Reader's Log 7B

READER'S LOG. Editors' introduction, pp. 1793-1794. From pp.1794-1795 list the years of Keats' first and last great poems. Then summarize in your own words what your editors say of Keats in the first complete paragraph at the top of p. 1796.Keats and the sonnet form.Your editors esteem Keats as Wordsworth's peer in the handling of the sonnet form. There is no doubt that he practiced the craft of prosody by writing a number of memorable, often anthologized sonnets. Interestingly, he tried his hand at both the Italian and the English sonnet, which as you will recall fall into the following rhyme patterns: Italian abba abba cdecde (or some other close variant for the sestet); English abab cdcd efef gg.

READER'S LOG. On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, p. 1796. "Chapman's Homer" here refers to the ancient epics The Iliad and The Odyssey attributed to the blind Greek poet Homer, which had been had translated from Greek into English by the Elizabethan poet George Chapman, thereby making them accessible to Keats, who could not read ancient Greek. Tell in your own words what kind of discovery this reading proved to be for Keats.

READER'S LOG. On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again, p. 1803. In this sonnet, Keats admonishes himself in the first four lines to abandon a pleasant state of mind and poetic creativity and plunge into the "fierce dispute" and "bitter sweet" of Shakespeare's great tragedy, King Lear. In concluding he prays to emerge from his present endeavor (which, as your editors tell you in their notes, means either his reading of the play or his writing of his present project, Endymion) with a resurgence of his creative powers. Tell in your own words what you think Keats means by the word "Romance" in the first few lines of the poem.

READER'S LOG. When I have fears that I may cease to be, p. 1803. Quickly work out the rhyme scheme of this sonnet and the one just above, noting that this one is an English sonnet and the one above an Italian sonnet. Addressing his fear of an early death in this poem, the poet names two great values, literary fame and love, that will go unrealized should he die prematurely. In the final two and a half lines, the poet recounts arriving at a state of mind in which love and fame become meaningless. Give your opinion here as to whether the poet is consoled or grieved by this eventuality.

Endymion: A Poetic Romance, pp. 1799-1802. We have here a mere fragment of a poem consisting of more than 4000 lines, a work which your editors call "a profuse allegory of a mortal's quest for an ideal feminine counterpart and a flawless happiness beyond earthly possibility" (p. 1794). As you also learned from the editors' introduction, the work was vitriolically denounced by the conservative press and Keats himself regarded it as a flawed work which at best had served as an exercise in prosody for the as yet immature poet. Keats turned from this long work to another work that promised to be even longer, Hyperion, which was to be a Romantic epic modeled on Paradise Lost. (You will recall that Wordsworth too aspired to create his never-achieved The Recluse as a Romantic counterpart of Milton's Christian epic. Thus we are reminded that many generations of great poets have esteemed Milton as second only the Shakespeare in poetic achievement.) Ironically, once Keats had mastered Milton's elevated style, he abandoned Hyperion because he insisted on working out a poetic style unique to himself.Please note that in Endymion, Keats employs the rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter that we saw over and over among the Neoclassical poets. We will also see abundant allusion to the classical literature and mythology in Keats, by far the most Neoclassical of the six great Romantic poets.

READER'S LOG. Endymion: A Poetic Romance, from Book I, lines 1-39, pp. 1799-1800. A "thing of beauty" the poet tells us has an eternal aspect that cheers and heartens us despite a variety of earthly ills, named in lines 8-10. This is in keeping with the Romantic view of the spiritual heart of nature where Truth, Beauty, and Goodness reside, open to interpretation by the well-tuned poet. Above all other poets Keats emphasizes the elevating grandeur of beauty. From lines 11-24, list in your own words some of the things that possess the gladdening shape of beauty.

READER'S LOG. Endymion: A Poetic Romance, from Book I, lines 769-857, pp. 1800-1802. The poet tells us in lines 777-781, p. 1801, that he will delineate the steps of "happiness" which enable us to commune and become at one with "essences," "the clear religion of heaven," terms which we may understand as the spiritual heart of nature. These steps include, first, the beautiful objects of visible nature and art (lines 781-797); second, "love and friendship" (line 801), culminating in the ecstasy of sexual love (lines 835-842); leading finally to, third, the counterpart of earthly love in the immortal spiritual heart of nature. Having studied carefully lines 843-857, p. 1802, state in your own words the meaning of the conclusion, lines 853-857.

The Eve of St. Agnes, pp. 1804-1814. Read the editors' notes. You are told that this is the first completely successful long narrative poem. It is in Spenserian stanzas, defined on p. 2843, which rhyme ababbcbcc, with the first eight lines in pentameter (five feet, ten syllables) and the ninth line (called an Alexandrine) in hexameter (six feet, twelve syllables). You will enjoy reading the poem both for its rich poetic effects and for the unfolding of a suspenseful plot reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. On a bitterly cold eve of St. Agnes, the maiden Madeline withdraws early from the revelry of a ball in her parents' palace and goes to bed, hoping her future husband will be revealed to her in a dream as promised by a legend. In the meantime, undeterred by the hatred of her family for his family, the love-stricken Porphyro steals into the ball and persuades an aged servant to hide him in Madeline's room. When he awakens her, she at first believes herself dreaming. She is quickly convinced to flee with him, and the two ride away together.

