Previously written/Never posted:
I keep doing things for class but neglecting my little bloggy corner of the internet.
Like pondering Keats' sonnet about not existing anymore and letting thoughts of love and fame sink into the bay or whatever. What a poem! He knew!
My problem with Romantic poetry is that I have to give it about three reads before I can understand a word. I was reading a tidbit in my poetry anthology edited by X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. And of course I can't find the page at the moment, but it references Romantic poetry and the shift in the formal language of Neoclassic poetry to language which more closely aligned with the every day regs who worked in god know what kind of horrible labor conditions. So, this fact made me feel like even more of a turd for needing so many read-throughs, but! Turd aside, I've now found the page in my anthology and will write out some quotes before I dig into Keats' dying guy poem, because I liked what I read and I won't remember unless I type it out.
This is in the section on word choice and word order:
--"in English literature of the neoclassical period or Augustan age...many poets subscribed to a belief in poetic diction: 'A system of words...refined from the grossness of domestic use.' The system admitted into a serious poem only certain words and subjects, excluding others as violations of decorum (propriety)" (58-59).
--"[Common words], although admissible to satire, were thought inconsistent with the loftiness of tragedy, epic, ode, and elegy" (59).
--"rats" vs. "the whiskered vermin race" example (59). WTF.
--Okay, this is important and impacted the audience of the time: "Neoclassical poets chose their classical models more often from Roman writers than from Greek, as their diction suggests by the frequency of Latin derivatives" (59). Audience at the time was familiar with Virgil's poetry and therefore had differing associations to "highfalutin" ways of saying everything.
--Mentions Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads (look up this quote about using language "really spoken my men"--advocating for a new poetic diction.
--Neoclassical poets considered that kind of language "low."
--This is all hilarious to me because if the poets of today used the language of the Big Six in their writing, they would get a heap of cocked eyebrows to be sure. If it takes this poetry lova three read-throughs, imagine the reaction from the common man (non-poetry reading folk). Noses would scrunch. Eyes would squint. And a lot of stink faces would ensue.
Okay, here's this poem. I'll probably do some underlining for my own use. Along with some rambles after that.
I keep doing things for class but neglecting my little bloggy corner of the internet.
Like pondering Keats' sonnet about not existing anymore and letting thoughts of love and fame sink into the bay or whatever. What a poem! He knew!
My problem with Romantic poetry is that I have to give it about three reads before I can understand a word. I was reading a tidbit in my poetry anthology edited by X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. And of course I can't find the page at the moment, but it references Romantic poetry and the shift in the formal language of Neoclassic poetry to language which more closely aligned with the every day regs who worked in god know what kind of horrible labor conditions. So, this fact made me feel like even more of a turd for needing so many read-throughs, but! Turd aside, I've now found the page in my anthology and will write out some quotes before I dig into Keats' dying guy poem, because I liked what I read and I won't remember unless I type it out.
This is in the section on word choice and word order:
--"in English literature of the neoclassical period or Augustan age...many poets subscribed to a belief in poetic diction: 'A system of words...refined from the grossness of domestic use.' The system admitted into a serious poem only certain words and subjects, excluding others as violations of decorum (propriety)" (58-59).
--"[Common words], although admissible to satire, were thought inconsistent with the loftiness of tragedy, epic, ode, and elegy" (59).
--"rats" vs. "the whiskered vermin race" example (59). WTF.
--Okay, this is important and impacted the audience of the time: "Neoclassical poets chose their classical models more often from Roman writers than from Greek, as their diction suggests by the frequency of Latin derivatives" (59). Audience at the time was familiar with Virgil's poetry and therefore had differing associations to "highfalutin" ways of saying everything.
--Mentions Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads (look up this quote about using language "really spoken my men"--advocating for a new poetic diction.
--Neoclassical poets considered that kind of language "low."
--This is all hilarious to me because if the poets of today used the language of the Big Six in their writing, they would get a heap of cocked eyebrows to be sure. If it takes this poetry lova three read-throughs, imagine the reaction from the common man (non-poetry reading folk). Noses would scrunch. Eyes would squint. And a lot of stink faces would ensue.
Okay, here's this poem. I'll probably do some underlining for my own use. Along with some rambles after that.
Sonnet: When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be by John Keats
When I have fears that I may cease to be -a
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, -b
Before high piled books, in charactry, -a
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; -b
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, -c
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, -d
And think that I may never live to trace -c
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; -d
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, -e
That I shall never look upon thee more, -f
Never have relish in the faery power -e
Of unreflecting love; -- then on the shore -f
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think -g
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. -g
Ramblings: We are in the first person. A fear of dying before artistic potential can be reached. Fear number two: death before a significant romance (could be a person, could be something else). Who is the fair creature? The sea? The night? Sky? We first go high. Fears, death, undeveloped ideas, the sky, the magic hand of chance, faery power?, unreflecting love. Lots of intangibles until we become grounded with this lone figure standing at the shore. But then we go all the way high to the ideals of Love and Fame and all the way low as they then plummet to the depths of the sea.
