John Keats

Right off the bat, John Keats is different from his other Romantic counterparts. Keats was born into a working-class family as opposed to Shelley, Byron, etc. who were born into noble or rich families. The others wrote about politics or rebellion or radical points of view, using nature and naturalistic beliefs to convey the message. Keats, on the other hand, focuses his writing primarily on the beauty in the simple things, like an urn or the song of a nightingale perched in a tree. He writes mostly on what he sees; the very surface-level emotions or sights. He also has quite the fascination with the word "forlorn" and the color green. Unlike the other Romantics, who used nature as a platform for their political ideals, Keats uses naturalistic imagery as a vehicle to release his pain and grief about his deceased brother. I personally think that it is this deep-rooted (no pun intended) pain that allows him to find such beauty in nature. The frailty of being mortal has smacked him in the face and he has gained a deeper appreciation for the more simplistic things that one stumbles upon throughout the course of their lifetime. Keat's first presented piece, "Ode to a Nightingale," is ripe with emotional diction and powerful images of the nightingale's song and the feelings it creates within Keats. However, I find a foil in Keats's writing. He uses a lot of Biblical and/or Greek allusions, but I personally feel as though they make the flow of his writing a little choppy. The references don't quite fit with the feelings he puts forward in his pieces; it feels as though they're just there to make him sound more deep/intelligent than he actually is. I feel a little bad about saying that, but it really does seem that way to me. Don't get me wrong, the poetry is beautiful. It has a certain...underlying emotion to it that the other Romantics seem to lack.