garners," and "grain," as well as the repetition of r sounds rhytmic patterns, and which occurs at the end of two or more lines. There were times he felt confident that his poetry would survive him, "I
John Keats’ sonnet “When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be,” written in 1818 when the poet was twenty-three years old, deals with the young man’s fears that he will not live long enough to accomplish what he wants to in life. What is the tone of the poem?
The speaker of the sonnet is addressing the issue of the brevity of life. He alludes to these fantasies when he calls writing poetry “the magic hand of chance” (8), and when he mentions the “faery power” (11) of love (in this case also playing into the idea that love is only a myth). Continuing to follow the mold of the Shakespearian sonnet, “When I have Fears” is set up as a thought or long sentence that is not completed until the final lines of the poem. The comparative shortness of this quatrain can have other implications as well. Not exact repetition, but the use of similar sounding words is also found. tracing the shadows of clouds to describe his fear of dying before writing three years later - , he had essentially stopped writing because of ill health. It also shows his certainty that he'll die before they come his way. Thoughts are tangible items to be grown into "high-piled books," as Keats feels he can allow his ideas to flourish if he only had a long enough life.The first four lines express Keats' fear that he will die before he has written all the works he hopes to, "before [his] pen has glean'd [his] teeming brain.
beginning of each quatrain and by the shortening of the third quatrain. "Milnes, Rich Monckton. This is a bit paradoxical, since the action of writing a poem necessitates thinking (even if it is thinking about feeling). WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact’ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, 5 Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace “Death of Mr John Keats.” London Magazine, April 1821.Stacey, Michelle.
This page was last modified 14:28, 11 November 2006. http://www.john-keats.com/phpboard/viewtopic.php?t=897&highlight=fears++may+ceasehttp://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/lit_term.html#lyric I will show what John Keats He recognizes this masked beauty as “Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance” (6). When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be This sonnet by Keats addresses a recurrent theme in his work, namely the way in which his acute sense of mortality leaves him with an intense premonition of failure, but also with an enhanced appetite for life.
how hard you try, death is capricious, and only if destiny provides, you will That is, love without thought. The repetition of the word “when” at the beginning of each quatrain and the parallel structure of the of the first lines of the first two quatrains serves to repeatedly draw attention to the focus on time, and keeps bringing the reader back into the immediate moment.
He now expresses the fear that he will lose his beloved. Just as he fears that his life will not be allowed to run its full course, he does not allow the quatrain to run its expected measure: it is only three and a half lines long. “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be” by John Keats.
The repetition of "before" represents the anxieties Keats has about what he cannot achieve before death.References to nature also appear throughout the poem, including harvesting grain, the night sky, clouds, and the shore. Seeking for a chance to love.http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/keats.htmlWikipedia, This is an issue that […]In concert with the Modernism movement of literature in the early decades of the 20th century, T. S. Eliot was a British writer whose works functioned as social commentary. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” his inner feelings, his deepest fears; Nevertheless, Edw. think I shall be among the English Poets after my death." What type of sonnet is this poem an example of? He is afraid that his artistic and poetic potential will not be fulfilled, and that his love will be cut short. Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” It almost seems like there are three stresses in a row, since the reader nearly skips over the unstressed second syllable of “piléd” to go straight to the more substantial, stressed word, “books.” This third stress adds to the feeling even more, making it really feel like a big pile is being built. As mentioned earlier, the meter remains rather regular throughout the poem. "The "fair creature of an hour," according to Richard Woodhouse, the man who advised Keats' publishers on legal and literary matters The final three lines where Keats stands alone and contemplates the end of life may represent a passive acceptance that life must end.This fear is evident on his gravestone, with the words "Here lies one whose name was writ in water. and consists of three quatrains and a couplet. Keats inserts extra stresses in a number of places. Often times there are two of them in a row, like “with the” (8), and “in the” (11). the lovers "faery power" line 11 - , and involves us with emotion The death of his mother in 1810 left Keats and his three younger siblings in the care of a guardian, Richard Abbey.