“On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” was written by John Keats in October 1816. Chapman, George Chapman is who translated the works of Homer, the great Greek poet “father of poets”. This poem is in the form of a sonnet which has fourteen lines. It was considered Keats’ first major poem, and it is about poetry, it includes a metaphor, “travell’d through the realms of gold” which is one of Keats’ poetic techniques which means Keats read lots of books and it is what inspired him. This poem includes an image of a Spanish soldier and adventurer Cortez and his men staring at the Pacific (Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519 meaning he was more a warrior than explorer. This shows Keats’ own ambitions as a poet). In this poem Keats talks about circumnavigating the world of literature and he explains in detail, what books he is reading. which is what makes this poem more interesting. The main theme of is this poem is discovery, where Keats is talking about his discoveries in his books.
The first quatrain of the poem tells us how Keats’ discovers the world and he includes many poetic techniques which make the poem more interesting. The first line starts with, “Much have I travell’d”. It includes an inversion which puts emphasis on “Much” which tells the reader how much he has read. Secondly “travall’d”, this is a metaphor for reading and it is a poetic technique that makes the poem more interesting. In the second line Keats is talking about what kind of places he has been to. “And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;” “goodly” is another metaphor for worthy literature. “states” and “kingdoms” are also metaphors telling the reader what kind of places he has been. In the third line, “Round many western islands have I been” Keats is telling the...
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...mage is about the opening up of the world – sharing the experience with his men. Keats is sharing the his insight with the readers. The last line of the poem, “Silent, upon a peak in Darien”, has comma which allows the reader to pause and take in the effect of the discovery of the mountain top in Darien. Keats, in the last part of the poem (sestet) has said many poetic techniques which have made the poem more interesting. Like inversions, similes and parenthesis.
The poem “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” is about Keats travelled through the world of literature with his books. He is teller the reader in full detail about his journeys through his books and sharing with the reader his insight towards where has been. This poem is full of poetic techniques which have made the poem more interesting and Keats has successfully described the experience of his travels.
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
In his sonnet "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time," John Keats presents a series of various forms of conflict and tension. Most prominent is the poet's sense of his own fleeting existence juxtaposed with the eternity of the Greek marble sculptures and, perhaps, with the timelessness of art in general. However, there is another, more subtle tension between what is in existence, and what is not, an absence which paradoxically manifests as a form of existence in itself. The presence of this conflict within the sonnet shows Keats's self-coined Negative Capability, the ability to be in "uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason" (Keats 863). Furthermore, the Negative Capability exemplified here is produced by the speaker's empathetic experience with the ruins of the Greek sculptures, which he appreciates in their entirety, not only for the fragments which have physically remained intact, but also for the lost portions and details, which are an essential element of their ruinous state.
Homer’s Odyssey is filled with the several different dimensions of literary strengths he possessed as a poet. The strong use of imagery is a reoccurring theme throughout his work Homer’s gift of description is the focus point of every book in the Odyssey, especially in book nine: In the One-Eyed Giant’s Cave. In book nine of the Odyssey Homer used imagery as well as literary devices to convey his gift of description to his audience. Throughout this paper Homer’s usage of imagery in book 9: In the One-Eyed Giant’s Cave of his work the Odyssey will be analyzed and documented.
Keats’ poetry explores many issues and themes, accompanied by language and technique that clearly demonstrates the romantic era. His poems ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Bright Star’ examine themes such as mortality and idealism of love. Mortality were common themes that were presented in these poems as Keats’ has used his imagination in order to touch each of the five senses. He also explores the idea that the nightingale’s song allows Keats to travel in a world of beauty. Keats draws from mythology and christianity to further develop these ideas. Keats’ wrote ‘Ode To A Nightingale’ as an immortal bird’s song that enabled him to escape reality and live only to admire the beauty of nature around him. ‘Bright Star’ also discusses the immortal as Keats shows a sense of yearning to be like a star in it’s steadfast abilities. The visual representation reveal these ideas as each image reflects Keats’ obsession with nature and how through this mindset he was able
The key ingredient in this structure is that it is centered on the role of the human, for even though Romantic poetry is abundantly rich with descriptions of the natural world, Romantics are "humanists above all," describing the outer physical world only as it relates to man's self-reflective condition (202). This accounts for Wordsworth's fear that an all-consuming observation of the material world would "tyrannize over the mind and imagination" (202). But to fully explicate his definition of the greater Romantic lyric, Abrams turns not to Wordsworth but to Coleridge as the main focal point, for Coleridge is its chief author and innovator, having brought forth the Romantic lyric in "The Eolian Harp" in 1796, a full two years before Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" (204).
