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.