Tag Archives: John Keats

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

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John Keats created a masterful sonnet by making a division of three quatrains and a concluding couplet in order to explain his fears in a list like manner. In the first quatrain it appears that Keats writes about his fear of dying before he can finish all his writing. We can see in line 2, “before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,” that he has so many thoughts that he wishes to extract from his brain and write down that the chance of passing away feels like an all too real fear for him. He also fears that he will not be able to experience the completed collection of his writings and quite possibly all the writings that he wishes to read, “before high piled books, in charactry, hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain” (lines 3-4).

Moving on to the second quatrain, this time Keats talks about his fear not being able to witness and experience the beauties of this world after death. He wishes to write about all he experiences and worries that at a certain point, he will not be able to do so as can be seen in lines 7-8, “and think that I may never live to trace their shadows, with the magic hand of chance.” These shadows that he refers to are those of a night sky that he looks up to and experiences awe. When looking at the “huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,” he is imagining all the wonders that he has yet to discover and the possibilities that he can uncover.

In the third quatrain it seems that Keats is talking about a woman that he is probably in love with and is fearing that he will never get the chance to see her again, “and when I feel, fair creature of an hour, that I shall never look upon thee more” (lines 9-10). This feeling that he has shows how he worries that he will never get to enjoy the happiness he gets when he looks at the woman. His “unreflecting love” for the woman states how strongly he feels about her and how his love is far greater than any that can be reciprocated. This love for the woman might be his strongest emotion and could be what he fears the most of losing which is why he mentions it in the final quatrain.

In the concluding couplet, “of the wide world I stand alone, and think till love and fame to nothingness do sink” (lines 13-14), Keats shows that he is all alone and wonders about will come. He comes to the realization about his fears, he fears that death will take away everything, his love and and fame will sink to nothingness after his passing.

This poem is a classic example of Romanticism as Keats delves into his own emotions and explores his individual self. His emotions of the fear of dying and thoughts of all that he wants to witness come together in order to help not just him but the reader as well figure out what it is that they want and  what is it that they truly enjoy.

John Keats

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John Keats is considered one of the greatest Romantic poets, yet his career as a poet lasted only five short years. Common themes found in Keats’ poetry are aching desire, the dreadful coming of death, and the seductive power of beauty. William Wordsworth, a fellow Romantic poet, had a large influence on Keats and his poetry. Keats paid close attention to structure in his sonnets and his odes, but the complex structures of his works are meant to compliment his meditations on his subject matter.

“When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be” is a Shakespearean sonnet. In this sonnet, Keats discusses his fear of death. Specifically, he talks about his fear of dying before he is done writing all the poetry he is capable of and his fear of dying before having felt “unreflecting love” (Keats 12). Line 13 of the sonnet says “Of the wide world I stand alone,” meaning that Keats feels he is alone in the world; he ends the sonnet by saying he feels love and fame are worthless. “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be” is a personal fear that Keats has of dying an early death like the other members of his family.

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” begins with Keats addressing an ancient Grecian urn. He focuses on the fact that the figures on the urn are frozen in time; he describes it as “still unravished bride of quietness” and “foster-child of silence and slow time” (Keats 1-2). Keats also repeatedly asks questions about the urn and its origins. Again focusing on the subject of time, Keats opens the second stanza with “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter,” (Keats 11-12) meaning that unheard melodies are sweeter than normal melodies because they are unaffected by time. He focuses on the beauty of being frozen in time and how the beauty in the moments depicted on the urn will never fade away with time.