Keats context and critics Flashcards
Keats’ poetry - romanticism
Keats’ poetry was distinguished by its lush imagery that evoked physical sensations with its descriptive verses conjuring sight, touch and other senses. He was focused on the opposition between intellect and imagination, and the soul’s eternal pursuit of beauty
What was happening in Keats’ life when he wrote La Belle Dame Sans Merci?
he was in the heat of passion for fanny Brawne, the fever of death was hanging over him and he was on fire poetically.
When was La belle Dame Sans merci written?
1819
When was Isabella written?
1818
What political objections showed through in Isabella?
His political objections to the wealth and prowess of Florentine society are central to the narrative of ‘Isabella’; his disdain for the evil brothers comes across most strongly when he critiques their love of money and inscrutable business affairs.
When was Lamia written?
1819
Why did Keats hate philosophy?
Because it contradicted his view of negative capability which states that the art of literature comes from the ambiguity and the unknowing and writers should not be pressured to find answers to every unknown.
When was The Eve of St Agnes written?
1819
Diane Long Hoeveler
Isabella is a response to John Keats’s resentment of the old aristocratic system of class privilege and the growing mercantile commercialism that was spreading throughout Georgian England
Who was St Agnes?
The patron saint of chastity, girls, engaged couples and victims of rape.
George Homans
keats strengthens his masculine dominance by objectifying and subordinating women in his poems –> La belle, Isabella, Eve of St Agnes, Lamia
Keats - critic quote
beauty overcomes every other consideration
Laura James
The women he creates are simultaneously goddesses and demons
Amy Scerba
La Belle Dame provides a warning about all women in general
