JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)
Class? politics? relationships?

I. (942/889) Letter 1 [1817] + WW 269/246
--Negative Capability (Oxymoron?) = capable of being unsure, uncertain

Effects on poetry?
a. threshold, in-between
b. tension btw action and delay
--Beauty is all important; beginnings of nineteenth-century aestheticism

(947/894) Letter 2 [1818]
--Camelion Poet vs Poet of the wordsworthian or egotistical sublime.
Problem of unmanliness; effeminacy.

II (903/849)"Ode to a Nightingale"[1819]
--Plea of aspiration (for inspiration)

Strophe/Context (Stanzas 1,2,3)
Antistrophe/Flight
--Stanza 4--flight as poetic aspiration
--Stanza 5, 6, 7-- Negative capability: state of not-knowing and flight postponed
Stand/Return to Earth
--Stanza 8 = illusion dissolves

What is the point?
The political possibilities of Beauty?

III (899/845) "La Belle Dame..." [1820]

ALLEGORY: the way language works
1. The Knight = literal language, questing for Truth
2. Lovely Lady = figurative language allied with digression, dallying; Beauty = straying from path to Truth?

How does Keats's Old Romance measure up against our six Romantic characteristics?
--revolutionary?
--lowly, commonplace?
--feelings, emotions?
--images of nature?
--anti-theatrical prejudice?
--poet as bard?