John Keats poetry possesses two traits, the idea of death and the splendor of beauty. His poem Bright Star discusses both aspects of death and beauty. The speaker begins by looking up at the stars stating,
"Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient sleepless Eremite" (line 1- 4).
The speaker is wishing that he could be like the star, ever watchful and ever present. For the star is immortal, the star will always be there, but the speaker is destined to die. The speaker is lamenting his mortality in this world because his eminent death with separate him from his love. While the star can forever look upon "my fair love's ripening breast, to feel for ever its soft swell and fall, " the speaker must face death and separation (line 10-11). He cannot look forever upon his love. Yet she is not a star or immortal either, she too will die one day. The speaker recognizes his beloved like him will too face death. Therefore, he cherishes his moments with her.
"still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever- or else swoon to death-" (line 13-14)
The speaker treasures the moments he shares with his beloved, and while he is with her, he is living a full life. Together they life as if they are immortal. Together they cannot be harmed, but once they are separated they would rather "swoon to death" (line 14). The speaker knows that without his love his desire for immortality also dies because he only wants to live to be with her. Without her, he loses his desire to live.
Lauren,
ReplyDeleteGood focus on this single poem by Keats, and effective selection of quoted passages for discussion. You make some good observations in your discussion of them, although I would like to see you pursue those points in more depth and detail, and perhaps provide more substantiating evidence (either from the poem or Keats's letters) for the claims in the final paragraph. Two technical notes: Put the title of the poem in quotation marks if the text is short, like this one, or in italics if it is long; also, be sure to differentiate between a hyphen and a dash (for the former, use -, and for the latter, use -- or —). There are a lot of dashes in these poems and texts, so the issue is likely to come up again.
I think you make some excellent points in this blog. I didn’t blog on this poem. However, I found it to be interesting. I like the observations you make and it gives me a different perspective on the poem.
ReplyDeleteLauren you talk about how he cherishes his "moments with her", and I agree with you and think he uses the stars to resemble his everlasting love. I think the stars show that even if you dead your body lives on in the stars.
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