So I think the poem goes both ways in terms of his fears, but concludes that Keats has some sort of grip on reality.
Monday, February 23, 2015
When I have Fears that I May Cease to Be
I spent some time with his sonnet a while ago and the thing that just flew over my head was the dash that follows the semicolon in line 12. The sonnet feels as if Keats is asking the Muses to give him the chance to write his best work in the now because he knows he won't be around forever. Keats could be reminding the Muses of YOLO and wants to exploit his "teeming brain" (line 2). Personally I think Keats understands what all great artists discovers: Truth, and is expressing his fears of death in an artistic method because that is what he must do. Now the dash in line 12 is what keeps me from settling on what side to take on this poem. The semicolon tells the reader to pause in the middle of the line and inform them that something is to follow that requires them to "take a seat" the the dash acts a the blue light bridge connecting the blue portal to the orange portal (from the Portal games. This is best visual I can think of). As to say that the entire poem was an inward conversation about his fears and that dash pulls Keats from the inward to the reality that he is just going through the motions till death, testing with GLaDOS, is something that cannot be escaped.
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I haven't grasped "Till love and fame and nothingness do sink" yet, but your notation of the dash has helped me re-read the poem. It seems to me he's saying that when he worries about no longer experiencing these things, then he's disconnected from the pleasures of having them now.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting, I like the visual. I think it helps add some understanding to the poem. Seeing as his parents lives were short lived, I feel he has had a strong exploration of death within his mind during his own life, and replicates that into this poem. He's afraid that all of the fame, success and love he desires will not be able to be accomplished because he will die. Like many great authors and artists, this concern lives in the back of his mind and becomes one with his works.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point about the dash: what work does it do for Keats at that moment in the poem? The key to this might be "unreflecting"—the dash indicates a change from desire for the continuation of a life free of reflection to a life that is only reflection (notice that line 13 ends with "think"). The final line suggests the outcome of thought: "Love and Fame to nothingness do sink" (14). We might read this as the end of the dream, the recognition that human desires are nothing in the face of that much more fundamental human condition, death. What then does it mean to stand on the shore of the world?
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