On sitting down to read king lear once again

Question 1

what two letters can be used as context for this poem?

Answer 1

Letter to Benjamin Bailey 23 Jan 1818

letter to George and Tom Keats 23 Jan 1818

Question 2

letter to B Bailey

Answer 2

My Brother Tom is getting stronger but his Spitting of blood continues. I sat down to read King Lear yesterday, and felt the greatness of the thing up to the writing of a Sonnet preparatory thereto - in my next you shall have it.

Question 3

letter to his brothers

Answer 3

I think a little change has taken place in my intellect lately—I cannot bear to be uninterested or unemployed, I, who for so long a time have been addicted to passiveness. Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers. As an instance of this—observe—I sat down yesterday to read King Lear once again: the thing appeared to demand the prologue of a sonnet, I wrote it, and began to read—(I know you would like to see it.) [Keats then writes out the sonnet within the letter]

Question 4

synopopsis

Answer 4

Keats rejects the genre of Romance in favour of a more cathartic experience which he experiences whilst reading king Lear. He comments specifically on the necessity of pain to achieve this pleasure

Question 5

form

Answer 5

Petrarchian sonnet

Question 6

rhyme scheme

Answer 6

ABBA ABBA CDCDEE

Question 7

noticable rhythmic features

Answer 7

use of spondee rhythm
seRENE LUTE
SHUT UP
CHIEF POET
-the variation between iambic and trochaic tetrameter/ pentametre

Question 8

key semantic fields

Answer 8

fire, pain, pleasure, nature, the imagination

Question 9

noticable linguistic features

Answer 9

use of both negative and postive imperatives ‘must i burn through’ ‘;shut up’

Question 10

where does the volta occur

Answer 10

after the spondee at chief poet

Question 11

possible linking poems?

Answer 11

ode on indolence, melancholy, nightingale, maybe isabella (basil pot bit)
hyperion (apothesis of Apollo)