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.
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