The nature-cycle is one theme Keats consistently focuses on throughout his writing. Three works of Keats that represent the nature-cycle significantly are “After Dark Vapours,” “To Autumn,” and “Endymion.”
The sonnet “After Dark Vapours,” is a three part piece of literature that demonstrates the theme of the nature-cycle (Baumgartner 11). In the first part of the sonnet, Keats explains the various modification in nature using the lines “dreary season” of “dark vapours” to a day “Born of the Gentle South (12).” The second part of the poem is describing the reactions Keats has to more changes going on in nature. Keats compares “the delicate flowing of eyelids in a cool moist breeze” to “the trembling of rose petals beneath the refreshing drops of a light summer rain (12).” Keats is explaining his sensation to nature, which transition into how nature inspires his thoughts (12). In the third part Keats connects the first two parts and teaches how life of nature and the life of thought are brought together, grow out of each other, and have a spiritualizing effect on a man (12).
The Ode “To Autumn” outlines the progression of Autumn (Southam 95). The three stanzas in this poem describe the changes the go on during Autumn. In the first stanza, Keats talks about the fruits of Autumn(95). In the second stanza he talks about the view and beauty of Autumn, and in the third he talks about Autumn changing into winter (95). “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless.” These are the first three lines of the poem that represent and we are “confronted with a paradigm of the season’s moods, beginning, strikingly, with a reminder of the last days of Autumn (95).”
Additionally, the nature-cycle is abundant in one of Keats’ most famous works, “Endymion.” “Endymion” is broken up into four parts, and each part is near 1000 lines long. In each phase of the poem, Keats goes through periods which are referred to as “withdrawals.” During Book I, Keats talks about meeting with a goddess, where the theme of nature kicks in. After a withdrawal, Keats describes the landscape in the story as, “deepest shades/Were deepest dungeons; heaths and sunny glades/ Were full of pestilent light (Arnett 106).” In Book III Keats makes a reference to “gold sand (107).” In the “gold sand” Cynthia “sooth’d her light/against his pallid face (107).”
In addition, another abundant theme in the writing of John Keats is human emotion, desire, existence, and death. Human emotions that Keats writes about include desire and weariness, while he also writes about the existence of mankind. These themes are clear in works such as “The Eve of St. Agnes” and debatably his most famous work, “ Ode to a Nightingale.”
“The Eve of St. Agnes” is centered around a women that longs for man that will bring her fulfillment to her life (Fass 35). The poem is about two lovers named Madeline and Phorphyro. Throughout the story, Madeline is scared that Phorphyro will leave her, but he ends up taking her hand in marriage(Poetry Foundation 61). This story depicts Keats using the emotion of weariness, desire, and happiness. The following quote from “The Eve of St. Agnes” demonstrates a woman longing for a man: “And of Sweet St. Agnes night, Please with you the promis’d sight, Some of husbands, Some of lovers, Which an empty dream discovers.” “The Eve of St. Agnes” is an ideal example of Keats showing a change in mood in his writing.
“Ode to a Nightingale” is one of Keats’ poems that mainly focuses of the theme of human weariness. Keats depicts human life as tragic and something that is not very enjoyable. Keats tries to free “the weariness, the fever, and the fret” of our tragic existence (Poetry Foundation 67). Toward the middle of the poem, Keats writes about “transcending life” while remaining aware of your surroundings. Keats talks about how his life and the life of others has “become lost in wild darkness (67).” It seems that Keats had a very hard time in his life, and is expressing his emotions through his poetry.
Furthermore, “Ode to a Nightingale” focuses greatly on the theme of death as well as the first theme I discussed, nature. It is clear that Keats is talking about our existence, by his clear references to death throughout each stanza (Fogle 216). Keats frequently references darkness and uses the image of “fast fading violets”, that suggest death (216). Later in the poem, the theme of death turns into the basis of immortality of the nightingale (216). Going back to the theme of nature, the nature described in the poem indicates the theme of death. For example, the “rich darkness of the forest” represents darkness which is related to death.
Finally, the last theme that is clear in the writing of John Keats is Naturalism. He is mostly known for being a Romantic writer, but he does have some indications of being a naturalist writer. The Keats passage that displays Naturalism is “Sleep and Poetry.”
