Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, and others transform a yellow spot into the sun. It depends upon a human and his perception. A chemist sees a whole cosmos in the tiny structure of an atom while an astronaut beholds the structure of the tiny atom in the entire cosmos. There is another group of people. They uniquely see the universe not only with their physical eyes but also with their inward eyes. They can transform the universe into imagination and imagination into an aesthetic chain of words. These people are romantic poets. One of the younger and notable romantic poets is John Keats, who delightfully practices the highest elements of romantic poetry. These elements are imagery, aesthetic language, the creative process of imagination, and the process of shaping imagination. All these principles are frequently observed in his poetry, especially in his Odes, Ode to a Nightingale, and Ode on a Grecian Urn.
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The device frequently used in John Keats' poems is imagery. It creates mental pictures and appeals to all five human senses (Visual, Auditory, Olfactory, Gustatory, and Tactile). It will not be an exaggeration to say poetry itself is ‘Imagery’. Without imagery, poetry cannot stand out. It is a spirit of poetry that words express. Words exist in philosophy, columns, general conversation, and literature. They have their worth and values. They never are separated from their existing meaning. They dwell in mind, on a piece of paper, and in a language. They have their traits. If they are not conveniently used and understood, the utilization process of words in a language will be incomplete and worthless. These traits are used and highly exhibited in John Keats' poetry that captures a complete and accessible meaning of words. Keats successfully paints his imagination and expression with a great notion and aesthetic language.
Keats alludes to the creative power of the imagination; he says that turmoil, anxiety, and suffering take part in the creative process. He describes this process as "the looking upon the Sun the Moon the Stars, the Earth, and its contents as materials to form greater things—that is to say ethereal things”. He links the external world to his internal. He considers external things the material to be used in giving form to his internal. He recognizes his imaginative world so genuine. His poetry is not a mere record of all such impressions. It is fundamentally a spontaneous overflow of his imagination kindled by all the senses.
What Keats sees in his imagination, he shapes into poetry. What Keats realizes in his imagination are intuitions of truths. To give them a shape, he creates a poem that acts as a vehicle that goes into insights to bring his imagination out. In the poetic process, he adopts materials from external reality and shapes them into images that reflect his inside. Through his typical mode of expression, he describes the workings of his imagination in an Image. He clothes his explanations of the imagination with spiritual language. He talks of making a personal "airy Citadel,” a place, out of his imaginings—his own inwards.” This citadel is the web of his soul anchored lightly, but surely, in the external world, but full of symbols expressing the spiritual vision.
To disclose his brilliance some lines have been extracted from his two famous odes 'Ode to a Nightingale' and Ode on a Grecian Urn. Some brief elucidations are also attributed with the lines to show how the senses are successively stimulated.
‘Ode to a Nightingale’ is written in the garden circled by trees. One of the trees has a nest or rather a singing arena of a nightingale, whence John Keats listens to the melodious song of the nightingale and forgets his all obstruction and obscurity for a brief moment. From this Ode, some lines are quoted below with explanations so that his majestic genius of imagery is revealed.
My heart aches, and drowsy numbness pains.
In the first stanza of Ode to a Nightingale, Keats makes a reader feel his pain, makes a reader taste hemlock and opiate, and stimulates imagery of gustatory and tactile.
In some melodious plot of beechen green, and shadows numberless.
This line excites visual and auditory senses because Keats makes a reader eavesdrop on a melodic song in the forest under the trees.
O for a draught of vintage! That hath been cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, tasting of Flora and the country green.
These are the starting lines of the second stanza in which gustatory imagery is triggered by the description of drinking exotic wine. Keats expresses his intense desire for a beaker full of the warm south as a mode of escape into the beautiful world of the bird’s song phrases like ‘blushful Hippocrene’, beaded bubbles winking at the brim’ and purple-stained mouth’ evidently suggest the colorful and sensuous evocativeness of Keats’ poetic art. The whole stanza is a description of the gustatory sensation of drinking wine.
To paint another picture of his imagination, Keats writes “The Ode on Grecian Urn” very after “The Ode to a Nightingale”. This poem is a piece of his creative imagination; it breathes sensation, beauty, and truth. It consists of many sensuous descriptions. To demonstrate Keats’ genius, some lines are given below.
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme.
Words 'flowery tale' and 'sweetly' draw a precise image of a bouquet or garden that triggers three senses all together visual, olfactory, and gustatory.
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape.
In this line, “Leaf-fringed” provides an image of the frame or window. It has a border with a string of leaves. Through this frame, a lively image comes.
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady,
Tempe is a valley in Greece, and dale is also a valley. Arcady is a region in Greece. It is associated with peaceful and simple country life. This visual image takes a reader to the heavenly world.
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
These lines are moving pictures that show that “Maidens loth”, a shy and unmarried girl, wants to escape and save her chastity.
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Pipes are flutes, and a timbrel is an ancient tambourine.
These instruments activate the auditory and visual imageries. They play music, and the people or gods in the picture are going wild. They’re looking ecstatic and probably dancing wildly.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Some physical music can be heard by a mortal but the melody, resonated through the urn, cannot be heard by physical ears. Keats draws the reader’s attention to this, and he says this music can’t be heard by a physical pair of ears but can be infused in the imagination.
More happy love! More happy, happy love! Forever warm and still to be enjoyed forever panting and forever young.’
The sensuous ecstasy of romantic love of youthful days is depicted. Here Keats gives a sensuous contrast between something invariable, the urn whose lifeless permanence of art is superior to the transience of life.
Thus john Keats is proved a poet of the senses by his poetry which not only ignites the inactive senses but also satisfies them. Though he spent a brief life span, just 25 years, he will always stay alive in romantic poetry. While reading his poem, a reader can kindle his senses by being lost in the poetic world of imagination.
This article is written by Shajar Ali, one of the contributors at the School of Literature.
