Keats’ Dramatic Quality: Odes Show Inner Conflict between Art & Life, Pain & Pleasure, Reality & Imagination, Transience & Permanence
John Keats was a great poet of Romantic age in
English literature. It is evident from his poetry that he was an ardent lover
of beauty and beautiful objects of nature. Particularly, when we study his
odes, the first thing which allures the readers is their dramatic quality. By
drama, we essentially mean tension or conflict. Nevertheless, Keats’ odes are a
running commentary on his poetic state of mind which always suffered from the
pulls of reality on one side and those of imagination from the other. He seems
to linger between the bitter realities of life (Where but to think is to be
full of sorrows) and the happy world of the nightingale which has remained
absolutely untainted by the fever and fret of the real world. Hence, we may
proclaim unhesitatingly that Keats’ odes are a record of dramatic quality.
A look at Keats’ history shows that his life
has been a succession of conflicts and tensions which finds expression in his
poetry. One type of conflict was a matter of choice between the real world and
the ideal world which he had created with the help of his imagination. A
similar type of conflict mirrors through his ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ which
revolves around the temporal and eternal. We find that he has immortalized
(eternalized) the mortals (temporal) e.g., the piper, bold lover, willing men,
unwilling women, trees, town and the Spring season that have been carved on the
surface of the urn. In order to strengthen his concept of permanence and
eternity, he calls the urn;
“Thou foster child of silence and slow time.”
In ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, same drama of pulls
and strain seems to run through different sections of the poem. On one hand, he
shows his dissatisfaction with the world of reality;
“Where men sit and hear each-others’ groans,
Where but to think is to be full of sorrows.”
On the other hand, he goes to admire the
beautiful and amazing world of the nightingale who;
“…… among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret.”
She sings sweet songs of summer happily;
“In full throated ease.”
When he compares the immortal bird with the
mortal man, the drama of his inner conflict takes place. Keats’ philosophy of
life is also a manifesto of a similar contradiction in his mind;
“I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of heart’s affection and the truth of imagination. What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth whether it existed before or not.”
It is a matter of common observation that
Keats’ odes exhibit a variety of moods which he expresses with same competency
and equal technical success. Hence, each ode is a complement of the other. They
are like a well-knit structure of different ideas and moods which are taken
together to present the unifying force of Keats’ inner feelings, emotions,
passions and conflicts altogether.
Keats seems to harp on the same string in each
and every poem that life in reality is transient and this conception gives
birth to pangs of pain, suffering, plight and sorrow whereas art is the product
of imagination which gives pleasure because of its quality of being permanent.
This perception is everywhere in his poems which results in the production of
conflicting ideas and thoughts in Keats’ mind and memory. In ‘Ode on a Grecian
Urn’, he says;
“Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve,
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”
No doubt bold lover, beautiful beloved and
their passion of love belong to this natural world. They are subject to
dissolve ultimately. But now that they have become a part art (Poem), they will
never die. Even, the beauty of the beloved will remain intact for ever and ever.
Their passion of love will enjoy the same intensity just because these abstract
things have become a part of art.
But the drama of his inner conflicts ended in
a very romantic way. Mortal Keats died but his poetry (= Literature is also an
art) made him immortal.
To conclude, we may say that Keats poetry is a record of opposites i.e., pleasure and pain, imagination and reality and transience and permanence. He is still alive in art and hearts.
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