Keats: When I have fears that I may cease to be Flashcards
Title
When I have fears that I may cease to be
When I have fears that I may cease to be
- IP highlights important points
Form
Shakespearean sonnet
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
1st quatrain
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
- “before…before”- Repetition emphasises theme of time.
- “;” marks the end of the quatrain, start of new ideas.
2nd quatrain
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
- “scarred face”- Keats’ trope- sky. (link to “on first looking…”)
- “magic hand of chance”- quatrain ends with death, emph. how it is beyond his control.
3rd quatrain
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
- “fair creature”- FB
- “never…never”- goes against the IP, emphasises his point. (spondee)
- “love!-then”- volta, 2 stressed syllables. volta not in classical place, caused by his high emotion.
- Rhyming couplet + internal rhyme- internal thought & conclusion.
Written
January 1818. Published posthumously.