Keats within on top of Keats (Fanny)

Fanny Brawne

 

 

 

Aside of poems, I thought it just to critique a more general sense of Keats and his poetics, with particular attention on Fanny, his forever in waiting bride.

 

 I personally found Keats to be a bit deep in one sense and shallow in another. His personality was rather a mix of both sets, as he often retained stubborn character towards others, despite what they did or said for the most part, but also took their critiques to heart very seriously. I would like to consider that this meant he built upon his prior models and improved, which seemed at least partly true. He did begin with Shakespeare, toss it through the Romantics, and then gave his own spin to things, as often poets do. While this did make him unique, some things he incorporating were rather frustrating to examine in each instance, particularly with regards the natural Romantics and the romantical love.

 

His romantic roots were dandy for giving one a great image in the face of natural facets, while also being a soft ground to sow the seeds of love, which stayed figurative. However, as the later part of Keats' work evolved, this part remained raltively similar, almost to a point where it became a sort of mini-archetype for Keats to use, albeit with slight adjustment to reflected the more unique feel of each work. So, if I had to pick some more than love to critique, my view would fall here for its repeated appearance, but only tarish is its seeming lack of evolution, but not in a destitute sense.

 

The love aspect was not exactly omnipresent for Keats, but where it did mostly show up, it came out a slightly different but similar beast. I was tempted to reverse the role given to the romantic here, but thinking further, it was the love image that fit the nuances of the romantic as versus the reverse. Whether it was a contour lying nearby or a shape in the sky, Keats found a way to make the person portrayed different, while still feeling like Franny was in each one. Sadly, I am quite shorthanded on explained or critiqueing this poetic, but it was definitely worth mention versus mere adversion of it.

 

As a character, Keats became as frustrating as he was interesting. From his deep profound way of words, there was an air above them that simply made solely reading them a bit tiredsome from piece to piece, for reasons already said. While that did not stop me from trying, I do feel it dampened the power of my response after going through such a plethora of work as Keats'. Though, once reovered later and the tear has worn off, I definitely will return with gusto again, for wear is half the fun in such an adventure. Although, for poetry the wear can be quite more... daunting. So, would I reccommend Keats? Of course I would, as his poetics are stellar, but I would encourage it with a a bit of biographic context, which is in itself porblematically metaphorical early on, for it opens new meaning into Keats thought, as well as what he mean and why he says what he does. After all, beauty is truth, truth beauty, and all is known for that is all you need to know (Keats' golden line - Urn).

A Fabled Urn... The Grecian Charade

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

 

 

 

Supposedly this pillar of text holds Keats' model of poetry, how it should be and what it is, but I see a much fairer story therein. Each depiction on the urn takes a romantic stab at people and nature, how they are so at seeming odds, yet necessary to balance in a sort of dance of surival. In response the senses are assailed, each with its own sharp attunement.

 

The sounds assials hearing, from each mannerism of instrument the festival begins, yet the ritual is lost on you as you dance along, heedless of the end rhytmn that spells out fate. The sound is so serene and near divine as to touch your very soul, to stir it from its keeping with the heart of hearts hidden from even nature. This stirs out the primordial, love, as expressed by the loveliness of your neighboring love, who lies outside your grasp, tantalizing in the tempo of song. The crescendo rises with emotion, joy and happiness, boundless in its entry. Love is to be entertained even further, but not further may you sway forth, as you are exhausted and left wanting. Wordless, the scene parts, as the once familar surroundings become the focus over the rambling din.

 

All have come to the celebration, all assemble for the passage of nature, much like passion and in mass. Ever more, she persists, away from you and further still, just like all others from mountain and town. But what is this maiden of branch and thorn, what beauty does she hold, what truth is posssessed? The clue lies in the question, as true beauty cannot be reasoned, it simply is and will be. This is simple to know and all you need, but to recieve such understanding would sooner lead to one's own destruction than full comtemplative meaning.

 

In finally, the poem is indeed an opus of what a poem should be, truly beautiful. Achieveing this is quite natural when taken as such, natural. Though, the story the urn tells is not a fairy tale of epic proportions to which we all are familiar, it holds power in its assailment of what love can mean. More than a simple trinket it is taken in spirit over physicality, where it not only to be understood but take on unconditional meaning. Minus that, you have a simple empty pot that seems nice, but like all ceramics, crumbles soon after maker, leaving ruin where was once such life.

