Bright Star - John Keats

1. Bright Star - John Keats I love you; all I can bring you is a swooning admiration of your Beauty. . . . You absorb me [letter to Fanny Brawne May 13 1818]

2. I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Heathen.“ ‘I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I should have possession of them both in the same minute.’ Bright Star?

3. Context Keats rejected organised religion, finding it repressive. In this poem he takes a pantheistic view [no particular religion] of the night sky Typical Romantic emphasis on emotion, nature and sensual experience, especially the permanence of the natural world contrasted with the mortal world of love The natural world portrayed as sacred, therefore there is a sense of alienation for humanity Heavy emphasis on physical sexuality contrasts with Petrachan notion of courtly love. Keats was commonly criticised for this ‘physicality’ .

4. Themes 1] What qualities does Keats admire in the star? [first 4 lines] 2] Do you think Keats wants to be a star? [line 2, line 9] 3] What aspects of humanity does he most want to retain? [line 11, last line] 4] What tension is created in the last lines of the poem? [concluding couplet]

5. OCTET THEMES • In the first line, the poet expresses his desire for an ideal--to be as steadfast as a star--an ideal which cannot be achieved by a human being in this world of change or flux, as he comes to realize by the end of the poem. • In fact, he is unable to identify even briefly with the star; immediately, in line 2, he asserts a negative, "not." And lines 2-8 reject qualities of the star's steadfastness . • Even the religious imagery is associated with coldness and aloneness; moreover, the star is cut off from the beauties of nature on earth.

6. SESTET THEMES • Once the poet eliminates the non-human qualities of the star, he is left with just the quality of steadfastness. He can now define steadfastness in terms of human life on earth, in the world of love and movement. As in so many poems, Keats is grappling with the paradox of the desire for permanence and a world of timelessness and eternity (the star) while living in a world of time and flux. • The paradox is resolved by the end of the poem: joy and fulfillment are to be found here, now; he needs no more. • There is a possible ambiguity in the last line; is Keats saying that even if love doesn't enable him to live forever, he will die content in ecstasy and love?

7. Structure Sonnet----but not strictly Shakespearian. Keats adapted the sonnet to suit his purposes First 8 lines, Octave, focuses on the stability of nature [give quotations] Second 6 lines, sestet, focuses on sexual love [give quotations]

8. LanguageAnalyse the use of the following techniques: Personification? Apostrophe? Alliteration? Assonance? Strategic Repetition? Oxymoron? Allusion?

9. Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the nightAnd watching, with eternal lids apart,Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,The moving waters at their priestlike taskOf pure ablution round earth's human shores,Or gazing on the new soft-fallen maskOf snow upon the mountains and the moors--

10. No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

13. Scansion/Meter Iambic pentameter used throughout reflects the theme of constancy Caesura breaks the meter in the last two lines, possibly reflecting his mortality

14. Tone 1] Find 5 examples of positive and negative lexis 2]Find examples from the following semantic fields: Religion, remoteness, physical sexuality 3] What does Keats’ overall attitude appear to be? Look for fluctuations between passion and ambivalence etc.