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.