john keats philosophy

Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works. His many apothegms on the utility of adversity in the essay coincide with Keats’s ideas. As for Zen Buddhism, there is an overlap in small ways between that and Stoicism, but Zen elements, if any, in certain poems do not connect Keats, personally or philosophically, to that system of belief. I have been hovering for some time between an exquisite sense of the When all else fails, you can just make out. 12 John Keats, The Complete Poems of John Keats (New York: the Modern Library, 1994). Many have original minds who do not think it—they . He expressed a confirmed belief that a person’s identity, also referred to as his soul, was molded through hardship. For the Stoics a departure from reason was a failure to act in accordance with nature, in contravention of man’s purpose. Later, he coupled hardship with knowledge, stating allegorically that from difficult experiences one entered farther, into the previously obscured rooms of knowledge located in the mansion of life (129). “How astonishingly does the chance of leaving the world impress a sense of its natural beauties upon me” (461). to 165 A.D., encouraged his acolytes to work for the good of the country, then, if forced out of civic duty or prevented by circumstance from participating in the community, to pursue teaching, writing or philosophy—all valuable for the world as much as for oneself. In particular, Vergil (an author Keats knew well and whom Seneca quoted to preface his essays), French philosophers (he read Voltaire), and the English poets (particularly Shakespeare and Milton) contained sifted grains of Stoicism. In the poem, nature pours forth glorious beauties to herald Apollo, “the Father of all verse” (Book III, line 13): “Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue, / Let rose glow intense and warm the air, / And let the clouds of even and of morn Float in voluptuous fleeces o’er the hills” (Book III, lines 13-17). Therefore, Keats acted in accord with Seneca’s precept in fashioning his own cut of philosophy, rather than following the notions of any given school. In addition to the practice of keeping death in mind, Keats and Seneca also shared similar views on what happened after death; both felt it was an unknown, but in any event there was nothing to dread. Updates? 15 Hadas, “Introduction” to “On Providence” in The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca, 27. . He is so dominated by his passions that he becomes intent on marrying a woman whose name he does not even know. Keats also stated in his letters that, when immersed in writing, he was in a sort. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. John Keats’ philosophy of art can be briefly summed up as: art is that which life is not. Seneca presaged that thought with his statement: “If you devote yourself to study you will escape your distaste for life . Thus, given the natural origin of hardship and its inescapability, the question for philosophy was how to reconcile oneself to it. Keats concluded from the natural world that hardship was an intrinsic part of life: “The whole appears to resolve into this—that Man is a poor forked creature subject to the same mischances as the beasts of the forest, destined to hardships and disquietude of some kind or other” (325). This point of difference is minor because such gods were akin to forces of nature and embodied an ideal perfection. The message that Oceanus imparts to the Titans accords with Keats’s Stoic view on adversity expressed in his letters, i.e. . 14 Irvine, The Guide to the Good Life, 56. The ability to be self-sufficient was crucial to the Stoics: Seneca wrote that it was one of two necessary causes for happiness (239) and that, “It is important to withdraw into one’s self” (104). Seneca’s parallel essay to Keats’s “vale of soul-making letter” is an essay “On Providence” (27-45). . Beyond designing a useful system for himself, Keats also aimed at a larger, non-personal benefit from philosophy, as he explained in a letter: “I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good to the world. .” (125-126). . As Keats defied the odds of ever being successful and devoted himself to his poetry, he found the reason to continue within himself. He bears the name, intentionally or not, of a Roman Stoic philosopher, Apollonius of Chalcedon, who tutored Marcus Aurelius14. 202. .as I do mine, or, really, how should I be able to live” (519). Looking at his work, one can interpret his poem “Lamia” as his Stoic statement on the topic of romantic love in which reason conquers irrational passion, even annihilates it. In the former, Keats expressed many times that love and marriage would interfere with a life of calm and solitude, which he considered essential to him as a poet. the heart. Also, a study of Keats as a Platonist must focus on his poetics, not on a method for living because Plato was a dialectician and theorist; certainly Keats was not suggesting to Brown that he deal with grief by remembering Platonic ideas. To live a good life, Keats had to reach a state conducive to writing, which he referred to as being “in cue” to write (286). Each succeeding generation will hold them in ever higher reverence . John Keats was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. difficulties nerve the Spirit of a Man—they make our Prime Objects a Refuge as well as a Passion” (16). . In the duel of head and heart, Keats, Stoic-like, promoted reason. On the topic of passionate love, reason failed in his life and won in his poem Lamia. .”8 The origin of Stoicism accounts for its practicality, as Hadas explained: “Stoicism aimed at reconciling the claims of the individual with the “demands of his overwhelmingly enlarged environment” after the fall of the city-state that had hitherto served to define the individual’s world.9 Incidentally, the growth of a system to fill a void in society is analogous to its providing the agnostic individual, like Keats, a philosophy in the absence of organized religion. Moses Hadas in his introduction to The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca (1958) has explained, regarding the ubiquity of Stoic thought after the time of Marcus Aurelius: “After his time the school as such faded out, but its doctrines perceptibly influenced later Neoplatonism and some of the Church Fathers and became a substantial strand in the skein of European thought” (26). And in the proof much comfort will I give, 21 He never expressed any fear in regard to dying and he shared Seneca’s view of the usefulness of death. As for any direct influence on Keats, even though he did read Latin fluently, there is no evidence that he read any Stoic writers. His letters reveal that a philosopher exhibited two necessary attributes: outwardly he was disinterested and inwardly he delved into the mysteries of life. My ideal date would be to park in a dark place, check out the stars, and have a great conversation. Although Keats is known for having several faithful friends, upon whom he greatly depended, there is a distinction between friendship and socializing. . Forget all the bars and schmoozing and everybody checking out everybody else. Even during their extremely brief relationship there occurs a lapse in their unity of emotion. . .” (226). Knowledge and Reason Either end or transition. His spirit quickly begins to rise from its funk as knowledge pours into his head, and he exclaims: “Knowledge enormous makes a god of me” (line 113). There is symmetry between the manner in which Keats lived and what Seneca described as a Stoic lifestyle. Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring proof . The most interesting poem in this volume is “Sleep and Poetry,” the middle section of which contains a prophetic view of Keats’s own poetical progress. Looking first at Seneca, he wrote: “What is death? Home; Authors/Philosophers; Conflicts; Enlightenment; Transcendentalism; Works Cited; John Keats Previous Next. The poem narrates a version of the Greek legend of the love of the moon goddess (variously Diana, Selene, and Artemis; also identified as Cynthia by Keats) for Endymion, a mortal shepherd, but Keats puts the emphasis on Endymion’s love for the goddess rather than on hers for him. Keats’s declaration that he would write poetry, if only to tear it up the next day (211) was not bravado, but Stoicism. 18 The Keats Circle, ed. Beyond designing a useful system for himself, Keats also aimed at a larger, non-personal benefit from philosophy, as he explained in a letter: “I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good to the world. A large element of the external world that Keats discounted, even disdained, was the public and its opinion of his poetry. I do not fear ceasing to be, for it is the same as not having begun to be, nor am I afraid of transition, for no alternative state can be so limiting” (201). . .” (Part II, lines 85-86). 375 quotes from John Keats: 'Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter', 'Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? In demonstrating that Keats developed a Stoic philosophy, I must propose that he was influenced by Stoic thought, arrived at Stoic ideas coincidentally, or that he fell somewhere on the scale between the two possibilities. should you observe anything cold in me not to put it to the account of heartlessness, but abstraction–for I assure you I sometimes feel not the influence of a passion or affection during a whole Week . Keats called joy a “phantom” to express its transient and What is left unexplained resides in my fascination and reverence for a suffering and extraordinary person. Can burst joy’s grape against his palate fine; . . Reason, like knowledge, implicates the power of the mind, the emotions. He posited: “Do you not see how necessary a world of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a Soul?” (327). Stifling that puny essence in his tent.’ ” . The philosophy of Stoicism also concerned itself with a way to confront life, as distinguished from metaphysics. Whereas Oceanus murmurs, she laments: “Cylmene . In a poem included in a letter to his brother George, Keats described the poet as being in a “trance,” capable of perceptions like no other person (21). unfortunate. Share your thoughts, experiences and the tales behind the art. Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring proof . Keats, like the Stoics, developed a practical philosophy; however, he did of course expound on art and poetry, creating an aesthetic philosophy notable for his ideas on the relation of beauty and truth, on the chameleon poet, and on negative capability. Seneca also valued disinterestedness and extolled the process of exploring the nature of life. . The Stoic Lifestyle, Solitude, and the Disdain of Fame should you observe anything cold in me not to put it to the account of heartlessness, but abstraction–for I assure you I sometimes feel not the influence of a passion or affection during a whole Week . . As discussed above regarding the monologue of Oceanus, thought and understanding bring tranquility, whereas emotion, unthinkingly indulged, creates misery. For Seneca, understanding and reconciling oneself to adversity fostered tranquility; however, emotions arising from hardship were not the only challenge to a tranquil state of mind. .” (176). mind is its own place and can make a hell of heaven or a heaven of hell.” Keats echoed Satan when he wrote, “The soul is a world of itself, and has enough to do in its own home” (369). Shall I awake and find this all a dream? In the poem, one can deduce John Keats’ philosophy of life as thus: Art as an ultimate preserver , Art as a Keeper of Beauty and Time , Art as a True Picture of Humanity and Art as a form of Escapism . As noted earlier, although Keats’s philosophy of life was, in Stoic fashion, practical in its orientation and separate from his aesthetics, many of his contemplations led to poetry. Now it appears to me that almost any Man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel . Keats freely used the term “philosopher” in his letters, and by that term he intended the highest accolade. Musa’ so often dinn’d into his ears—I hope you may not have the same pain in this scribbling—I may have read these things before, but I never had even a thus dim perception of them; and moreover I like to say my lesson to one who will endure my tediousness, for my own sake” (131). his suffering now is beyond description.” 19 Keats and Seneca went into exile and, Keats, like Seneca, awaited his death sentence. .” (125). His father died in 1804, and his mother remarried almost immediately. Particularly in his tormented final days, Keats might have succumbed to its influence, given that Dr. Clark, Keats’s attending physician in Rome, and Joseph Severn, his devoted friend and nurse in Rome, encouraged it, certain that Keats was deprived and worsened by a failure to embrace religion.18 Also, the similarities in philosophical thought between Keats and Seneca actually exceed what I have treated in this paper, both in the degree of detail on each topic and in number of topics. . element being welcome relief. Moses Hadas has described the difference: “Its program was at all times more important than the scaffolding of logic and physics erected to support it . Keats described in his letters the great degree to which he valued solitude. Emily Brontё called imagination the “world within,” and similarly, Keats stated, “I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds” (225). No poet was so severely criticized at the beginning nor more highly praised at the end of his life. John Keats devoted his short life to the perfection of poetry marked by vivid imagery, great sensuous appeal and an attempt to express a philosophy through classical legend. In truth, the calamity was the process of the old order making way for the new, analogous to the ongoing renewal of nature (208, Book II, lines 217 et seq.) He could have pursued his profession as a surgeon; he had an inheritance and would have had more if he had been more active in his financial affairs; and he loaned money to friends that he needed for himself, and then borrowed from his publishers to meet harassing duns. So many men make the rounds of houses, theater, and thrust themselves into other people’s affairs, and always give the impression of being busy. On the second criterion of a philosopher, Seneca encouraged his acolytes to ponder philosophical matters as the summum bonum: “. his suffering now is beyond description.” 19 Keats and Seneca went into exile and, Keats, like Seneca, awaited his death sentence. Keats made a number of remarkable and direct statements about death in his letters and his poetry, and those expressions further align him with the Stoics. But as I am not, I shall turn all my soul to the latter” (120-21). 202. 12 John Keats, The Complete Poems of John Keats (New York: the Modern Library, 1994). Keats lived very simply, unconcerned for creature comforts and the money that was necessary to provide them. Apollonius, in his wisdom, understands the link between passion and misery; he wears a Stoic toga in advocating that Lycius steer clear of such excessive emotion. Then, in a long letter to his brother George and sister-in-law dated as having been started on February 14, 1819, Keats gave a sustained discussion on the purpose of adversity. Unfortunately, although the theoretical side of philosophy flourished, the practical side his withered away” (20). 