READER'S LOG. The Eve of St. Agnes, stanzas 9-19, pp. 1816-1808. Tell in your own words what threat Porphyro uses to induce the old woman to conceal him in Madeline's room.

READER'S LOG. The Eve of St. Agnes, stanzas 24-25, pp. 1809-1810. In these stanzas, Madeline is illuminated by moonlight streaming through a stained glass window and therefore visible to the hidden Porphyro while she undresses and says her prayers. Note the rich, deliberate imagery of the scene. The word image denotes an object of the senses which a poet vividly describes, and imagery denotes the total descriptive effects of a poem. Keats is noted for the richness of his imagery. Summarize the imagery of these two stanzas in your own words and offer an opinion as to its effectiveness.

READER'S LOG. The Eve of St. Agnes, stanzas 29-35, pp. 1811-1812. Tell in your own words how Porphyro prepares for awakening Madeline from her sleep; also summarize her response to her supposed dream.

Ode on a Grecian Urn, pp. 1820-1822. Read carefully the editors' note # 1, p. 1820. Read this poem carefully. You will also want to read with special care editors' note # 7, p. 1822. Both notes inform you of controversy on the part of literary critics over various words and phrases. You could, if you wished, inform yourself in detail about these controversies through sources available to you online. You will find such controversy over the interpretation of many of the poems we have read this semester. That means, not that we should fail to impose our own interpretation on the poem, but that we should do so with a mind open to revision when we encounter new information.

READER'S LOG. Ode on a Grecian Urn, pp. 1820-1822. Among Keats' notable poems is a series of well known odes. Like the sonnet, the ode is a recognized traditional form, based on models in classical literature. However, as a form, the ode is not as rigidly defined as the sonnet. It is usually a poem of moderate length with stanzas varying in rhyme scheme and length of line. This ode has five stanzas of ten lines each in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme of stanzas 1, 3, and 4 is ababcdecde. However, the rhyme scheme of stanzas 2 and 5 varies slightly, not only from the first mentioned three but from each other. Give the rhyme schemes of stanzas 2 and 5.

READER'S LOG. Ode on a Grecian Urn, pp. 1820-1822. The object in reference here is a tall vase from ancient Greece on which figures have been sculpted in relief. The citizens of a country town are shown in a religious procession toward an altar in the woods beyond the town, where their priests will sacrifice a flower-adorned heifer. Musicians are playing on pipes and young lovers pursue coy maidens with sexual intercourse in mind. All are in a mood of ecstatic excess as is allowed by this particular rite dedicated to Dionysus, also called Bacchus, the god of wine and of an orgiastic cult celebrating the fertility of nature. The vase, of course, has frozen the lovers and fleeing maidens in the midst of their ardent, as yet unsatisfied desire. From lines 15-30 in stanzas 2 and 3, tell in your own words the consolation the poet offers for this forever frustrated desire.

READER'S LOG. Ode on a Grecian Urn, pp. 1820-1822. In the first stanza, the poet calls the urn a "sylvan historian," who, as he goes on to say in lines 11-14 of stanza 2, informs the Imagination of a deep spiritual truth, which the poet has the urn articulate in line 49 of stanza 5. In keeping with what we already know of Keats, we may interpret this to mean that, in the heart of the intangible cosmic spirit which underlies nature, truth and beauty are literally one and the same thing. In your own words tell the use to which Keats would have his fellow human beings put this knowledge.

Ode on Melancholy, pp. 1822-1823. Read the editors' introduction, p. 1822. Then, by way of preparation for this poem, return to the editors' general introduction to Keats and reread carefully the first full paragraph on p. 1795. Note toward the end of the paragraph that the editors emphasize particularly Keats recognition of, and his attempt to reconcile, emotional opposites. You will find such a recognition and attempt in the poem here assigned. Be sure to read the notes at the bottom of the page carefully, taking into account once again from his abundant classical allusions how akin Keats is to the poets of the Neoclassical Era.

READER'S LOG. Ode on Melancholy, pp. 1822-1823. Read both the deleted initial stanza and the published initial stanza. The deleted stanza tells you that a figurative ship constructed of such horror-arousing things as rotting bodies, a gallows, and a rudder fashioned from a dragon's tail will not convey you to the desired place where Melancholy dwells. Tell in your own words what the initial published stanza goes on to tell you.

READER'S LOG. Ode on Melancholy, p. 1823. Read published stanzas 2 and 3. Stanza 2 implies that Melancholy is a delicate emotion, best vented in the presence of beautiful things such as an iridescent wave or "a wealth of globed peonies" or in the "peerless eyes" of one's beloved when she is angry. From the final stanza, tell in your own words the relationship between Melancholy on the one hand and Beauty, Joy, and Pleasure on the other.