4. Shelley was a radical; from your English history discover the attitude of English statesmen to radicalism between the years 1815-1825. 5. How true an estimate of Shelley was Matthew Arnold's tual spirit, beating his luminous wings in the void"? 66 a pale ineffec 6. Shelley's note was essentially lyrical. How great a part has lyricism played in the poetry of the romantic movement? 7. Compare Shelley's spirit to Byron's. In what were they alike and how did they differ? 8. In what poem are the following lines: "Life, like a dome of many colored glass Stains the white radiance of eternity"? 9. Macaulay said of Shelley: "His poetry seems not to have been an art but an inspiration." Discuss this thought. 10. Write a two-hundred-word composition upon the life and poetry of Shelley. Suggested Readings.—“ The Cloud," "To a Skylark,” “Ode to the West Wind," and "Adonaïs will give the reader but a taste of the consistent beauty of this poet. Dowden's "Life of Shelley is excellent; T. J. Hogg's" Shelley at Oxford" is a delightful contemporary account. CHAPTER XXXIV JOHN KEATS (1795-1821) "His fragment of "Hyperion" seems actually inspired by the Titans and is as sublime as Eschylus."-Byron. "John Keats was one of those sweet and glorious spirits who descend like the angel messengers of old, to discharge some divine command, not to dwell here."-W. Howitt. SOMEBODY has said of John Keats that, after he grew up, he was unable to write bad poetry. He certainly produced some of the most exquisite verse of all time. He was the eldest son of a London stable-keeper. His education, owing to the death of both his parents, stopped short in his fifteenth year. He was then apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton, where he worked until, in 1814, he removed to London in order to be near the hospitals. His passion for poetry led him, however, to abandon the medical profession and subsist on his small inheritance. In 1817 he published a volume of poems, which contained the famous sonnet, "On first looking into Chapman's Homer." Early in 1818 this was followed by his first long poem, " Endymion," which he himself condemned as immature and which "Blackwood's Magazine" and the "Quarterly Review " attacked so savagely that the story arose that his death was due to their fury. This legend has been kept alive by Byron's famous quatrain: "Who killed John Keats? 'I,' says the Quarterly, So savage and tartarly, "'Twas one of my feats.' As a matter of fact they disturbed him little. Instead of worrying about the opinions of obscure hack writers or attempting to reply to their criticisms, he composed during 1818-1819 an answer which forever silenced them. In other words, he wrote "Isabella," " "Hyperion," "The Eve of St. Agnes," "Lamia," several wonderful odes, a number of scarcely less wonderful sonnets, "La Belle Dame sans Merci," and "The Eve of St. Mark." In the midst of these labors he was attacked by consumption, during the early autumn of 1820 sought refuge in Italy from its ravages, and after much suffering died in Rome, February 23, 1821. Endymion is a romance in four books. The adventures of its hero are the experiences of the poetic soul in its search for union with ideal beauty. Keats's efforts to work out this conception resulted in a poem as fragmentary as a broken dream, but full of beauty and valuable as a record of the tumult of emotions and images in a youth "How beautiful, if sorrow had not made In solemn tenor and deep organ tone; Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue Not altogether frail, however, is this passage even when used side by side with the corresponding passage in Milton: "Him the Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, Nine times the space that measures day and night There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelm'd He soon discerns, and weltering by his side And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words 'If thou beest he; but oh, how fallen! how changed Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine Keats died at twenty-six. Milton wrote this passage at fifty-two or thereabouts. At twenty-six Milton had not even written "L'Allegro," let alone "Paradise Lost." It is idle to speculate on what Keats might have done had he lived, but it is worth while to remember that, at twenty-six, he had done more than had been accomplished at the same age by Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, or Tennyson. QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES I. What is the meaning of: "He ne'er is crowned With immortality who fears to follow 2. What aspects of romanticism are illustrated in Keats's poetry? 3. How was Endymion" received? 4. Some of Keats's greatest work is contained in his narrative poems. Name three other English poets who used this form. 5. Name some of the great Reviews published in Keats's day and still published. 6. What aspects of the world did Keats most cherish? 7. Keats is sometimes called "The poet of the senses." 8. Tell to the class the story of Keats's life. Why? 9. Of what importance do you consider the thought, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever"? 10. Read "The Ode to a Nightingale” and write one hundred words presenting its beauties, its subject, and its philosophy. Suggested Readings.-"To a Grecian Urn," "To a Nightingale," "La Belle Dame sans Merci," “Ode to Autumn," "Fancy," Sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," Sonnet commencing "When I have fears that I may cease to be,” and “St. Agnes's Eve" should all be read. Rossetti's "Life of Keats" takes its place as worthy collateral reading. |