John Keats Dance With Death

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What goes through the minds of those who know they will perish is a phenomenon to the minds of those who have not experienced the dance with death. For some, the moment that they know they will die is mere seconds before their own tragic ending, and others know long before it will happen. It is in these stretches of time that will test our intellect of our mind, body, and world when the time comes to know if we have truly lived. One definition of “living” is stated, “full of life of vigor”, which John Keats exhibited to the extreme. (Merriam-Webster) John Keats, world-renowned poet, knew his end was coming and he aspired to transcribe his thoughts into words on a page; it is with these words in which we, those who lack the experience of knowing …show more content…

For example, in the first line is him contemplating his fear that he may never live to share all of his knowledge. It is a strange fact that we, as humans, believe that we will not die; we think this until there is that one point in life that we first see death. For many, a sense of mortality does not hit until a loved one’s light suddenly goes out and all that is left is a stream of hazy memories of that person. Keats knew his flame was flickering, so he wrote down his feelings and thoughts with vigor. When people of his time read what he put down on paper, they were not ready to accept the inevitable because they only saw a man belligerent about his life. Is has been said that, “the generally conservative reviewers of the day attacked his work, with malicious zeal, as mawkish and bad-mannered, as the work of an upstart." (The Poetry Foundation) After his death at such a young age, people began to see why he was contemplating such a dark concept. Basically, Keats gives the example that although the words of today can sometimes be ignored, there may be a time in the future when those words mean the world to …show more content…

It is an unfortunate truth that some see their lives a nothing and decided to take away their own lives with the slip of their own hands. It seems viable to say that if Keats were to know of how many lives are wasted by voluntary suicide, he would be angered to see human beings giving up when he himself fought through his life until his last breath. When Keats learned of his eminent demise, he did not shy away from his life, instead he embraced the hand that life dealt for him and tried to make the worst of a situation into the best of his work. The Academy of American Poets writes, “He felt that death was already upon him, referring to the present as his “posthumous existence.” (The Academy of American Poets) In other words, there is a message to all readers that there is much to live for rather than intentionally snuffing out your life for reasons that are

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