JOHN KEATS -2

 JOHN KEATS -2 

The day’s quotes from Keats are quite interesting, but they call for a sedate mindset that can patiently decipher the innate elegance fielded through a set of words that demand patient exploration. So, spend a little time and stand rich benefits of learning from a great poet

I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top

The above statement of Keats is from a letter of his to a friend.  The poet expresses deep anguish and says he would  rather stay under water instead of being in the surroundings in the general ambience –for he is so much depressed.

Life is but a day

A fragile dew- drop on it perilous way

From a tree’s summit

The quote above from Keats  is a brilliant analogy of equating life to a drop of dew as the two are too ephemeral [short-lived]; also the two abruptly collapse much  like a dew drop that is dangerously poised for a fall to shatter.

“I have good reason to be content, for thank God

I can read and perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths” 

John Keats –being a poet himself expresses gratitude to Divinity that his senses of perception are intact to the extent that he can appreciate Shakespeare for all his fineness. It implies that literature appreciation requires a deep /clear perception possible only if someone is mentally sharp and alert.

“Whatever the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth- whether it existed before or not”

What appeals as ‘beauty’ needs no proof of its existence before, and it seldom matters if it were real or not. It implies that ‘beauty’ is a mind’s perception and it just ends there.

“We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author”

The quote rightly and rightfully emphasizes the idea that what one learns through personal experience cannot be gathered even from the best of writings.  Knowledge of experience is superior to that of mere reading.

To continue……