John Keats

As a poet John Keats, earned fame due to his ideals about politics and society. The thought process of Keats has been called an assortment of things from a child full of imagination to a skillful genius. Through Keats poetry the reader will be able to see him develop into a man with his own outspoken beliefs. Throughout Keats' poetry he exemplifies many poetic elements from allegory to stanza couplets. In Keats's poems, The Eve of St. Agnes, First Looking into Chapman's Homer, and On the Sonnet the two major elements in these poems are form and mood.

In the poem, The Eve of St. Agnes, Keats shows diversity of style by writing a romantic poem. The stanza form of this poem was Spenserian. This is a nine-line form with the first eight lines in iambic character and the last line in iambic hexameter. (Allan Danzing) By example, in this stanza, Keats uses this unique form to express the love between Madeline and Porphyro.

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;

Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,

And back returneth, meager, barefoot, wan,

Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:

The sculptured dead, on each side, seem to freeze,

Imprisoned in black, purgatorial rails;

Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat' ries,

He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails

To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails

(stanza 2)

The poem shows the contrast between reality vs. dream. In the poem Keats describes how Madeline was surprised to see Porphyro beside her bed, because she was just dreaming of him. In Madeline's dream, Porphyro was perfect. She imagined him the way she wanted him to be. So the mood at the beginning of the poem expresses happiness about the joy of love.

So, purposing each moment to retire,

She linger'd still. Meantime, across the moors,

Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire

For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,

Buttress'd from moonlight, stands he, and implores

All saints to give him sight of Madeline,

But for one moment in the tedious hours,

That he might gaze and worship all unseen;

Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss--in sooth such things have been

(stanza 9)

In reality Porphyro is not perfect and Madeline realizes that. The mood of the poem ends sadly with the tragic death of Porphyro and Madeline.

And they are gone: aye, ages long ago

These lovers fled away into the storm.

That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe

And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form

Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,

Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old

Dies palsy-twitched, with meager face deform;

The Beadsman, after thou-sand aves told,

For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.

(stanza 42)

Keats decided to use the Spenserian stanza form. Spenerian stanza which is a nine-line form with the first eight lines in iambic character and the last line in iambic hexameter. (Allan Danzing) The mood of the poem changes throughout the narrative poem. The Spenerian stanza form and mood that he displays in this poem expresses his personal romantic thoughts.

In John Keats poem, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, wrote in 1816 he demonstrates the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, which consists of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, but these lines are divided into eight-line unit called an octave and a six-line unit called a sestet. (H.W. Garrod)

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

(lines 1-8)

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes

He stared at the Pacific--and all his men

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

(lines 9-14)

The mood of the poem expresses Keats passion for poetry. He uses the imagery of Homer's exploration and discoveries to communicate his love of poetry. The change in the mood