Death, as a topic, frequently arouses speculation and anxiety. We fear death for piles of reasons: we dread not to accomplish what we long for in our life, we don’t know what to expect from death, we fear devils in hell and punishments from God… In “When I Have Fear That I May Cease To Be”, John Keats describes his fear if the coda of his life arrives. He fears that fountaining thoughts in his brain could never be expressed, piled books on the shelf would be forgotten in the dust, and his trace after the moon and clouds ceases abruptly (line1-8). John Keats contemplates all that he wants in his life: success, fame and love. He doesn’t just want simple success, normal fame and plain love. Instead, like most of us, he craves for them in an extraordinary, desperate, earth-shaking way. Meantime, he confesses his desperations in front death, as he writes, “then on the shore of the wide world I stand alone, and think, will Love and Fame to nothingness do sink”(line12-14). With unachieved aspirations, we fear death thinking we’ll get nowhere near them any longer. Imagining dying with regret, we’d regard our short life as an imperfect one, which nobody likes.
Keats let his emotions flow out directly from his words without endless brushstrokes on romantic sceneries or landscapes, compared to the poems we read from William Wordsworth and Taylor Coleridge. He puts how his minds and thoughts would be if he dies in the first part, while he places the moon and clouds in the following part. It is different from the Wordsworth’s more introverted way of expressing by depicting natural views over and over to gradually introduce his feelings and emotions. Keats diversifies his way of expression as well. For example, he writes, “hold like rich garners the full rippen’d grain”(line 4) to analogize his high piled books. Meanwhile, he draws an analogy that writing with pen is to “glean’d teeming brain”(line 2). The analogies make these lines unified and smooth.
The poem doesn’t finish in a happy or inspiring tone. But it is why tragedy can better provokes our thoughts because we keep pondering over why something has to be imperfect.
After reading your blog post, I found out that the sonnets “When I Have Fear That I May Cease To Be” and “Bright Star” by John Keats are closely related.
In the first sonnet, I agree with you that John Keats fears of death because he has many goals that are unfulfilled. As you say, “he wants in his life: success, fame and love.” and “he fears that fountaining thoughts in his brain could never be expressed”. Therefore, in the second sonnet, he looks upon the night and sees Bright star as a symbol of eternity. He wants eternal life in order to fulfill these goals. And Yes! Love also appears in this poem, “Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast, To feel forever…”With the eternal life, he wants to spend the entire life to look for and be with his romantic lover.
Keats makes it very clear that he does not want eternity if he lives alone or could not find his true love. In the last line, I can tell that love is more important than success and fame for him because without enjoying the time with his lover he would rather die or “swoon to death”.