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· Name: Abulhasan H. Aabedi

· Roll no: 01

· Topic: John Keats as a Poet of Sensuousness

· Paper no.6: Romantic Age

· Class: Semester 02

· Enrollment no.:2069108420180001

· Batch: 2017~19

· Submitted to Department of English MK Bhavnagar University.

John Keats as a poet of Sensuousness:-

· Introduction:

John Keats(31 October 1795-23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death at 25 in the year 1821.

Although his poem were not generally well received by critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew after his death, and by the end of the 19^th century, he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of poets and writers. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keats’ work was the most significant literary experience of his life.

· John Keats as a sensuous poet or sensuousness in Keats’ poetry:

The poetry of Keats is characterized by ‘sensuous’ uses of language. The sensuousness of Keats is a striking characteristic of his entire poetry. All his poems including his great odes contain rich sensuous appeal. The odes, which represent the highest poetic achievement of Keats, are replete with sensuous pictures. Now, we will discuss his sensuousness with examples of his various Odes and poems in detail.

· ‘Ode to Nightingale’:

“Ode to Nightingale” is one of the most remarkable poems of sensuousness. In the second stanza of this ode, there is a description of the gustatory sensation of drinking wine. There are references to the visual and auditory senses too. The poet also paints the picture of a drunken whose mouth is purple stained because of the red wine he has drunk:

“ With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth,”

The descriptions of the wine are so sensuous that we see the bubbling wine, we also hear the dance and sun-burnt mirth; we also get an inkling of the taste of the long cooled wine. In the 5^th stanza the poet gives a highly sensuous description of the Nightingale world.

“ I cannot see what flowers are at my feet;

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies onsummereve

The description of the nature alludes to the sense of sight or its absence(one cannot see); the sense of touch and of smell(soft incense) and by the end of the verse, with the evocation of “the coming musk-rose, full of dew wine”, the sense of taste and hearing have also been incorporated.

· “Ode to Autumn":

“Ode to autumn” is considered to be the perfect embodiment of concrete sensuous experience. The poem gives a graphic description of the season with all its variety and richness. The whole atmosphere and the mood of the season are presented through sensuous imagery and descriptions:

“with fruits the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples and moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruits with ripeness to the core.”

· “Ode on Melancholy”:-

“Ode on Melancholy” again, we have several sensuous pictures. There is the rain failing from a loud above and reviving the drooping flowers below and covering the green hill in an “April”. There is the morning rose, there are the colors produced by the sunlight playing on wet sand; and there is the wealth of “globed peonies”. And then there is another exquisitely sensuous picture:

“Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows’

Imprison her soft hand and let her rave

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes”

Keats saw that life is full of suffering and he himself was a prey to disease and pain. Where is then, beauty in life.? He takes up this question in his “Ode On Melancholy”. He finds melancholy even in the sweetest things of life; even when a man loves most fondly, when he bursts : joy’s grasp against his palate fine”, veiled melancholy comes and disillusions him. Melancholy dwells with beauty, pain and suffering are not to be divorced from joy for they together make up life like just day and night together make up time.

· Ode on a Grecian Urn:

The “Ode on a Grecian Urn” contains a series of sensuous picture-passionate men and Gods chasing reluctant maidens, the fair youth trying to kiss his beloved, the happy branches of the tree enjoying an everlasting spring, etc. The ecstasy of the passion of love and of youth is beautifully depicted in the following lines:

More happy love! More happy happy love!

Fore ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

For ever painting, and for ever young.

· “Ode to Psyche”:-

The odes, which represent the highest poetic achievement of Keats, are replete with sensuous pictures. The ode to Psyche contains a lovely picture of Cupid and Psyche lying in an embrace in the deep grass, in the midst of flowers of varied colors:

“Mid hush’d, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed.”

The lovers lie with lips that touched not but which have not at the same time bidden farewell. We have more sensuous imagery when Keats describes the superior beauty of Psyche as compared with Venus and Vesper. Venus and Vesper are themselves described in sensuous phrases:

“Phebe’s sapphire region’d star,

Vesper, amorous glowworm of the sky”

A little later in the poem we are given pictures of a forest, mountains, stream, birds, breezes and Dryads lulled to sleep on the moss. One of the most exquisitely sensuous pictures comes at the end where we see a bright torch burning in the casement to make it possible for cupid to enter the temple in order to make love to Psyche.

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,

To let the warm love in!

