Hello everyone,
I would first like to say that I am sorry for not being as active on this blog as I would hope to be. The most recent essay and some of my other midterms have made me somewhat neglect this aspect of the course, but I am here to tell you that this will be the case no longer. Going forward, I pledge to write two thought-provoking and carefully-created posts per week in order to make up for my lack of contribution thus far. On top of this, going forward, I pledge to never be out-commented – meaning if you were to respond to a post or a comment of mine, I would attempt to always have the last word, though I encourage you all to prove me wrong. With that being said, allow me to discuss some romantic poetry.
I read an interesting piece that described “Sleep and Poetry” as a poem that marked Keats’ transition to becoming a dedicated poet. From 1815-1816 Keats trained as a surgeon and wrote poetry on the side, but after 1816, Keats dedicated more of his life to poetry. “Sleep and Poetry” was written at the end of 1816 and is a beautiful poem about his understanding of the wonders of sleep and the poet’s duty. It is puzzling to me why the anthology starts the poem at line 96 because the beginning of the poem is quite different to the seventy lines shown in the anthology. The beginning of the poem shows a very cautious appreciation for life and sleep. There is a sense that Keats feels the “weight of mortality” discussed in “On Seeing Elgin Marbles,” when he says, “life is but a day”(line 86,) but when we really get the idea that Keats feels he is living on borrowed time is where the anthology begins the poem. The lines
“O for ten years, that I may overwhelm Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed.” (Lines 96-98)
Are an incredibly sad plea for time, especially considering that Keats was 21 when he wrote this piece. It is also in these lines that we see Keats starting to see his purpose in life as a poet. He writes that his soul has declared that he must undertake this task of poetry, but another crucial element of “Sleep and Poetry” is how Keats defines this undertaking. Later on in the poem, Keats writes,
“And can I ever bid these joys farewell? Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, Where I may find the agonies, the strife Of human hearts”(122-125)
Here, Keats makes it clear that he sees the job of the poet not as merely an appreciator of nature and language, but as someone who engages with the most intense pains emotions of life. Though sleep is beautiful and comforting, he feels a duty to leave this paradise and engage with humanity. This is also where the line in the poem between sleep and death becomes a little bit blurred. Throughout the beginning of the poem, sleep and death seem undeniably linked to one another, and in sections like this, in which he bids the joys of sleep farewell in the name of poetry, the two are almost indistinguishable. In one way, each morning Keats chooses to wake up and fulfill his duty of finding the “agonies, the strife of human hearts,” and in another, he is choosing to live in the name of this art and creation in a more general sense.
Once again, I would like to apologize for my lack of contribution to the blog thus far and appreciate you all taking the time to read my thoughts.
Structure And Literary Devices In Sleep And Poetry by John Keats
