St Xavier’s College, Mahuadanr

Poetical Works of John Keats:

“None but the master shall praise us; and none but the master shall blame” might
well be written on the fly life of every volume of Keats’ poetry; for never was there a poet
more devoted to his ideal entirely independent of success or failure. Keats lived for poetry
alone and a virtue went out of him into everything he wrote. In all his work we have the
impression of this intense loyalty to his art.

John Keats, the great poet of the romantic period produced all his great work from
1817 to 1820. He died very young at the age of 25 and his death was the greatest loss that
English poetry sustained. But whatever he has left behind is so beautiful and charming
that posterity is indebted to him for his poetic heritage.

Keats started composing poems at the age of 17. At this age he became familiar
with the works of Spencer, mannerisms of Elizabethans captivated him and he resolved to
imitate them in his poems.

His earliest attempt in verse was his “Imitation of Spencer” 1813. This and some
other short pieces were published together in his “Poems” 1817. In this work we have a
few poems of outstanding merit.

The poems which deserve special mention are “On First Looking into Chapman’s
Homer”, “Sleep and Poetry” and “I Stood tip-toe upon a Little Hill”. All these poems of the
first volume or steeped in the atmosphere of Romanticism and a saturated with the lore
of Spencer.

Sleep and Poetry:

It is an immature work and suffers from nearly all the defects of his early poems.
But some lines in this poem are extremely beautiful and give a promise of the future
greatness of the poet. Keats attitude towards life is reflected in this poem.
Endymion 1818:

“Endymion” is a long narrative poem in four books dealing with a Hellenic subject
of beauty and Charm. Keats was a great lover of Greek mythology and he made an
abundant use of Greek myth in his poetry. The poem tells and develops with a wealth of
invention the story of Endymion.

In Endymion Keats represents his first adoration of beauty. According to the poet
beauty has the power to remove all sufferings to life and can bring cheerfulness and
brightness to weary existence. The lyrical element in “Endymion” touches the heart of the
reader. The imaginative note is well struck and the air of romanticism envelope it from
the beginning to the end. On the whole “Endymion” is a beginner’s work and naturally
shows signs of immaturity and crudeness. It is the work of an immatured genius, the
product of sensation rather than thought. In spite of the shortcomings of the poem it is
still being loved and read because of its rich and suggestive beauty obtained by a richly
ornamented diction. “Endymion” is rather the poem in which every critic can detect the
faults but in which a young genuine lover of poetry will always find much to delight him.

‘Isabella’ or ‘The Pot of Basil’ 1818:

“Isabella” or “The Pot of Basil” belongs to the period of Endymion. The subject
matter of Isabella is derived from the tale of Boccaccio who had supplied material to
Chaucer for his Canterbury Tales. In Isabella, a long narrative poem, the poet deals with
the murder of a lady’s lover by her to wicked brothers. They bury the body in a forest.
Isabella gets information of this dreadful crime in a dream by her lover. She proceeds to
the forest, finds his body and brings it home. She places the head in a flower pot and sets
a plant of basil over it. Her brother’s view with suspicion the gloating of Isabella for the
pot of basil. They steal the pot, discover the head, and leaving the head make well their
escape. Isabella pines and dies.

The poem is in the Spenserian stanzas and the very simplicity of its narration gives
it its charm. There is enough of Music and emotional appeal in Isabella. It is rich in
imagery. Every single image that occurs to the poet’s mind is rich in sentiment and
romance. The emotional intensity of feeling, tragic suffering, romantic imagery make it a
great work in narrative poetry and it is to the credit of the poet that he achieves great
perfection in his art in this poem. The slips of taste are fewer and the style is deeper in
tone. Isabella is still an immature work but it shows a great advance on Endymion.

Hyperion (1818-819)

In 1818 Keats began “Hyperion” in the style of Milton but he gave up his attempt
to imitate Milton and carries on writing in his own way of writing. In this poem Keats
took up the Epic theme of the old struggle between the Older race of Gods such a Saturn
and Hyperion and the younger divinities such as Apollo. TheOld Greek mythology has
been used with great effect. Both in style and structure the poem is modeled on “Paradise
Lost”. The blank verse is marked with a note of sonority and dignity and appears to be
Miltonic in its tricks.The poem is fragmentary but even in its fragmentary state it is grand
and sublime. It is a successful work which has been claimed by some critics as Keats
greatest achievement. The calm, the restraint and the sublimity of epic style characterize
this work.

Lamia 1819:

Lamia is the story of a Serpent woman and is deeply imbued in romantic coloring
and pictorial charm. The source of the story is Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” and
inspiration is derived from Dryden’s “Fables”. The story is that Lamia, a witch, is
transformed by Hermes from a Serpent into a beautiful maiden. She owes the young
Corinthian Lucious and he, spell-bound by her beauty takes her secretly to his house. Not
content with his happiness he gives a bridal feast and summons his friends. Among them
comes the sage Apollonius who pierces through Lamia’s disguise and calls her by her
name, whereupon with a frightful scream she vanishes.

The poem is full of pictorial richness. It is the best told of the tales, moving better
from point to point, with less of decoration for its own sake and less of the equivalent
sympathetic accompaniment of Isabella, but that the significance of the whole is deeper,
more charged with the poet’s personal sense of the tragedy of life and love.
 Lamia is a dramatic representation of the opposition between reason and emotion,
between science and poetry. Lamia stands for beauty and charm of poetry. Apollonius,
the philosopher, symbolizes the spirit of Science and analytics reason. Lamia vanishes at
the stern look of Apollonius. It means that the perfume and Aroma of poetry evaporates
into the thin air when it is subjected to the searching analysis of a scientist and the
critical insight of a philosopher.

The Eve of St Agnes 1819:

It is considered the best among Keats’ narrative poems. It is the tale of the
elopement of two lovers. The story is light but moves quickly. The background of family
feud is kept well in mind and the love scenes are more controlled than those in Isabella.
The poem is full of beauties of description, imagery and color. It is sensuous and highly
decorative without being cloying. The flow of the narration is easy and smooth and the
pictorial quality of the poem is well pronounced.

The Eve of St Mark 1819:

In the same year of The Eve of St Agnes, was written The Eve of Saint Mark which
remains unfinished. It has the fine picture really work of The Eve of Saint Agnes but the
material is handled with more restraint. In style it is effortless and free from Keats’ fault
of over-luxuriance.

Keats’ Odes:

Keats has left behind many beautiful Odes but the six Odes on which his fame
rests are Ode to Nightingale, Ode to autumn, Ode to Melancholy, Ode to the Grecian
Urn, Ode to the Indolence, and Ode to the Psyche. In these Odes we have the best of
Keats’ poetry. The Odes have been highly praised by a number of critics. They are charged
with a peculiar intensity because in them he employs his first principle of art to illustrate
his own emotional and philosophical theory of life. The idea of an unseen life in Nature
forces itself on Keats mind by means of images and words.