When I Have Fear By: John Keats Submitted By: Sean Graveles Theresa Chu

JOHN KEATS About The Author John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, on 31 October 1795 to Thomas Keats and his wife, born Frances Jennings. John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work having been in publication for only four years before his death. The poetry of Keats is characterised by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. This is typical of romantic poets, as they aimed to accentuate extreme emotion through the emphasis of natural imagery. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analysed in English literature.

When I Have Fears 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; 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; 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 Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

LITERARY ANALYSIS

“ When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,” ● This poem starts out by laying it on the line: what would happen if I died today? ● His poem, however, is based on two certainties: 1.He WILL have lots of important stuff to write. 2.He WILL die before he has a chance to write it all.

“ Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;” ● Keats starts to compare his poetry (or, more broadly, the products of his imagination) to other things. The image he chooses refers straight back to nature: his poems are like harvested wheat. They're the natural product of a fruitful earth (or, er… his brain). It's almost like Keats' mind becomes an natural element in this particular metaphor. ● Here's the rough translation: If I die before I have written lots of books (that's the "high piled books," in case you were wondering) which hold my words like a grain silo (that's the "garner") holds ripe grain…

“ When I behold, upon the night’s starred face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,” ● In this lines, Keat is gazing up at the night sky – and finding in the clouds all of the "symbols" of high romance. ● It's elevated ("high") romance. We'd call it celestial. Or heavenly. It's the stuff of chivalric legend – the sweeping tales of romance and brave knights in shining armor and all that fine stuff

“ And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;” ● Here's a rough translation of what's going on here: Any sort of love or romance is dependent on a healthy dose of good luck (or, in Keats' language, "chance"). ● You never know how one chance encounter or one small decision will shape your love life. ● We're guessing that Keats is actually pretty excited about the randomness of love. It's that randomness which makes things exciting, right. That's why it's rather sad that he thinks he'll die before experiencing this kind of love.

“ 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”

“Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.” ● If you know anything about sonnets, you probably know that they are fourteen lines long and usual have a "turn," a point in the poem that signals a major reversal in the thoughts or desires that shaped the first few lines of the poem. Oftentimes the turn occurs around line 8 or 9. Keats actually starts his turn in line twelve. ● Keats has spent a good deal of time thinking about fame, writing, and desire, as well as the possibilities and impossibilities of love. Now, though, he takes a step back and scopes out the "wide world." This, folks, is a key Romantic move.

VOCABULARY WORDS

Vocabulary Words ● Cease- (verb.) bring or come to an end. So let us cease this talk of skull crushing and converse upon more pleasant subjects. ● Gleaned- (verb.) extract (information) from various sources. ● Teeming- (verb.) be full of or swarming with. ● Charactery- (noun.) the expression of thought by symbols or characters; the symbols or characters collectively. ● Garners- (noun.) a storehouse; a granary.

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