Keats’ Romantic Eco-Poetics

Ecocritics work to develop and demonstrate the connection between constitution and gentleity by expressing how places are connected to the people that live in them. Likewise, those places, or nature, adjoin the people that live within them and vise versa. John Keats eco-poetics often convey a Romantic worship for nature by means of a self-conscious, philosophical imaginations connection to nature. His enthusiasm for the philosophical as wellspring as the corporeal scopes of nature plays an obvious fundamental role in his possible action of consciousness and esthetics. Keats has specific qualifications for truth and beauty.Truth is all inclusive, combining all experiences with nature in ones invigoration, whether they are affirmative or undesirable experiences, into one functional vision. However, Keats separates his metrical composition from nature in authoritarian way. He does not believe that nature only funds the aesthetics of his rime, but rather that his poetry forces r eaders to recognize a deeper meaning to existence. Ode to a Nightingale is an excellent example of Keats use of nature in developing the poets assumptions of consciousness and philosophy. The initial use of a bird singing, in its poetic aesthetics sense, portrays the beauty and concord within nature.Keats embraces the thought of a painless finale only while earreach to the nightingales song. This is because of the birds ability to be free, which wills Keats to want a similar freedom, asunder from the suffering and pain within human life. He even speaks as though the nightingale is ever-living and incapable of the sorrow of death. Within the same stanza, which can be comprise below, Keats speaks of a magic this nightingale holds. It is as if Keats firmly believes in the nightingales ability to transcend the natural ball, into a world free of cares and lacking death. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness painsMy sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiat e to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk Tis but through envy of thy gifted lot, But being too happy in thy happiness, That though light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some musical plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. (Lines 1-10) Though wast not born for death, immortal Bird No hungry generations tread thee down The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown Perhaps the self-same song that found a pathThrough the no-good heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. (Stanza VII) Likewise, the seasonal transition depicts natures ability to lurch in spite of mans inability to look past their monotonous and speculative life. Keats focuses on the phenomena of metamorphosis in regards to the conscious self. This pattern of cycles which can be directly connected to the process of life and human existence can be seen in the fifth stanza of Ode to a Nightingale as well as in to dusk. Fast fading violets coverd up in leaves And mid-Mays firstborn child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of lies on summer eves. (Lines 47-50 Ode to a Nightingale) Where are the songs of Springs? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with crimson hue Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river swallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies (Lines 23-29 To Autumn)Again, Keats implies a connection between human existence and the fact that there would be no meaning to life without the inevitability of eventual death to the seasons, life in spring and death in winter. Along with this rendition of life and death, Keats creates a tint of comfort in his ecological representation of death. In To Autumn, Keats disp lays a world in which fruit is estimable and flowers are budding. Colors are alive and bright. However, each season brings the death of the one preceding it. In other words, every season, as with every human existence, has the capacity of life and death.The ecology behind this resoluteness appears within the recurring and inexhaustible rebirth of natures beauty. On the other hand, I do not believe that Keats sole intention was to display the beauty of nature. Keats often uses the exploration of nature and its resource as a socio-political symbol of freedom, sovereignty, and harmony. Although autumn is beautiful and Keats uses this ecology to the political and personal strife found within every human being. I believe this to be true because Keats wrote To Autumn in phratry of 1819, shortly after his brother, Tom, died in December of 1818 of tuberculosis.Also the Peterloo Massacre, which occurred in August of 1819, about a month forrader Keats wrote To Autumn, may have influenced his language and aesthetics within the poem. Keats was obviously pondering the concept of death and his required belief in an existence after death. It is important to consider the context, both political and social, in which To Autumn was written. This is because ecocritics enlarge the vision(s) of texts and their role and function in our lives while challenging, the readers, to investigate and grapple with our personal understanding of humanity, texts, and nature itself (Bressler). Our understanding of humanity, text, and nature is often greatly influenced by the experiences we face from day to day. Keats is able to use his poetry to address a number of reoccurring ideas the relationship between art and existence, the limitation of that existence and how those limitations are embraced by people, and the inevitability of death and loss of everything that is capable of reproduction and beauty. Although his poetry is beautiful, his ideas are somewhat tragic.