Another thing: Keats uses a lot of "I may, I behold, I feel" language, and this serves to establish the speaker as the "experiencer" BUT the reader's perspective is still more closely aligned with the speakers at the start. At the turn, we still have the "I stand" language but it seems as though the reader becomes completely isolated from the subject, becoming a voyeur to his experience instead of a participant. Am I making that up? I feel as though the camera zooms out, but I'm not sure where the change is or why I feel that way. Let's break it down, may as well.
Line 1: We start in his head
Line 4: Because he views the night sky, we view the night sky with him.
etc: His perceptions become our perceptions.
Line 12-14: Okay, so the focalizer becomes the focalized (sort of? We are still in first person) which is what I'm talking about with the zooming out? So, this is similar to the epiphanic end of Joyce's "Araby" but there is no literal shift in perspective. Instead, the turn takes place because of the shift in setting? First we are high (thoughts, viewpoint, sky) and internal. Then, we become grounded (low) but our perspective shifts to the external, the vastness of earth, etc, the depths of the sea. So, then, the subject of the poem undergoes the exact experience of the reader. The poem seeks to mirror the experience of being alive.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Keats. There are just so many levels along with so many binaries. Off the top of my head: The sky, the earth, the sea. Death, life. Tangibles, intangibles. Ideals, realities. Internal, external. Big, small. And then there's the whole chance bit. And the magic? So, what is that? Pre-destiny vs. freewill? Spirit, magic, pragmatism, resignation, hope.
And this is just one poem. I'm not even sure if I've scratched the surface. I'm especially impressed with the whole "out of body" effect he created without a literal shift in perspective. I mean, of course he wouldn't do that because Romantics are all about the individual's experience, but damn. He makes Joyce seem like a lazy-buns couch-dweller.
Keats is all the way smoooooth.
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, -b
Before high piled books, in charactry, -a
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; -b
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, -c
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, -d
And think that I may never live to trace -c
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; -d
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, -e
That I shall never look upon thee more, -f
Never have relish in the faery power -e
Of unreflecting love; -- then on the shore -f
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think -g
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. -g
Ramblings: We are in the first person. A fear of dying before artistic potential can be reached. Fear number two: death before a significant romance (could be a person, could be something else). Who is the fair creature? The sea? The night? Sky? We first go high. Fears, death, undeveloped ideas, the sky, the magic hand of chance, faery power?, unreflecting love. Lots of intangibles until we become grounded with this lone figure standing at the shore. But then we go all the way high to the ideals of Love and Fame and all the way low as they then plummet to the depths of the sea.
Another thing: Keats uses a lot of "I may, I behold, I feel" language, and this serves to establish the speaker as the "experiencer" BUT the reader's perspective is still more closely aligned with the speakers at the start. At the turn, we still have the "I stand" language but it seems as though the reader becomes completely isolated from the subject, becoming a voyeur to his experience instead of a participant. Am I making that up? I feel as though the camera zooms out, but I'm not sure where the change is or why I feel that way. Let's break it down, may as well.
Line 1: We start in his head
Line 4: Because he views the night sky, we view the night sky with him.
etc: His perceptions become our perceptions.
Line 12-14: Okay, so the focalizer becomes the focalized (sort of? We are still in first person) which is what I'm talking about with the zooming out? So, this is similar to the epiphanic end of Joyce's "Araby" but there is no literal shift in perspective. Instead, the turn takes place because of the shift in setting? First we are high (thoughts, viewpoint, sky) and internal. Then, we become grounded (low) but our perspective shifts to the external, the vastness of earth, etc, the depths of the sea. So, then, the subject of the poem undergoes the exact experience of the reader. The poem seeks to mirror the experience of being alive.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Keats. There are just so many levels along with so many binaries. Off the top of my head: The sky, the earth, the sea. Death, life. Tangibles, intangibles. Ideals, realities. Internal, external. Big, small. And then there's the whole chance bit. And the magic? So, what is that? Pre-destiny vs. freewill? Spirit, magic, pragmatism, resignation, hope.
And this is just one poem. I'm not even sure if I've scratched the surface. I'm especially impressed with the whole "out of body" effect he created without a literal shift in perspective. I mean, of course he wouldn't do that because Romantics are all about the individual's experience, but damn. He makes Joyce seem like a lazy-buns couch-dweller.
Keats is all the way smoooooth.
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