Thinking Activity on John Keats

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FINDING OUT APPROACHES TO DEATH IN LITERATURE

                                                                                   

                                This blog is formed as an answer sheet based on a thinking activity assigned by Dr. Heenaba Zala ma’am, visiting lecturer at English Department, M K Bhavnagar University on approaches to Death. Click on the link to navigate the blog of Dr. Heenaba Zala.

                             Death- a mysterious and engrossing subject for the people of literature. Even poets and novelists deeply find the concept of ‘death’ to be very captivating. But on the other hand, normal folks avoid discussing the same. It can be assumed that they may have a ‘fear’. people often review it as a scary thing.

Jiddu Krishnamurti once said,

“Death is a word, and it is the word, the image, that creates fear.”

                             It becomes noteworthy to figure out what gives this thrill, this scornful feeling? May it is because of the image which flashes in mind or else it can also have a connection with the Jungian concept of ‘collective unconsciousness’ where certain interpretations can find reliability with death. 

                                Inquisitively, if we generalize what kind of images of death, people may have or what image first pops up in mind while they hear the word ‘death’. It may be blood or dark and gloomy atmosphere, or fire or loneliness or cold dreary aura which often brings pain, sorrow, grief and so on. Well, the concept of death differs from person to person. Like one may feel delighted to hear the news of the death of rival but that won’t be the same feeling while the loved one dies! 

Here are the poems which I have selected to discuss about various perspectives on ‘Death’. These poems also offer the image of ‘death’ with various approaches.

‘Death be not Proud’ by John Donne

                               The long-surviving finest illustration of approach Death is John Donne’s ‘Death be not Proud’ where he seems to challenge the death and asks death that what is there to be proud of! The sonnet directly addresses ‘death’. In this sonnet, the poet provides us the image of ‘death’ with words like ‘mighty’ and ‘dreadful’. This sonnet in a way consoles us that ‘Death is not as scary as we think of it’. 

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then;

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

The poet tries to justify the reasons why Death is not a scornful thing, death instead gives a sound sleep and sleep is peaceful. One reason death isn’t scary is that sleep is enjoyable, and death is just like better sleep, so death must be even better than sleeping. The lines-

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow

describes death as ‘rest’ and ‘sleep’ (images for death) and both these give pleasure. The difference between these two things and death is like the difference between a painting of an object and the real thing. So, metaphorically death is ‘eternal rest’. 

Further, Donne rejects the superiority of death by making a bold remark-

‘Thou art slave to Fate’

Death can’t be scary when it can’t even control when people die because kings send people into war, and some people commit suicide. Drugs can make people sleep even better than Death, so why should death be so puffed up? And Donne ends his sonnet with the courageous declaration.

‘And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die’ 

The only thing that will ever really die is Death itself, so in that way, it is the weakest thing of all.

‘Ode to a Nightingale’ by John Keats

                                          Keats seems to be deeply grieved by the mental strains of humanity at large and he also remarkably describes the concept of death in his poem. In his poem, the Nightingale generates a death wish in Keats and he puts it very clearly. Well, explore what Keats has to say -

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

         My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

         One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

         But being too happy in thine happiness,—

                That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees

                        In some melodious plot

         Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

                Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

         Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

         Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

         Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

                With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

                        And purple-stained mouth;

         That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

                And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

         What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

         Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

         Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

                Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

                        And leaden-eyed despairs,

         Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

                Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

         Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

         Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

         And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

                Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

                        But here there is no light,

         Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

                Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

         Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

         Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

         White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

                Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

                        And mid-May's eldest child,

         The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

                The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

         I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

         To take into the air my quiet breath;

                Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

         To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

                While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

                        In such an ecstasy!

         Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

                   To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

         No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

         In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

         Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

                She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

                        The same that oft-times hath

         Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

                Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

         To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

         As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

         Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

                Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

                        In the next valley-glades:

         Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

                Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

                        The poem has a conflict between realism and idealism. Keats, through his poem informs the readers about the death of Nightingale. Actually it seems that the poet describes the type of death of Nightingale but does not actually dies.

                    ‘Nightingale’ more often becomes a fascinating archetype to describe death or the concept of death. As for example, Oscar Wilde’s “The Nightingale and the Rose” a short story where a death of Nightingale gives a pathetic end to the story and generates a thrilling effect even in the minds of readers.

                         Well, this poem has a different perspective to offer which says that pleasure and delight are temporal things and it cannot last whereas death is the ultimate fate of an inevitable thing. This poem is an exception from the regular cycle of life that is how young people turn into old age and then they wait for death. The poet tries to break this cycle. The poet describes a joyful, soothing and untroubled death of John Keats. 

The biographical reading of the poem suggests that Keats was suffering from tuberculosis and his elder brother had died of the same disease and so he seems to be trying to comfort with the idea of death before it actually comes.

The the eighteenth line of the poem, “And purple-stained mouth” suggests consumption of liquor. Poet also describes the appearance of wine.  The word purple also connotes a different meaning.

Additionally, the second stanza of the poem contains a variety of phrases which signifies the approach of death with certain phrases-

“in the deep-delved earth”

“and leave the world unseen”

“fade away”

 These phrases, in one way or the other suggests death.