John Keats

[Vyvian Blackthorne]

I love his romantic literature, he's truly a brillant poet. Would be considered goth? I know he's quite brooding, yet others would argue I would suppose.

[Mir]

Never read anything written by him. Can you recommend something?

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

I love Ode to a Nightingale. It makes me want to go into a dark forest and guzzle some red wine.
And Eve of St. Agnes, and a whole ton of other stuff. Keats and Coleridge are my favourites.
He certainly provides gothic-like material... and Pre-Raphaelite material *drools over paintings*

[Godslayer Jillian]

What I love best are his letters. I tried reading his poem Hyperion but I got lost.
For four years one of my purposes for reading so much is to train myself to really understand this poem.

"... May there not be superior beings amused with any graceful, though instinctive attitude my mind may fall into, as I am entertained with the alertness of a Stoat or the anxiety of a Deer? Though a quarrel in the streets is a thing to be hated, the energies displayed in it are fine
... By a superior being our reasonings may take the same tone - though erroneous they may be fine - This is the very thing in which consists poetry..."
- John Keats, in a letter to his brother.

"The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream - he awoke and found it truth."
- John Keats, in a letter to a friend.

[knightmare]

Well, Do you understand the poem now? I would like to hear your interpretation of it. My interpretation is probably different.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Nah, I still fear reading it.

[HumanePain]

(stumbles across thread, looks over pile of Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe and Hemingway books he is carrying in hands, sees Keats, puts down Hemingway and tries to pick up Keats, book mark that was only on page 3 of Flowers of Evil falls out, tries to grab it with right toes, drops Keats, grabs Baudelaire from sliding off top of pile by biting it and holding in mouth, book and dentures fall out onto floor with teeth chattering away as if spring loaded...)

Dag nab it! Haven't even finished reading what I started last year and here is another one, tarnation!





(I don't really have dentures. Have my own teeth, all three of them! )

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Apparently Keats was short. Only 5 feet tall, I think...
I haven't read Hyperion yet, but I will sometime. I find I need to be properly awake to understand poetry well, and I'm rarely properly awake.

[knightmare]

Originally Posted by HumanePain

(I don't really have dentures. Have my own teeth, all three of them! )

Humane Pain, I always enjoy reading your posts.


Jillian, at least try. I admit it sounds complex, but I bet our interpretations wouldn't be too far off. C'mon you're a smart person.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by LaBelleDameSansMerci

I haven't read Hyperion yet, but I will sometime.

Read both Hyperion and the Hyperion saga.
The Hyperion saga is of course not written by Keats; but the author, Dan Simmons, is such a fan of Keats that he made John Keats (or more like a perfect AI replica of Keats) the main character of the second book of the saga.

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Hehehe, All three of your teeth... Did you get hit in the mouth with a puck when you were a kid?

[Vyvian Blackthorne]

This my favourite of Keats (Ode to Melancholy)

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty -Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine:
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

I especially love these two parts of that^ poem:

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

and:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine:
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

They're awesome. I think I may put them in my sig....

[Vyusher]

John Keats is everything I despise in poetry put into a single human shell. His poems are to me like vomit on paper. Not regular vomit, even, the kind the stains the walls of Detox trucks that is actually perhaps hazardoues to one's health.
I mean, the man was dying of T.B. and made it into a goddamned fad. Seriously.

[Vyvian Blackthorne]

"John Keats is everything I despise in poetry put into a single human shell. His poems are to me like vomit on paper. Not regular vomit, even, the kind the stains the walls of Detox trucks that is actually perhaps hazardoues to one's health"

Funny, yet at the same time you didn't exactly mention why you dislike his poetry.

[HumanePain]

I thought the Ode to Melancholy was beautiful. But then, I can relate to it from personal experience.

"But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,"

I have suffered the same feeling,

"Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes."

and used the same cure.