days and it was a very fruitful experience.
 I try to understand John Keats's words and to elaborate his poetry and his ideas and to put it down in words. During the process, I found out some of my previous interpretation of his poems are not correct. Take "Where is the poet?" as an example.  " This is a man with a man is an equal, " Before, I thought he meant the poet treats every one the same, no matter he is rich or poor, high status or low in class. The concept of non- discrimination. Then I read his letter about the Chemeleon Poet with no self and continueouslly fills in others. Now I thought " with a man is an equal " means the poet can identify with every one.
 An other example, A Song of Opposite, I  try hard to think how to welcome joy and welcome sorrow. And try to give some answers. Then I reread the poem and found the tone of this poem is just playful and is not in any serious sense or about any philosophy for life. I also read his letter to John Taylor which he shared his axiom on writing poetry: " 1st. I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess,and not by singularity" And this axiom is exactly shown in A Song of Opposite.  So it is good to write and to reread what I wrote and to correct my thought so that I can more understand John Keats. During the writing process, it is also a thinking process. I am more aware of the ideas of mine and those of John Keats. It is important to differentiate and to write clearly what is my own ideas and what is his.
By writing this blog, I find a good way to learn to think and to write and to appreciate John Keats more and deeper.

a poet is a sage; A humanist, physician to all men

" Welcome joy and welcome sorrow. " It is easy to say but is not so simple once the sorrow and the misery are our own experience and misfortunes and agony are happened in our life.
I think John Keats is not a pleasure seeker, avoids pain and looks for joy. He accepts life as what it is and what it will be. As a poet, he can use his own experience in poetry to give consolation to other people.
In Sleep and Poetry, line 241--247,
" But strength alone though of the Muses born
Is like a fallen angel: tree uptorn,
Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres
Delight it; for it feeds upon burrs,
and thorns of life; forgetting the great end
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man. "
As I understand, what John Keats means, as a poet in poetical character, darkness, sorrow, despair and agony, those thorns of life, can make poetry in its intensity and beauty. But the great end of poetry should be a friend of man; to sooth and to console the human and to lift the thoughts of man.
In The Fall of Hyperion--A Dream, John Keats used the theme of Dante's Inferno to self-questioned himself whether he is a dreamer or a poet. In his view, a poet is a sage, a humanist, a physican to all men.
 In the dream, he was able to mount up the immortal steps and saved from death and approached the horned shrine and found only he was there alone and was face to face with Montea, mother of the Muse, associated with memory.
He asked Montea, started in line 154,
" Are there not thousands in the world,
 Who love their fellows even to the death,
Who feel the giant agony of the world,
And more, like slaves to poor humanity,
Labour for mortal good? I sure should see
Other men here; but I am here alone,"
Montea answerd,
Those whom thou spak'st of are no vision'ries,
They are no dreamers weak,
They see no wonder but the human face;
No music but a happy-noted voice--
They come not here, they have no thought to come--
And thou art here, for thou art less than they--
What benefit canst thou, or all thy tribe,
To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing,
A fever of thyself--think of the Earth;
What bless even in hope is there for thee?
What haven? every creature hath its home;
Every sole man hath days of joy and pain,
Whether his labours be sublim or low --
The pain alone; the joy alone; distinct:
Only the dreamer venoms all his days,
Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve.
Therefore, that happiness be somewhat shar'd,
Such things as thou art are admitted oft
Into like gardens thou didst pass erewhile,
And suffer'd in these temples: for that cause
Thou standest safe beneath this statue's knees."

"That I am favour'd for unworthiness,
By such propitious parley medicin'd
In sickness not ignoble, I rejoice,
Aye, and could weep for love of such award."
So answer'd I, continuing, " if it please,
Majestic shadow, tell me; sure not all
Those melodies sung into the world's ear
As useless: sure a poet is a sage;
A humanist, physician to all men.
That I am none I feel, as vultures feel
They are no birds when eagles are abroad.
What am I then; Thou speakst of my tribe:
What tribe?"