12 . . Although Keats is known for having several faithful friends, upon whom he greatly depended, there is a distinction between friendship and socializing. The shortcoming of Wordsworth described by the quote was his lack of disinterestedness. He attributed to it a calming benefit: “An extensive knowledge is needful to thinking people—it takes away the heat and fever; and helps, by widening speculation, to ease the Burden of the Mystery, a thing which I begin to understand a little . As for joy and its excesses, Keats seemed to embrace the Stoic admonition against indulging pleasure in the pursuit of joy. It could be a philosophical statement about life or it may only make sense in context of the poem, As in 'Ode to a Nightingale, Keats wants to create a world of pure joy. The similarity is not surprising, given that in a few lines above he had remarked how “the ‘Paradise Lost’ becomes a greater wonder.” 7 Richard P. Benton, “Keats and Zen,” Philosophy East and West 16 (1966). “How astonishingly does the chance of leaving the world impress a sense of its natural beauties upon me” (461). .”8 The origin of Stoicism accounts for its practicality, as Hadas explained: “Stoicism aimed at reconciling the claims of the individual with the “demands of his overwhelmingly enlarged environment” after the fall of the city-state that had hitherto served to define the individual’s world.9 Incidentally, the growth of a system to fill a void in society is analogous to its providing the agnostic individual, like Keats, a philosophy in the absence of organized religion. but too short was their bliss / To breed distrust and hate, that make the soft voice hiss” (Part II, lines 10-11). Keats by his own avowal did spend periods in a state that suited him and that fits the definition of tranquility, i.e. Seneca counseled that “old and young alike should have death before their eyes. . and trans. He admitted to enjoying excessively only one “palate affair,” claret (288). Keats by his own avowal did spend periods in a state that suited him and that fits the definition of tranquility, i.e. C.W. . How misguided Lycius has been in allowing himself to become enmeshed in this emotion, devoid of reason and false, with an underside of misery, finds metaphorical and hyperbolic expression in Lycius’s lover being a snake in reality. John Keats. Quotations by John Keats, English Poet, Born October 31, 1795. 11 Irvine, The Guide to the Good Life, 34-5. Keats freely used the term “philosopher” in his letters, and by that term he intended the highest accolade. In his letters, he never complained about his way of life. by himself if he had cared more about money. In demonstrating that Keats developed a Stoic philosophy, I must propose that he was influenced by Stoic thought, arrived at Stoic ideas coincidentally, or that he fell somewhere on the scale between the two possibilities. 6 Douka Kabitoglou, “Adapting Philosophy to Literature: the Case of John Keats,” Studies in Philology 89.1 (1992). Seneca too acknowledged that reason had a particularly tough time in cases of grief. The gods were all powerful, yet nowhere does Seneca suggest placating them or supplicating for a change anymore than Keats would have left offerings to nature for a mitigation of his illness. ( Log Out /  Even though Keats encouraged thinking to console his family members upon Tom’s death, over a year later he admitted in connection with the death of a friend the difficulty of facing one’s own grief: “Even so we have leisure to reason on the misfortunes of our friends; our own touch us too nearly for words” (303). I could pass my life very nearly alone though it would last eighty years” ( 369) He many times expressed his attraction to a solitary life that would allow him to study and write, and he assured his brother, George, that he thrived in isolation: “ . Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: I scarcely remember counting upon any happiness–I look not for it if it not be in not in the present hour . suffered from the deterioration of his lungs and stomach and his extreme mental anguish in awful detail and then concluded: “. . For that reason Roman Stoic philosophy has been termed “eudaemonistic ethics;” as William Irvine explains regarding Stoicism and its quest for tranquility: “It is concerned not with moral right and wrong but with having a ‘good spirit,’ that is, with living a good, happy His many apothegms on the utility of adversity in the essay coincide with Keats’s ideas. Such excessive emotion included the joy produced by pleasure. John Keats wrote sonnets, odes, and epics. In the early stages of his consumption, Keats came upon the idea that death, viewed as an impending certainty, served to beautify life. .” (138). Later, he coupled hardship with knowledge, stating allegorically that from difficult experiences one entered farther The trope of capture mimics Seneca’s view that the joys of pleasure have the power to enslave. .” (84). In the summer of 1818 Keats went on a walking tour in the Lake District (of northern England) and Scotland with his friend Charles Brown, and his exposure and overexertions on that trip brought on the first symptoms of the tuberculosis of which he was to die. of fever (414) and that the presence of any person, “burst on him like a thunderbolt” (363). Later in the poem, with the appearance of Apollo, Keats makes a case for the beneficial power of knowledge. 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