Keats

Unlike Keats’s other writing cohorts, his work truly looked past all pre-existing reasons that other Romantic poets wrote their poetry, and wrote for his own needs. Keats was neither an upper nor lower class born child, but born to a middle-class working family. He immediately faced losing his brother at an early age, which later influenced his work as a writer. Although he was deeply saddened by this lose, Keats was able to channel this loss to create great works of poetry. Some of his most famous writings have been direct reflections of his life. For example, his Ode to a Nightingale presents the introductory line: “my heart aches, and drowsy numbness pains,” which appears to have been taken from some terrible events that occurred in his life, knowing his background information. This point again brings up a unique factor about Keats and his writings. Other Poets, like Bryon and Shelley, attempted to synthesize an issue that they found to be important in the universe (nature) and used that as the lead for their poetry. Keats, however, chose not to take this route of writing for a specific purpose, but writing because he simple loved to write and it provided a therapeutic outlet for him. Through the events that he experienced, writing was the exhale from the distressed world. Because he chose to write about important events that occurred during his life, he had an eclectic repertoire of literature that was written, making him one of the most diverse writers of the era. His poems of Ode to the Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn also employed many specific literary devices that enhanced his message, like, end rhyme, form (iambic pentameter) and a strong sense of the narrator’s role. The narrator’s role is an important one, for it allows Keats to shift between a speaking tone of reality while incorporating the power of the unconscious mind through dreams and the exploration of mythological creatures. This is evident in Nightingale, where Keats uses terminology and ideologies from Greek mythology, like: the wooden dryad, the Hippocrene horse, etc. This alone showed the diversity of his writings and his personality.

Keats is a prime example of the amount of time that one lives on earth not being as significant as what one does with that time. Although he died young, he used his life to the fullest to compose of the most amazing poetry written. He reflections of his own life and important issues in the world teach others that if they have a passion, they should pursue it for their own enjoyment, not the enjoyment of others!