Naturalism is a philosophical viewpoint according to which everything arises from natural properties and causes. The poetic manifesto Sleep and Poetry demonstrates an abundance of naturalist writing. In “Sleep and Poetry” Keats aligns himself with the naturalist writing of author William Wordsworth to attack the “foppery” of Neoclassicism (Poetry Foundation 26). “that it should be a friend / To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.” The previous quote demonstrates the naturalist theme and is evidence of a poetic manifesto. The poem ends with a sense of “brotherhood”, as Keats returns to his literary cultivation and poetic tradition.
Keats’ writing is widely known to be extremely difficult to decipher, and he was not very versatile with his writing style. The styles that are plentiful in Keats’ writing is Romantic style literature, and negative capability.
Additionally, The qualities of a Romantic writer is an author who “puts an emphasis on emotional and imaginative spontaneity, preaches the importance of self-expression and individual feeling, and writes with a capacity for wonder and consequently a reverence for the freshness and innocence of the vision of childhood” (Duncan 10,11,12 Cross Ref). Keats’ Ode “To Autumn” recalls a walk in the “chill, crisp” countryside (Poetry Foundation 76). Throughout this poem Keats speaks as a “subject”, and describes the setting as very calm (76). Keats asks numerous questions regarding the looks, sounds, and activities around him. Keats starts the Ode “To Autumn” by characterizing Autumn “in her activity as bringer of the season’s fruits” (Southam 93). In the second stanza he focuses on the description of Autumn, and in the third stanza he watches the season fade away into winter (93). “I never lik’d stubble fields so much as now—Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks warm” (76). The previous quote is a line that clearly presents Keats’ romantic writing, as it is similar to other romantic works.
Furthermore, “Ode to a Nightingale” is another significant example of Keats’ romantic writing style. Opposed to “To Autumn”, “Ode to a Nightingale” has a dull and gloomy sense to the ode. “Ode to a Nightingale” begins with a “vague ache of emptiness, and drowsy numbness” (Poetry Foundation 66). Throughout the poem the typical reader would expect the nightingale’s melodious singing to inspire and motivate John Keats, but it does the exact opposite. After the singing of the nightingale, Keats goes into a “troubled meditation, one of the richest and most compressed in English poetry, on the power of human imagination to meet joy in the world and transform the soul” (Poetry Foundation 66). Keats then shifts the focus of the ode to praising the song of the nightingale. Keats elaborates on the song and claims it is “immortal”, and in “ancient days” belongs to a world of enchantment (67). The poem ends with the nightingale flying off into the sunset with the following illusion from “Ode to a Nightingale”: “the fancy cannot cheat so well / As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf. / … / Was it a vision or a waking dream? / Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?” (67). The previous illusion is an imagination by creating permanence and beauty, which allows “the transcendence of mind-fleeting sensations” (68). This is a very common tool used by Romantic authors.
Likewise, Keats demonstrates an abundance of typical romantic writing in “Epistle to My Brother George.” Typical to romantic writers, Keats opened up in this poem about the struggles of becoming a poet. Keats was determined to answer the question of what it meant to him to “strive and think divinely” (Poetry Foundation 17). Throughout the poem Keats poses a sense of complaint about not being able to vision himself and vision the beauty of nature (17). The majority of poem is about inspiration but Keats later breaks it off and writes this line: “And should I ever see [visions], I will tell you / Such tales as must with amazement spell you.” This poem is a perfect case that displays romanticism because of the self-tone, and seriousness of the poem.
Moreover, one of Keats’ most ideal styles is negative capability. Negative capability is a literary tool that “implies an engagement in the actual through imaginative identification that is simultaneously a kind of transcendence” (Poetry Foundation 44). Keats’ letter to George and Georgiana Keats is possibly the widest display of negative capability out of all of his works. “I feel more and more everyday, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds” (Starr 59). This quote is a clear example of negative capability by referencing imagination and implies a theme of transcendence. Another example of negative capability in Keats’ letter to George and Georgiana Keats is the following quote Very few men have ever arrived at a complete disinterestedness of mind…..Yet this feeling ought to be carried to its highest pitch” (62).
In addition, Keats was very emotional while writing with negative capability. At times, he would write about death and talk about his depression in his writing. Towards the end of his life he seems to believe that the burdens in his life were intolerable. In “A Letter to Fanny Brawne” he writes “I hate the world: it batters too much the wings of my self-will, and I could take a sweet poisonfrom your lips to send me out of it” (Starr 62).