The document discusses John Keats' odes and how they express both happiness and sadness. It analyzes several of Keats' major odes, including "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to Autumn", and "Ode on Melancholy". A key point made is that while Keats' poetry celebrates beauty, it also conveys an underlying sense of melancholy and an awareness of mortality. The document argues this reflects Keats' own tragic life, which was cut short by tuberculosis despite his love of beauty, nature, and the senses.

1. International Indexed & Refereed Research Journal, January, 2013 ISSN 0975-3486, RNI- RAJBIL- 2009-30097, VOL- IV * ISSUE- 40
Research Paper
John Keats' Odes: Sadness Underlying in Beauty
* Twinkle Hareshbhai Shah
January,2013 ** Dr.Rameshsingh M.Chauhan
* Ph.D. Research Scholar, Singhania University, Pacheri Bari,Jhunjhunu,Rajasthan
** Guide at Singhania University, Pacheri Bari, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan
Introduction nightingale's song is not able to take away him forever.
John Keats was the greatest poet and the link Brain goes fast in a new imaginative world but heart
between the nineteenth and the twentieth century pulls it back to reality. He says that the fancy cannot
in the field of English literature. He is a versatile cheat as well as she is famed to do. In the beginning of
personality : a lyric poet, a mystic, a mythologist, 'Ode to a Nightingale', he expresses:
and a romantic. He was a poet with a political "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
ideology; he was a poet with a prophetic vision and My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk."
occult philosophy; and he is also a poet with Keats says that sadness is found not only in sad
experience in experiments in dramaturgy. He was the and in an ugly thing of life but it is also found in the
national poet of the Republic of Ireland. Unlike his beauty and pleasures of the world. He says that melan-
contemporaries Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde and choly is there in the company of joy. He says:
Bernard Shaw, Yeats was born in Dublin at George's "Where can I look for consolation or ease?
Ville, Sandymount Avenue, Dublin in South Ireland. If I have any chance of recovery, this passion would kill
But for the longer part of his life he lived in England, me."
and therefore he is both an Irish poet and an English In 'Ode on a Grecian Urn', giving an example of
poets unravished bride, Keats says that she is one who re-
John Keats died at the age of 26. He was so mains inviolate and whose marriage has not been really
young. His life was full of pain, disappointment in love completed. She is untouched and pure because she is
and his younger brother's death because of tubercu- a picture on the urn. There is the glory of Grecian urn.
losis. Even he also died of the same disease. Poverty He says:
could not allow him to marry the woman whom he "Ah, happy, happy bough! That can shed
loved. His life was short-lived but his poems are long- Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu."
lived. Once in a letter to Fanny Brawne in February John Keats Happiness and Sadness
1820, he wrote her: "If I should die…I have left no In spite of his old age and his penchant for philoso-
immortal work behind me nothing to make my friends phy and occultism, Keats could never overcome his
proud of my memory, but I have lov'd the principle of cravings for love and sex. Daniel Albright writes: "Imagi-
beauty in all things, and if I had had time, I would have native life returned to elderly Keats, partly in the form
made myself remembered." He further said: of a number of young women, some of whom were his
"I long to believe in immortality. If I am destined to be lovers. Keats underwent the Steinach rejuvenation op-
happy with you here…how short is the longest life." eration, a kind of vasectomy supposed to restore sexual
Having a look on all these things in his letter to Fanny, potency; and he began a period of sexual swagger and
it strikes everyone that there is a feeling or expression poetical effusions."