Although this section is the easiest to read, it sets up the action and requires the most "reading between the lines" to follow along with the quick and meaningful happenings. Millay begins her poem by describing, in first person, the limitations of her world as a child. She links herself to these nature images and wonders about what the world is like beyond the islands and mountains. The initial language and writing style hint at a child-like theme used in this section. This device invites the reader to sit back and enjoy the poem without the pressure to understand complex words and structure.
It has been acknowledged by many scholars that Yeats' study of Blake greatly influenced his poetic expression. This gives rise to the widely held assertion that Yeats is indebted to Blake. While I concur with this assertion, I feel that the perhaps greater debt is Blake's.
Before beginning an analysis of a single word that appears four times in this poem, it is important to establish a few assumptions about the nature of the piece itself. Many an article and essay have been written about The Wanderer, trying to define its theme, genre, even its narrator. Yet the wonderfully ambiguous nature of the poem defies any single explanation, so it remains up to the critical reader to develop his own opinion.
John Keats’ “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” is commonly read as an expression of joy at discovering a new piece of art and its power to change readers’ perceptions. Throughout the poem the speaker uses different metaphors for discovery including travelling, finding a new planet, and Balboa’s discovery of the Pacific Ocean to convey the wonder he feels at reading Homer’s poetry for the first time. However, the metaphors the speaker chooses also suggest the conquest and dominance that accompanies discovery and gives the poem a darker undertone. If I were to write a paper about an alternate reading of this poem, I would track these metaphors and the ways these comparisons can suggest conquest and ownership in addition to discovery.
To conclude it has been firmly established that Keats had a profound ability to use literary techniques. Throughout his all his Odes he uses a variety of different devices, bringing forth our senses of taste, sight, smell, hearing and touch, creating an overall unique sensual experience. In reading his poetry I have gained a new found adoration and insight to the world of poetry. Reading deeper into the use of certain words and images has demonstrated that each word is as important as the previous, or next in this establishment of arousing ones senses. The world of sense has truly been evoked throughout Keats masterpieces.
The poem "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again" by John Keats is a sonnet about Keats' relationship with the drama that became his idea of tragic perfection, and how it relates to his own struggle with the issues of short life and premature death. Keats uses the occasion of the rereading this play to explore his seduction by it and its influence on himself and his ways of looking at himself and his situation in spite of his negative capability.
John Keats employs word choices and word order to illustrate his contemplative and sympathetic tone. The tone could be interpreted as pessimistic and depressing because the majority of the poem focuses on Keats’ fear of death. However, if the reader views the last two lines of the poem in light which brings redemption, one might see that Keats merely wants to express the importance of this dominant fear in his life. He does not desire for his audience to focus on death, but to realize that man does not have control of when it comes. The poet uses poetic diction, a popular technique of the early nineteenth century. The poem also demonstrates formal diction that Keats is often known for. Although Keats meant for most of his words to interpret with denotative meanings, he does present a few examples of allusion and connotation. His connotations include “teeming,” defined as plen...
The first stanza begins with Keats painting a picture of Autumn as being a “season of mist and mellow fruitfulness”. This is used in conjunction with the use of the image of a “maturing sun” which ripens the Autumn harvest of views and the fruits. The excessiveness of the Autumn harvest is achieved with the use of hyperbole. He describes the fruit being ripened to the core, the gourds are swelled, the hazel nuts plumped and trees bend from the weight of the apples. So the first stanza describes quiet vividly the fullness and abundance of life.
Keats places allusions throughout the poem as a way of referencing the mythical essence nature. Full of references to greek mythology, keats’ placement of these allusions reinforces a belief in nature as a perfect and mythical world that promises escape from human frailty. The speaker states in line 16 “ Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene/...that I might drink, and leave the world unseen” . In greek lore the Hippocrene was a sacred spring to muses and was said to inspire poets. By alluding to specific greek mythology Keats reinforces the otherworldly quality of the poem. To a degree, these allusions influence the overall tone of the piece as well, making the poem seem almost dreamlike, which in turn paint nature as being a place to escape the struggles of human existence.
This paper will explore the common analytical symbolism in William Butler Yeats poem "The Second Coming” written in 1919. In addition this paper will also discuss a background of the source of its symbolism. This symbolism can only be understood in the context of the essence of his life. Various scholarly analysis correlate its symbolism to his book “A Vision" written in 1925 and later revised in 1937. In his book "A Vision" Yeats does provide explanation of his esoteric system but the book is not limited to his symbolism, and certainly would be a study onto itself. For the purpose of this paper some knowledge of Yeats symbolism clarifies elements in the poem "The Second Coming” and will be provided. This being his most analyzed poem, there are as many interpretations as there are critics and analysis and there are many. Some interpretations, while interesting do not correlate the poem to his esoteric system have chosen to focus on a more scholarly analysis.