John Keats

Keats idea of truth and beauty, truth is beauty, beauty is truth and there should be no
distinction between the two. Provided obviously that one faculty is properly developed, faculty
of negative capability, our ability to kill the rational self, or negate our rational self. The self that
analyses the world around us and insists on weather something is true or imaginary.

These are the major concerns that appear in all of his poems.

His poems are classified in two major groups, Mediterranean poems and medieval poems

Medieval poems; La Belle Dame sans Merci; The Eve of St. Agnes

The motifs that recur in his poetry, every poem talks about truth and beauty and the relationship
between dream and reality.

Addresses oppositions of eroticism and sexual tension that goes together with some opposites
related to that. He treats these concepts or this one concept in his own way, has a great deal to
do with melting the opposites and marrying them.

Negative capability, third most important idea to be understood and be addressed; it is negative
capability that makes it possible for a writer to see truth and beauty as one.

Another important aspect of his poetry is the imager that appeals to all of out senses that insists
upon tiny detail and imagery that wants us to experience the image fully. Involving all our senses.

Creates sense of progress in all his poems, namely regardless of what character he chooses to be
the main hero, his characters always undergo this progress that Keats insists on from suffering
to bliss. Development of negative capability.

Element of suffering we find in pretty much all of his poems. Suffering is treated and presented
in different ways.

La belle dame sans merci the title may appear as quite strange but still there were occurrences
that made us familiar with this involvement of French language in English poem, we have that
situation with Byron when we dealt with Child heroes pilgrimage with the medieval subtitle to an
English poem. Keats does the same thing.

It is a folk or orally transmitted poem telling in a direct and dramatic matter some popular story,
usually derived from tragic local incident. It is the idea of local history of a legend; it is the idea
that ballad stands somewhere in-between history which is supposed to be reality and legend,
something that is not 100% true. Keats characters are always supposed to be positioned
between reality and fiction. This is not the distinction we should be bothered with when it comes
to our analyses and experiencing his poetry.

He borrowed the title from a 15th century ballad that was originally written in French by Alain
Chartier. He decided to make his own version, it is not a translation of the original. It is a
different treatment of the original story. The story is tragic, Keats does the same thing. The role
of suffering and tragedy should be seen from a larger context, it is not there to just feel sorry for
the knight, it is there to teach us that through suffering something else is to be reached.
Keats characters in both of these poems have a big problem; they wanted to reach the state of
bliss as quickly as possible but if you are taking shortcuts that bliss is not going to be what you
are looking for. Bliss is to be reached through suffering and gaining real wisdom.

La belle dame sans merci ends where it begins, tells the story retrospectively and returns to
original situation. The stanza is a bit messed up. They are always quatrains and this is the
rhyming pattern of the ballad stanza. He is very strict when it comes to conventions of ballad
writing. He uses quatrains faithfully throughout the poem; rhyming pattern is abcb, so the
second and the fourth line are rhymed and the first and the third dont.

Opening question that every ballad has (the very first ballad we read et this department Demon
Lover; O where have you been my dearest dear)

He is very careful to establish is the objective correlative where natural conditions around the
substantial character, which is the knight, reflect his inner mood. All the images that we find in
the following stanzas are supposed to be reflection of the inner mood of the lonely knight.

The knight was gullible enough to believe that blis can be reached instantly. As he was riding on
his horse he met this beautiful lady, she had wild eyes and acted strange. The way she looked
and behaved gave him enough reason to believe that the two were not meant to be together.
She was out of this world. Keats does not believe in the possibility of two people being together
if ...

The knight decides to go off with what she offers him but he is someone who hasnt gone the
transformation of reaching bliss

She gives him strange herbs, he falls asleep and has a dream of different men that we tricked by
the same woman. He wakes up she is no longer there and the poem returns to the original
scene, he is wandering and looking for something that is no longer here, he is obviously suffering.
This may give us hints what comes next. Hopefully the knight will reach some wisdom through his
suffering and reach te final stage of bliss. Keats never gives the picture of what that wisdom
really is and how is it reached. The only exception is Endymion. Mature poems such as Ode to a
nightingale and Ode to an Grecian urn, do reach some wisdom but we get confused by these two
poems.

Here there is no such process described.

The tragedy of this poem he translates into a longer poem called the eve of st Agnes.

The poem is much longer that la belle dame sans merci, it has more complex narrative structure.
Spenserian stanza borrowed from Edmund Spenser. Helpful in terms of developing the narrative
and keeping the poem together. It is supposed to have this medieval touch.

Title significant because of the evening on which the story takes place. St. Agnes Eve is on
January 21th, celebration takes place the day after. A young girl is supposed to perform a ritual so
when she falls asleep she would dream of her future husband. Here before you reach beauty you
are supposed to dream about it.

St. Agnes is a patron saint of virgins, she believed that the one she was meant to be was Jesus
Christ, because of that she refused any other suitor and became a virgin-martyr(5th century)
Keats plays with reality and truth vs. dream and fiction.

Keats plays with contrast. Lot of central contrasts are introduced at the very beginning.

First stanza: while the old beadsman is praying and his fingers are numb there is a wild party
going on in the background. Madeline is supposed to perform the ritual. Soon we find out that
she has a lover, Porphyro, his occurrence is important in terms of contrasts introduced; his name
is significant, if we go back to the atmosphere described (bitter chill it was) it is cold and dark, all
of a sudden we have this young man riding in. It takes us to the colour somewhere between
purple and read. In all of this cold and dark we have red. He brings passion and everything that
colour red is supposed to symbolize. He rides in and is ready to take Madeline with him. The
problem comes with another contrast/convention that Keats treats in this poem.

The Eve of st agnes heavily relies on Shakespearean influences; two lovers whose love is
forbidden because of their families. Madelines family hates Porphyros family, the two are not
ever meant to be together. Porphyro is not welcomed at all but they are in love. She will perform
the ritual the one that she is going to dream about is Porphyro. His problem is how to get in, how
to get to Madeline and take her out.

He gets in and hides in her closet and watch her performing the ritual. This is where Keats
develops that eroticism in a very peculiar matter.