John Keat’s Poetry

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John Keats’s Poetry
In pursuit of delivering their message, poets’ ideas are actuated by different factors, particularly those revolving around their life. Developing from their life experiences, they establish themes that express their views about nature and human life. John Keats one of the prominent poets who never lasted long enough to execute his proficiency takes into the exploration of beauty and its nature. Keats encounters a life of despair due to the consecutive losses of his family members to unraveled death-causing factors. Unfortunately, since he is one of the troubled family members, he understands that his time to pass on is not far away. Keats considers this as a bad omen to his romantic dreams, as he was enthusiastic that he would work proficiently to supersede his poetic predecessors. So as to tackle this unrelenting truth about his inevitable death, Keats takes into finding other sources of joy through imaginations to overcome his fears of death. Therefore, in his poetry, Keats suggests that in times of overwhelming fear, overlooked elements such as alcohol and death in life can be beautiful.
Keats as a poet is swept with fears of failing to achieve his dreams. As a poet, Keats is driven by his dreams of becoming one of the best poets in the world outshining those poets who preceded him. However, the knowledge that he may not live long enough to compose all these poems so as to achieve his dreams induces some fears in his life.

In his poem, “When I have fears,” he expresses what dreams he desires to make in his life, but the traces of death would overshadow them that closing into him. Keats writes,
When I have fears that I may cease to beBefore my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; (217)
At first, Keats understand the reason for the fears which he relates to a foreseen death, but instead he is much worried about dying before he expresses all of his knowledge through poetry to large volumes that he desires to share. Nonetheless, Keats comes to terms that he cannot fear death anymore, but the fact that he will die before achieving the poetic mission.
Besides that, through imaginations Keats believes that alcohol can do something better than what is perceived to do. Many societies relate alcohol to immorality as there is a perception that its influence makes people desire to do the wrong things due to poor judgment. However, to Keats in his poem “Ode to the Nightingale,” he finds alcohol as one of the best solutions to his perils. Keats writes, “That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, and with thee fade away into the forest dim” (162-163). Keats details the reason for him resorting to alcohol as the favorable means of escaping his misfortunes and troubles. Keats wants a draught of wine that would enable to get out of himself allowing him to join his being with the world of a Nightingale (Sardar 8-16). He prefers alcohol as a good thing that would place him in a situation that he will no longer be himself, a state that he will forget the painful life where the young die early enough while the old suffer a lot. According to Keats, this is the beauty that has to be overlooked and find some relief from the sorrow and despair that Keats and other people would like to evade.
Despite him understanding that death would bring an end to his dreams, he also believes death is a beautiful ending to a tragic life. Keats desires that he end up dying peacefully to put an end to what he knows that he could face if he lived any longer. As he expresses his fears of failing to achieve his poetic dreams, he does not simply mean that he fear death but his unachieved love and popularity within his short period on earth. Even though the precise cause for his anxiety as in “When I Have Fears,” is death, he ends up confessing that death serves as the best problematic cure. Keats in the “Ode to a Nightingale” narrates,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink (217)
While Keats’s fears brood from mortality as well as the restrictions of life; however, it is this limit that grants him the liberty from the eventual anguish (Sardar 8-16). Furthermore, Keats comprehensive exploration of death helps him realize some beauty in death. Nonetheless, this mortality should come with ease, “to cease upon the midnight with no pain” (Keats 162-163). As many people will perceive an early death as a misfortune, Keats gives it a contrary understanding where he considers it valuable when it stands as the only option to human suffering. Therefore, besides the sadness and the fears it brings a long, death should be appreciated as a solution to people’s misery.
As poets develop their messages to their readers, they are likely to include themes that concern their life experiences. John Keats, a poet who explores much of his experiences in his poems, takes a unique stand about the nature of beauty as a way of overcoming fears. Keats understanding of his closeness to die induces some fears in his life about him failing to achieve his dreams of love and fame. However, as he considers death as the ultimate problematic cure, he also longs for alcohol to help him die peacefully forgetting all his pains and suffering.
Works Cited
Keats, John. “John Keats -Poems”. PoemHunter (2004): 2-227. Web. 3 Dec. 2016.
Sardar, A. Afsheen. “Ode To A Nightingale By John Keats”. Galaxy(2012): 8-16. Print.