A Thing of Beauty
John Keats
John Keats was born on October 31, 1795 in London. His parents were Frances Jennings and Thomas Keats. John Keats was educated at Enfield School, which was known for its liberal education. While at Enfield, Keats was encouraged by Charles Cowden Clarke in his reading and writing. After the death of his parents when he was fourteen, Keats became apprenticed to a surgeon. In 1815 he became a student at Guy's Hospital. However, after qualifying to become an apothecary-surgeon, Keats gave up the practice of Medicine to become a poet. Keats had begun writing as early as 1814 and his first volume of poetry was published in 1817.In 1818 Keats took a long walking tour in the British Isles that led to a prolonged sore throat, which was to become a first symptom of the disease that killed his mother and brother, tuberculosis. After he concluded his walking tour, Keats settled in Hampstead. Here he and Fanny Brawne met and fell in love. However, they were never able to marry because of his health and financial situation. Between the Fall of 1818 and 1820 Keats produces some of his best known works, such as La Belle Dame sans Merci and Lamia. After 1820 Keats' illness became so severe that he had to leave England for the warmer climate of Italy. In 1821 he died of tuberculosis in Rome. He is buried there in the Protestant cemetery.
This poem is a revolt against the commonplace reality.
According to Keats the object of beauty differs from an ordinary object.
The ordinary object appeals us only temporarily. Its effect is short lived and its loveliness decreases with the passage of time.
But the object of beauty appeals to our senses permanently.
It cannot be destroyed by time and space. It is a temporal and its loveliness does not fade.
It is a ray of light and hope that consoles man in his miseries and misfortunes. Then Keats mentions the objects of beauty one by one. The sun, the moon, the old trees, the daffodils, the clear streams and the forest which is rich with beautiful flowers-all these objects of beauty are a source of consolation in a world
"Where men sit and hear each other groan".
Keats further associates the object of beauty with a cluster of flowers and a group of shady trees. One can relax in these surroundings.
According to one version, Endymion was visited one night by the moon
goddess Selene as he slept on Mount Olympus. She was taken by his
beauty and lay with him that night. He awoke to find her gone, but the
dreams she gave him lingered and affected him so much that he asked
Zeus to grant him immortality so that he might live in that dreamlike
state.
Note the parallel between a dreamlike state and the process many artists
have compared to the ecstasy of creation. A thing of beauty, whether poem
or symphony, is immortal! Its mortal creator passes into nothingness!