As it is quite short I shall post it here:
1 When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
5 When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
10 That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
First thing to notice is that it is all one sentence. Perhaps this is meant to mimic the brevity of life or a single breath for a single thought which is formed and then passes swiftly by as the present continues. This sentence begins with a subordinate clause, so uses a marked theme/left branching, and adds further subordinate clauses all the way to line thirteen. This leads to the climax of the main clause 'I stand alone', the change in rhyme scheme from ABAB to a finalising couplet making the tone all the more sombre. Also, the comma gives a caesura after 'alone' to let the reader pause to understand the weight of the statement, especially when the sense of loneliness is given when justaposed with 'wide world'. The sense of loss comes with the negative 'never' in line ten, repeated in line eleven.
I would like to look in more depth at the noun phrase 'unreflecting love'. Keats has prefixed 'reflecting' to form the neologism, meaning he wanted the concept to stand out as unfamiliar to the audience. Perhaps the initial assumption of the reader is the collocation 'unrequited love', beginning with the same phonemes. So the new word has sorrowful connotations unless you consider what it might mean; I interpret it to be closer to 'unconditional love'. The lover does not need to think about whom it is loving or how; it accepts that it gives love and needs no more think on it. Keats is devastated that he will lose this 'faery power' (perhaps an imagined, Utopian one which is unachievable) as he appears to over-think things; he presents a 'teeming brain' full of thoughts, so many that he needs to release them with his 'pen' or relate to others through 'books' (they are food for thought - 'grain'). His defeat comes when he admits he will 'think' of 'love' and this will cause his downfall as his musing rhymes with 'sink', linking the two concepts indefinitely.
At the time (1818) Keats was merely 22. He would have been surrounded by a world dependent upon reputation. However, even at this young age he could consider reputation and realise that in the grand scheme of things, when death is near (he died only three years later - did well to consider death so young, unfortunately) 'love' and 'fame' become worthless. I find this odd, as other poets and philosophers would probably claim that fame is eternal (I know Yeats did) as was love, or at least it was worth dying for. I think what he aims to convey is that if one did live entirely alone, fame would not exist as it is a perception others have of you, and neither would love for or from another human being. One would live on the edge ('shore') of life and death because what is to exist if you are alone in all the world? You would be living but would you live?
I've decided I like Keats very much.
See you next week! (Maybe some Elizabeth Barrett-Browning is due).
I would like to look in more depth at the noun phrase 'unreflecting love'. Keats has prefixed 'reflecting' to form the neologism, meaning he wanted the concept to stand out as unfamiliar to the audience. Perhaps the initial assumption of the reader is the collocation 'unrequited love', beginning with the same phonemes. So the new word has sorrowful connotations unless you consider what it might mean; I interpret it to be closer to 'unconditional love'. The lover does not need to think about whom it is loving or how; it accepts that it gives love and needs no more think on it. Keats is devastated that he will lose this 'faery power' (perhaps an imagined, Utopian one which is unachievable) as he appears to over-think things; he presents a 'teeming brain' full of thoughts, so many that he needs to release them with his 'pen' or relate to others through 'books' (they are food for thought - 'grain'). His defeat comes when he admits he will 'think' of 'love' and this will cause his downfall as his musing rhymes with 'sink', linking the two concepts indefinitely.
At the time (1818) Keats was merely 22. He would have been surrounded by a world dependent upon reputation. However, even at this young age he could consider reputation and realise that in the grand scheme of things, when death is near (he died only three years later - did well to consider death so young, unfortunately) 'love' and 'fame' become worthless. I find this odd, as other poets and philosophers would probably claim that fame is eternal (I know Yeats did) as was love, or at least it was worth dying for. I think what he aims to convey is that if one did live entirely alone, fame would not exist as it is a perception others have of you, and neither would love for or from another human being. One would live on the edge ('shore') of life and death because what is to exist if you are alone in all the world? You would be living but would you live?
I've decided I like Keats very much.
See you next week! (Maybe some Elizabeth Barrett-Browning is due).
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