/lit/ - Literature

>>22072277
Keats > Blake

I know my opinion is plebeian and that Blake was undoubtedly greater but the divine vision of Keats is sorely underappreciated and he certainly would have become a greater poet than Blake had he lived longer.

Is anyone else reading the Chapman translation?

Was John Keats a Daoist? Obviously he hadn't read the Dao De Jing, but did he grasp the nature of Daoism anyway?
>"Negative Capability," i.e. Keats's idea that artists should spontaneously follow their instincts rather than intentionally pursue truth, is perfectly in line with Daoism
>in "Ode to a Nightingale," Keats blurs the lines between himself and the object of his fascination
>the last line of that poem ("Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?") is highly reminiscent of Zhuangzi wondering whether he's a man who was just dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly who's now dreaming he's a man
Thoughts?

>>21762560
>>21763369
I was working (it's what grown-ups do during the day).
>Keats' letters show an extreme amount of reverence for Shakespeare and he actively studied and annotated plays and worked aspects of Shakespeare's writing into his own poetry.
That's fine. Doesn't mean that Shakespeare was better. Writers can be influenced by bad writing or have guilty pleasures. No one reads Robert Burton anymore (save you, friend, wherever thou art nowadays) and yet we know Keats devoted himself to him extensively. Point is, either way, it was almost a requirement back then to pay homage to Shakespeare, and it's not surprising that a young, starry-eyed, up-and-coming poet like Keats would be taken with such a prominent figure.
>He called Shakespeare the chief of poets in "sitting down to read king lear", he called him a genius when discussing negative capability, and he continued to study him until his death bed.
Vraiment? Again, see my points above. Just because Keats praised him doesn't automatically mean that he was inferior to him. The reason anyone writes in the first place is because of the belief that one can do better than one's ancestors and predecessors in the literary realm, nicht wahr?
>There are literally too many references to Shakespeare directly or indirectly in his writing for me to cover.
Now who's being lazy and not showing off their undergraduate essays?
>A complete and utter lie, I have the penguins collection of every last one of his poems, and a good chunk of his letters
For someone who considers Keats to be incredibly mediocre, you do come across as someone deeply fascinated by him. I'm going to press (X) to doubt here, for I believe if you really have those collections and his letters you would've enjoyed him thoroughly. C'est bizarre.
>not only does Shakespeare factor in far more to his actual verse than Spenser, but Milton is a far better runner up to that crown than Spenser. Going as far into his works as Fall of Hyperion you see he was already studying Dante and learning Italian to read him.
And now we come full-circle: was that line of Italian you used earlier from Dante? I suggest you go back to him now and leave English literature to the English scholars. C'est la guerre.

>>21608318
For me, it's Chapman's Homer

*blocks your path*

How did the romantic poets do it, bros? They’re probably the best thing to happen to English poetry since the Shakespeare/Milton/Spenser era.

Can we get a John Keats appreciation thread going? His poems are so comfy, even if often tinged with a small but sharp sadness. Also, I decided to celebrate my birthday today by reading some of his poetry. I read The Fall of Hyperion and it’s just so good. I wish we could see a finished version, the full first canto is genius line for line. I read/reread a few others too of course

On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

O golden tongued Romance, with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute
Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme!
When through the old oak Forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.

It's honestly crazy what he accomplished in his short life. He died when he was 25. Eliot didn't even publish his first poem (Prufrock) until he was 26. At 25, Shakespeare was probably still writing his first play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (which isn't even good). If Yeats had died at 25, his most famous poem would be The Lake Isle of Innisfree. Keats deserves to be called the undisputed GOAT of English verse.

*writes the best poems of all time in your path*

>>20823637
Wrong

>>20722703
Keats

Georgian > Victorian

Why can't I understand poetry?
I'm reading Keats. This is supposed to be entry level shit written by a 20 year old.
And yet I feel nothing.
Novels are great, but poetry to me is nothing but incomprehensible prose with random line breaks.

What exactly is wrong with the word "forlorn" in Ode to a Nightengale? The Wikipedia article makes it sound like that single word has been the focus of negative criticism of the poem for over a century.

>>20370263
Here is a very straightforward, but very beautiful, sonnet. Note that an "eremite" is a hermit, and that "ablutions" are ritualized washings.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

>>20370270
You're very welcome.

>>20307499
To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Post your favorite sonnets. Here's the best one by Keats:

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

What does /lit/ think of poems like Prometheus Unbound or Hyperion? I read them recently and to my ears they seem better than Paradise Lost or the Faerie Queene. Why aren't they mentioned on lists of great english poems or epic poems in general?

(Yes I know Prometheus Unbound is a closet drama and isn't technically an epic poem, but its close enough to count as one)

Excerpt from Hyperion:

"Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?
Am I to leave this haven of my rest,
This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,
This calm luxuriance of blissful light,
These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,
Of all my lucent empire? It is left
Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.
The blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry,
I cannot see—but darkness, death and darkness.
Even here, into my centre of repose,
The shady visions come to domineer,
Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp.—
Fall!—No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
Over the fiery frontier of my realms
I will advance a terrible right arm
Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,
And bid old Saturn take his throne again."

>>20045295
Keats
Women, Wine, And Snuff

GIVE me women, wine, and snuff
Untill I cry out "hold, enough!"
You may do so sans objection
Till the day of resurrection:
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be
My beloved Trinity.

How is it possible that the country responsible for utilitarianism and analytic philosophy has produced so many great poets?

is it possible that Keats is the greatest philosopher the West has ever produced?

Is Keats based? I've never read him but I get the feeling that he is. Based like Carlyle and Ruskin are based.