· “The Eve of St. Agnes”:-

In “The Eve of St. Agnes”, the description of the Gothic window is famous for its rich sensuous appeal. Keats describes the rich colors of the window-panes of ‘quaint device”, on which were “ stains and splendid dyes as the tiger-mouth’s deep damask’d wing”. The reference to the music of the instrument in the same poem appeals to our sense of hearing:

“ The boisterous, mid-night, festive clarion,

The kettle-drum, and far heard clarionet.”

Again, the description of the feast arranged by prophyro is highly sensuous:

“While he from forth the closet brought a heap,

Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and fourd;

With jellies soother than the creamy curd,

And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;

The apple, quince, plum, gourd, jellies and dates make our mouths water. This passage of the spread feast of dainties is, indeed, sumptuous and inviting.

Our senses of sight and smell are also gratified when the poet described the wintry moon throwing its light on madeline’s fair breast and the rose-bloom falling on her hands. We have a delightful combination of colors in these lines, as in the stanza describing the Gothic window:

“Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on madeline’s fair breast,

As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,

And on her silver cross soft amethyst,

And on her hair a glory , like a saint.”

Even more sensuous is the picture of Madeline undressing herself. As Madeline removes the pearls from her hair, unclaps the jewels one by one, and loosen her fragrant bodice, she looks like a mermaid in sea-weed, and porphyro thinks himself to be in paradise. The phrases “Warmed jewels”, “Fragrant bodice”, and “rich attire” are particularly noteworthy here. The stanza on which the poet describes the passionate love-making of porphyro and Madeline, again, has a richly sensuous appeal. Porphyro is represented as “beyond a mortal man impassioned far”; he is like “a throbbing star seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose:; and the rose blends its odour with the violet- “solution sweet”.

· “La Bella Dame Sans Merci”:-

The short masterpiece, “La Bella Dam Sans Merci”, has its own sensuous appeal. The lady is described as “full beautiful, a fairy’s child”, with long hair, light foot, and wild eyes. The knight makes “a garland for her head, and bracelets too, and fragrant zone”. She finds him roots of sweet relish, wild honey, and manna dew.

“She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sigh’d full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes with kiss four”.

· “Ode to fancy”:-

In the ‘Ode to fancy”, we have a series of pictures which please our senses. The fruits of autumn, buds and bells of may, the sweet singing of the birds, the various flowers, the daisy, the marigold, the lily, the primrose are a kind of feast which we enjoy as we go through the poem.

The poet give the impressions receive by their eyes only. Wordsworth’s imagination is stirred by what he sees and hears in nature. Milton is no less sensitive to the beauty of nature, of the flowers in “Paradise Lost” in a sensuous manner. But keats’ poetry appeals to our sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch and sense of hot and cold. He exclaims in one of his letters “O for a life of sensation than of thoughts”. He is a pure poet in sense of seeking not sensual but sensuous delight.

· Five types of sense in Keats’ poetry:-

1. Sense of sight

2. Sense of Hearing

3. Sense of Taste

4. Sense of Touch

5. Sense of Smell

· Sense of Sight:-

Keats is painter of words. In a few words he presents a concrete and solid picture of sensuous beauty.

“Her hair was long, her foot was light

And her eyes were wild.”

And in “Ode on Grecian Urn” again the sense of sight is active.

“O attic shape! Fair attitude! With brede,

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed”;

· Sense of Hearing:-

The music of Nightingale produces pangs of pain in poet’s heart:

“The voice I hear this passing night was heard,

In ancient days, by emperor and clown:

In “Ode on Grecian Urn” he says:

“ Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard,

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

· Sense of Touch:-

The opening lines of “La Bella Dame Sans Merci” describe extreme cold:

“ The sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing”

· Sense of Taste:-

In “Ode to Nightingale”, Keats describes different kinds of wine and the ideas of their tastes in intoxication.

“O for a breaker full of the warm south,

Full of the true the blushful Hippocrene

· Sense of Smell:-

In “Ode to Nightingale”, the poet cannot see the flowers in darkness. There is mingled perfume of many flowers.

“I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet.”

· Conclusion:-

Thus, Keats always selects the objects of his description and imagery with a keen eye on their sensuous appeal. This sensuousness is the principal charm of his poetry. A general recognition of this quality leads to the consensus that Keats’s poetry is particularly successful in depicting, representing or conveying ‘reality’ or experience that his poetic language displays a kind of ‘solidity’ or concreteness capable or convincing the reader of the reality of what it communicate and persuading him, almost, to imagine that he is literally perceiving the objects and the experience that the verse describe.