John Keats

# John Keats
# Thinking Activity
# Paper -2 Romantic Literature

Hello Reader....

I welcome to all Reader on my blog. Today I'm write about John Keats and his poem on death and also some other writers poems. This blog task given by our Professor Dr. Heenaba Zala , click here for her blog post on John Keats. Today I'm talking about the concept of Death from his poems.

# Information about John Keats
Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats was one of the most prominent figures of the second generation of English Romantic poets. Keats died due to tuberculosis in 1821 at the age of only 25. His work was in publication for only four years and it was not generally well received by critics during his lifetime. The most famous and acclaimed poems of Keats are a series of six odes known as the Odes of 1819. However, his reputation grew after his death and by the end of the 19th century, he became one of the most beloved of all English poets.  Through his 1819 odes, Keats created a new type of short lyrical poem, which influenced later generations.The most highly regarded among these is To Autumn, which has been called one of the most perfect short poems in the English language.

# Concept of Death.

Death is not end of anything but death is the starting of everything. Death is not stopping life but death is starting new life. Death is the symbol of New starting. As North of Fray told in his eassy the concept of Tragedy is like Winter , because it is the fall of natura and we are also told that Death of things, but as we know cycle can't stop after this fall and Winter, Spring is come and Spring is the symbol of Birth. So that cycle of natura also follow that rules. And as we also know Death is the Bitter truth and people can't accept that Truth.

But Literature give permission to write about the Death and many writer wrote about the Death.

For the better understanding about the Death I paste here Video link.

After the understanding of Death I talk about what is the space in Literature.

Now I'm taking about the John Keats's Poem La Belle dame sans Merci.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
       Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
      And no birds sing.


O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
       So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
       And the harvest’s done.


I see a lily on thy brow,
       With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
       Fast withereth too.


I met a lady in the meads,
       Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
       And her eyes were wild.


I made a garland for her head,
       And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
       And made sweet moan


I set her on my pacing steed,
       And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
       A faery’s song.


She found me roots of relish sweet,
       And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
       ‘I love thee true’.


She took me to her Elfin grot,
       And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
       With kisses four.


And there she lullèd me asleep,
       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
       On the cold hill side.


I saw pale kings and princes too,
       Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
       Thee hath in thrall!’


I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
       With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
       On the cold hill’s side.


And this is why I sojourn here,
       Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
       And no birds sing.

“La Belle Dame sans Merci” as a Representative of Deception: 

La Belle dame sans Merci" ( the beautiful lady without mercy) is a Ballad produced by the English poet John Keats in 1819. The title of the 15th - century Poem by Alain Chartier called La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

The poem narrates a tragic story of a knight who falls in love with a lady, but she leaves him as falls ill. A stranger meets the knight and inquires about his miserable condition. The knight tells him about the beautiful woman in the meadows. They have been in love as she has walked alongside him and sung beautiful songs for him. Once, she took him to her special place where he kissed her, and the calmness around made him sleep. He then dreamed strange people warning him about that fair lady. He woke up by the cold hillside where the stranger found him. The tragic ballad tells about the sad condition of the knight and the deception of the lady.

Metaphor: It is a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between the objects that are different in nature. For example, “I see a lily on thy brow”. Here the paleness is compared to a white lily.

Symbolism: Symbolism means to use symbols to signify ideas and qualities, giving them symbolic meanings different from literal meanings. The phrases such as; “no birds sing”, “lily on thy brow” and “fading rose” symbolize the arrival of death.

Imagery: Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example, “She took me to her Elfin grot”, “I saw pale kings and princes too” and “And there she wept and sighed full sore.”

After that example I give more examples about the death. Click Here for the death poems written by many famous writer.

Thank you.....

Reference
1. B.A material.
2 YouTube
3. Pic: Wikipedia
  https://www.yourquote.in/sejal_solanki31
4. https://dilipbarad.blogspot.com/2013/01/ma-english-study-material-reading.html?m=1