When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be Flashcards
1
Q
“When”
A
- Adverb highlights the inevitable nature of his fear
- Emphasises the awareness of time and morality Keats and humanity feels
- Repeated at the start of each stanza
2
Q
“That I May Cease to Be”
A
- Theme of death and morality
- Echoes theme of ‘to be or not to be’ soliloquy
3
Q
“My pen has gleaned my teeming brain”
A
- Extended metaphor relating to harvest imagery
- Keats’ fear that he will die before he has the chance to complete all that he wishes to write and the limited time he has
“teeming” - imagery relating to ecosystems, highlights his passionate brain and the large amount of inspiration he has
4
Q
Harvest imagery extended metaphor
A
- Relates to wanting to write a large amount and a desire to release all of his thoughts onto paper
- Relates to nourishing an audience
5
Q
“High piled book”
A
- Wanting to produce a large volume of work
6
Q
“Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain”
A
Simile, continues the extended metaphor
- Keats wants to create his work to his highest quality, “full ripened grain”
7
Q
“Night’s starred face, Huge cloudy symbols of high romance”
A
- Personification, of the night
- Highlights how he is vastly inspired by nature and therefore he has a wide amount of work to create
- Keats inspired by nature - Romantic
8
Q
“I may never live to trace their shadows”
A
- Metaphor, highlights a fear that he won’t be able to write about everything he wishes to
- Strong connection between poetry and nature, Romantic poetry described as the shadow of nature, mimic and interpreting it
9
Q
“Magic hand of chance”
A
- Idea of fate
10
Q
“When I feel, fair creature of an hour”
A
- Context - Keats saw a woman at a party and was inspired greatly by her despite not knowing her
- Highlights the fleeting and transitory experience of romantic feelings - transience of human life
11
Q
“Relish in the faery power of unreflecting love”
A
- Keats desires to experience the pain and human experience of an unrequited love
- Believing it is a part of the magical and intense emotions in human life
“Faery”- folklore, mischevious
12
Q
“On the shore of the wide world”
A
- Isolated location, highlights vast scale
- Could be a metaphor for the edge of his imagination
- Highlights the transience of human life in comparison to the sea - Romantic + sublime
13
Q
“I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink”
A
- Final rhyming couplet
- Keats has a conciliation with nature surrounding his fears, they are absent in the face of sublime nature
- Highlights a melancholy comfort within the sublime - typical of Romantic poetry
14
Q
Form
A
Shakespearian sonnet (3 stanzas + rhyming couplet)
15
Q
Context
A
- Written before Keats became ill
- Written the same year his brother contracted TB
- Thinking about his morality, without it being a threat to him
16
Q
A