I like John Keats. He is humour, always self-mocking, deeply honest and so noble in heart.

Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow

John Keats loves the principle of beauty in all things. He expressed this idea in A song of Opposites:

Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,
    Lethe's weed and Herme's feather,
Come today, and come tomorrow,
    I do love you both together!
    I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
........

What does that mean, the principle of beauty in all things?
In life, joy is sure being welcomed, but how can we welcome sorrow too? And why?
If there is beauty in all things, does it imply that we can find joy in sorrow, beauty in ugly, poor in rich, good in evil, fair in foul, etc...And in the opposite, those things looked good can have something bad in some ways: sorrow in joy, bad in good, foul in fair, ugly in beauty, poor in rich, etc.....

In his Ode on Melancholy, he tells the truth:

She dwells with Beauty -- Beauty that must die;
  And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
  Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
   Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
        Though seen of none save him whose strenuous
   Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
      And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

Nothing can last forever. Time is always the truth. Joy and pleasure at this moment will be gone next minute. Beauty cannot stay forever and this is the truth. And so does Sorrow and Pain, they are not good but they cannot last forever too and they will be passed. That is true.


In his letter to Benjamin Bailey on March 13, 1818, he shared with him about Religion and also in general that he is very sceptical.
"  I do not think my self more in the right than other people, and that nothing in this world is proveable. I wish I could enter into all your feelings on the subject, merely for one short 10 minutes, and give you a page or two to your liking. ( you can see he is the Chameleon Poet with no self, no identity, he is continually in for others) I have sometimes so very sceptical as to think Poetry itself a mere Jack o' Lantern to amuse whoever may chance to be struck with its brilliance. As tradesmen say everything is worth what it will fetch, so probably every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer -- being itself a Nothing...."

But he is sure that the subjective world in every one is the truth for everyone. And his famous quote:
"  I am certain of nothing But the holiness of Heart's Affections and the truth of the Imagination."

So Welcome joy and welcome sorrow!!

Where's the Poet?

Where's the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him!
'Tis the man who with a man
Is an equal.be he King,
Or poorest of the beggar-clan,
Or any other wondrous thing
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;
'Tis the man who with a bird,
Wren or Eagle, find his way to
All its instinsts; he hath heard
The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell
Comes articulate and presseth
On his ear like mother tongue.

It is a fragment of John Keats poems- The Poet. So What did he think of the Poet?
This is the man who with a man Is an equal; who with a bird finds his way to All its instincts.
But what does that mean: Is an equal?
A letter he wrote to Richard Woodhouse on October 27 1818 can give us his idea of the Poet-the Chameleon Poet.

" --1st. As to the poetical Character itself. I mean that sort of which, if I am anything, I am a member; that sort distinguished from the Wordsworthian, or egotistical Sublime; which is a thing per.se, and stands alone, it is not itself-it has no self- It is everything and nothing--It has no character--it enjoy light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated--It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the chameleon poet. Its relish of the dark side of things, any more than from its taste for the bright one, because they both end in speculation. A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence, because he has no identity--he is in for and filling some other body.  The Sun,--the Moon,--the Sea, and men and women, who are creatures of impulse, are poetical, and have about them an unchangeable attribute; the poet has none, no identity--he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God's creatures.--If then he has no self,...."
What makes John Keats great as The Poet and as The Man is, his no identity, no self, that he can identify with everyone and everything to the core of their essence,their impulse, their instincts. That makes him different from the other poets, that are blind and bind by their ego. That makes his letters and his poetry are always and forever touching your heart and soothing your soul. And he is the noblest among the noble men and the truest among the honest person. What makes him so much loved  is his love : I have lov'd the principle of beauty in all things.
So from his poetry and letters., we see and feel and touch and hear and taste all beauty in all things; we are all affected by his affection for the Nature. the Beauty. the human being and the Truth

In his friend's word: " From John Keats, I know what is to love. I love John Keats."