 

There are many ways one can view this poem, i chose this way to express there can be a story to something "generic," and it can hold subjective over objective perception. Thusly, the poem will likely discern in meaning differently to different people as all things do, but I still hope that even though these things may be analyzed, they are not quite definite not matter how literal they are, or even metaphorical. Although being non-literal can be an aid in this area duely.

Twinkle, Bright Star, Sparkle...

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.      

 

 

This poem is quite like the one I analyzed before On Autumn, it holds a cosmic spin to its descriptive beginning, and a reference to an avatar of love, a bit different in each. Here the avatar is quite physically described as versus the more metaphorical representation in the sky as priorly discussed. This lends it a certain air that is quite visible, even those without some kind of lover like that Keats knew can visualize the sweet figure nearby as they rest. While I'm not a romantic, and do in fact prefer the other lover image, I can relate my adoration for this poem in its integral star, versus stars, image. This star is a bit ambiguous as far as what it exactly represents in itself, but I like to think of it as Keats' non-loneliness, his coupling, which was inevitably at a standstill where it would bring him further into self succlusion, at least physically. With this beign so, that symbol remains distant until the image shifts to the moment being right beside him, a lover's form at rest. Here, he can live that impossible event, his marriage, in media res, if only for a brief while. However, even though the possibility is quite distant, the description that the love is the only thing keeping him alive is both accurate and quite paradoxical in that the love is not really furfilled. This draws another parallel to the prior poem in its open and deadly end, a type of end I particularly am quite fond and enjoy, even using it myself. It adds a certain alluring element of the inevitable, yet unpredictable future, and thusly creates an atmosphere of intrigue so that one wants to know what the next moment holds, to be sure that is not simply the end. This is perhaps the greatest  challenge of Keats in his fianl year as he had to face death head on, without comfort of love beyond mere writing. But sometimes writing can unleash the soul, however it often boxes it into candied emotions, quick to be resorbed by the masses. I'm not sure what security Keats had in mind for when his body was not longer able, but I think that whatever it might have been, Franny would certainly been there.

Autumn? Or something.... more?

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

                                           

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

                                           

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

 

 

I think I find this Keats poem quite the spectacle with its inherent lack of a love interest, and more involved romantic nature. In that absence, there is still Keats' self inclusive image and the comparative scene he holds it against. The first stanza is quite recurring in Keats' poems, as it usually, as it does here, describe some Romantic scene laced with the purpose to go forward beyond marveling the wonder of nature. The interesting part of this particular stanza is its distinct intial spring-like feel with the vibrance and life in everything described, however as the last line says its time to move on not begin. This led me to consider the season to be the summer of spring, where everything has matured and is picturesque, yet not quite in the stage of preparation and dormancy. Amidst this particularly peculiar seasoning, lies the second stanza, the one where the figure of Keats is present. The figure is projected from Keats, which does give it an address feel even though the figure could very well be himself. I consider the figure to be Keats for the emotion intertwined with it, a sense of solitude and appreciation in the sense of observation. The wonderful romantic world, of which Keats swooned philosophically,  past over him in its many vibrant senses, from the very tangible to the more perceived. However, even as that is all fine, dandy, and time lapsing, it still brings as much joy as watching a plant change, slowly and indefinitely. While this is indeed the world to lose oneself, especially if out of a more human sense of real, the time and setting mix with the underlying solitude to forbode an inevitable and rather disheartening change. Since it is an awkward season as priorly mentioned, it is seemly to miss certain things that would be normal in a more cut and dry time. Instead, the wind of change, the coming of autumn upon the soft caressing breeze, carries its own tune and therefore its own value. But as the time would have it, the denizens the figure observed in the chaotic upheaval of season, now sense too the forthcoming, and move to intercept their instinctual response. And so as the wind moves on, so does the season and its participants, leaving the figure with but a flicker of what was right before their eyes. While very open in this sense, applying to Keats seems to fill out a time where he pondered an ideal imagined scene, that too was plagued by his real-time lonesome state, something he despised. He'd much rather be in company than anything else, so a skitter in the leaves won't make such good company. This is the time that he perhaps thought that he should seek a more hospitable place before he too was lost in the wind, adrift his lonely floatsome amidst a decaying sea of blinding wonder.