Keats was a poet highly focused on sensory experiences and beauty. He catered extensively to the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch in his works. Keats was deeply devoted to capturing sensory impressions and using them to inspire his imagination. His poems aimed to vividly portray sensory experiences and convey the principle that beauty and truth are intrinsically linked. While his works were inspired by sensations, they transcended mere descriptions through the imaginative flights sparked by his sensory perceptions.

1. Keats Sensuousness
Sensuousness is theparamountquality of Keats poetical genius. Keats is
preeminently the poet of senses and their delight. No one has catered to and
gratified the five human senses (touch, taste, smell, sightand hearing) to the
same extent as Keats. He is a great lover of beauty in the concrete. His religion is
the adoration of the beautiful. In this regard he is a follower of Spenser “I have
loved the principle of beauty in all things” His “Endymion” begins with the famous
line “A thing of of beauty is a joy forever” The sensuousness of Keats is striking
characteristic of his entire beauty.
Keats is a painter of words. With the help of a mere few words he presents a
solid, concrete picture:
Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild
I saw their starved lips in the gloom
With horrid warning gaped wide
Keats was a worshipper of beauty and pursued beauty everywhereand it was his
senses that firstrevealed to him the beauty of things. The beauty of universefrom
the stars of the sky to the flowers of the woods- firststruck his senses and then
fromthe beauty perceptible to the senses. His imagination seized the principle of
beauty in all things. He could make poetry only out of whathe felt upon his pulses
Thus it was his sense impressions thatkindled his imagination which made him
realize the great principle that “Beauty is truth and truth beauty”
The imagination of Keats came to be elevated by his senseperceptions. And sense
impressions. His poetry is not mere record of sense impressions. Itis a
spontaneous over flow of his imagination kindled by senses. He hears the song of
Nightingale and is filled with deep joy which at once kindles his imagination. He
has been hearing the actual song of a Nightingale but when his imagination is
excited, he hears the eternal voice of the Nightingale singing from the beginning
of time. He sees the beauty of the Grecian Urn and of the figures carved upon
him.
“Ode to Autumn opens with a description of sensuous joy. Thesun is going to:
“Load and bless
With fruit the vines”
The very word “load and bless” have a connotation of the physical(and I am
allowed to say even sexual) with them. Keats also talks of “ripeness to the core”
But once again as in the case of other odes of Keats, the dramatic valueof his ode
also lay in its contrastbetween the sensuous joy of the world of nature on the

2. one hand and the hard facts of the world of man on the other hand. The summer
that has helped trees “blend with apples” shall soon be replaced by autumn and
then winter will set in and this evolves the natural cycle of joys and pains in the
life of man lends an essentially realistic character to the odes of Keats.
In the Ode to Fancy” we have series of pictures which please our senses. Thus
Keats always selects the objects of his description and imagery with a keen eye on
their sensuous appeal. This sensuousnessis the principal charm of his poetry.
Keats often shows a tendency to dwell too much upon the charms of the feminine
body and refers to the lips, cheeks and breasts a little more than is necessary.