of sadness lying in his heart. He was well-known Ro- Above-mentioned lines also suggest that
mantic poet. He was a lover of a beauty. He says that that picture of leaves on tree will not shed leaves but
beauty attracts in every form. He says: his immortal life may lose its boughs. There is sadness
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all in every moment of happiness. There is undercurrent
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." melancholy. It seems to be something but actually
In 'Ode to a Nightingale.' He expresses his views about suggest something else. It is very difficult to recognize
beauty by saying: whether it is tearing of happiness or sadness, but ac-
"Where beauty can not keep her lustrous eyes, tually, there is a tree of happiness in the soil of melan-
Or new love pined at them beyond tomorrow." choly. His efforts make balance in the both way. He
Through this ode, he wants to go far away with his dreams of going into a land of imagination but at last,
imagination. He wants to forget his pain of life; even he comes back in real world. His fleeting is momentary
74 RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION

2. International Indexed & Refereed Research Journal, January, 2013 ISSN 0975-3486, RNI- RAJBIL- 2009-30097, VOL- IV * ISSUE- 40
but joyful. 'Ode to Psyche' is another ode that attracted John Keats :Ode on Indolence
him for beauty. The ode is addressed to a beautiful In 'Ode on Indolence', Keats sees three figures
daughter named Psyche. Cupid, the god of love, fell in with joined hands. The poet is not able to see them
love with her. According to the poet, Psyche was not because they give a false appearance. The poet is so
given much attention as Venus was given. She was not curious to know those faces. He is in idle condition so
worshipped like Venus. The ode is full of sensuous pain has no sting and pleasure has no joy for him.
beauty. Keats speaks of her that she is the latest-born. Actually, they are Love, Ambition and Poesy. He is in
She is fairer than moon-star, Venus and the evening mood of idle so he does not want to be disturbed, but
star. He says: they disturb him by appearing. The poet knows that he
"A bright torch and a casement ope at night, is trying to comfort himself by making himself calm and
To let the warm Love in." cool because he knows that he will die soon. Once he
In 'Ode on Melancholy', he says Lethe, which is the omitted blood because he was suffering from tubercu-
river of forgetfulness, cannot save persons from their losis. Seeing the colour of blood, he said:
melancholy. He says that those who are capable of "I haven't seen the face of death but it must be like
experiencing extreme pleasure and happiness can feel this."
sadness. When a man is in full feeling of drowsy and He tries to forget his pain that he has for brother's
numb, he is not able to experience the real taste of death and about himself. He is helpless but he tries his
sorrow. All beautiful things have short life. He says that best to hide pain and suffering. It disturbs conscious-
melancholy has its shrine in the temple of Delight. True ness and the result can be seen in his odes. He uses his
melancholy can not be separated from consciousness power and imagination to go in cheerful mood but at
and contemplation. He says: last, he has to come down into his real world of exist-
"She dwells with Beauty-Beauty that must die; ence.
And joy, whose hand is ever at his lips." When he was near to death, he requested his friends
John KeatsSSSSss :Ode to Autum: that it must be written a sentence on his grave and it
In 'Ode to Autumn ', Keats says that autumn was:
is personified in a variety of the attitudes; but the more "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."
important image is of autumn as the harvester. Har- Hence, most of his odes contain sadness in beauty
vester is another reaper death itself. It is regarded that that are underlying in his odes.
springtime has sounds and music as well as liveliness Conclusion:
but it is also true that autumn has also sounds and Thus, John Keats had a multifaceted personality-
music. There are songs of gnats, hedge crickets robins an odd mixture of generality and specialty and even
and swallows. Keats first goes toward happiness but peculiarity. Keats was always full of life and always
at last, he seems falling down towards maturity. Fruits wanted life in its fullness, as it may be seen in his
have ripen and they must be harvested means end is poems.
certain. Therefore, the human life is also ripened means
matured and the result is that death is certain.
"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless."
R E F E R E N C E
1. Robson, W.W., Modern English Literature, Oxford University Press, 1984, p.51.
2. Jefferes, Norman A. A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B.Yeats, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp.53-54.
3. Brown, Calvin S.(General Editor), The Reader's Companion to World Literature, USA, A Mentor Book, 1964, p.488.
4. Daiches, David (Ed.), The Penguin Companion to English Literature, Vol.I, Penguin Books, 1971, p.513.
5. Watson, Donald, A Dictionary of Mind and Spirit, Calcutta, Rupa Co., 1991, p.238.
6. Leavis, F.R. New Bearings on English Poetry, Penguin/Peregrine Books, ss1963, p.31.
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