JOHN KEATS AS A POET OF BEAUTY 

Introduction

One of the most important ingredients of romantic poetry is a passionate love for beauty. Every poet in one way or the other is a lover of beauty. John Milton was a good lover of beauty as well as religion. William Wordsworth finds beauty only in nature. However, John Keats is different from them. He does not only like beauty but also quests for it. He also takes interest in Greeks art in order to pursue beauty which is also called John Keats’ Hellenism. Keats is of the view that everything which touches the senses is beautiful. Besides the poet of nature, John Keats is also called the poet of beauty. Art, birds’ songs, forests, clouds, skies, seasons, in fact, every element either natural or unnatural, is beautiful in his eyes. He finds it even in truth, the song of the nightingale and also in a Grecian urn.

Earlier Poems Vs. Later Poems of John Keats: 

John Keats in his earlier poems found beauty only in natural objects such as clouds, skies, forests, etc. In later poems, his approach is something extraordinary. The recent poetry of John Keats seems mature. He talks about universal beauty. For instance, the autumn season is beautiful for him. Similarly, the song of the nightingale is joyful. Greek art also gives him pleasure. He also mentions beauty in immortality. When other poets criticize the autumn season, John Keats seeks beauty in it. Everything is joyful for him though it depends on his mood. It is because he appreciates beauty and finds beauty in everything even in melancholy. Thus, his attitude is entirely different in his later poems.

John Keats as Poet of Sensuous Beauty:

Another important thing about John Keats is that he always talks about sensuous beauty. His poetry touches the senses of readers. Song of nightingale can listen; Grecian urn can be seen; the autumn season can be felt; flowers can be smelled. Readers do not only read the poetry of John Keats but also feel it.

Being a pure and romantic poet, John Keats considers his duty to pursue beauty. That’s why Shelly calls him the best romantic poet of his era. He is the last romantic poet but best among them because of his attitude towards sensuous beauty.

Comparison Between Melancholy and Beauty:

Art is beautiful and is everlasting in the eyes of John Keats. He takes the example of a sculpture and proves that its beauty will never fade. Furthermore, he is famous for putting melancholy and beauty in juxtaposition. He provides evidence to prove that melancholy dwells with beauty. He experienced sufferings of life and also felt every pain because he lived a had and short life. As a result, he gained experience. He acknowledged that beauty could never be separated from melancholy.

Many examples are there in his work, from which, readers witness appreciation of beauty. Hyperion is the best example of it. It is full of gloomy atmosphere even then John Keats being a poet of beauty does not leave any chance to appreciate it. His famous poem “Ode to Nightingale” has been referred many times. This poem can be used to exemplify any element of romantic poetry but for this purpose its significance is praiseworthy. Likewise, starting lines of “Endymion” strengthen the assertion that poet John Keats is a passionate lover of beauty. He writes: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”. In fact, every poem of John Keats proves that he is a passionate lover of allurement.

John Keats was a pure poet, therefore, beauty was a good subject for him to write poetry. He chooses it because he feels it. He finds it in everything.

Keats ‘Beauty is Truth; Truth Beauty’

Keats was considerably influenced by Spenser and was, like Spenser, a passionate lover of beauty in all its forms and manifestations. The passion for beauty constitutes his aestheticism. Beauty was his pole star, beauty in nature, in a woman and in art. For him, ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’.

When we think of Keats, ‘Beauty’ comes to our mind. Keats and Beauty have become almost synonymous. We cannot think of Keats without thinking of Beauty. Beauty is an abstraction, it does not give out its meaning easily. For Keats, it is not so. He sees Beauty everywhere. Keats made Beauty his object of wonder and admiration and he became the greatest poet of Beauty. All the Romantic poets had a passion for one thing or the other. Wordsworth was the worshipper of Nature and Coleridge was a poet of the supernatural. Shelley stood for ideals and Byron loved liberty. With Keats, the passion for Beauty was the greatest, rather the only consideration. In the letters of Keats, we frequently read about his own ideas about Beauty. In one of his letters to George and Tom, he wrote:

            “With a great poet, the sense of Beauty overcomes every other    consideration, or rather obliterates another consideration.”

He writes and identifies beauty with truth. Of all the contemporary poets Keats is one of the most inevitably associated with the love of beauty. He was the most passionate lover of the world as the career of beautiful images and of many imaginative associations of an object or word with a heightened emotional appeal. Poetry, according to Keats, should be the incarnation of beauty, not a medium for the expression of religious or social philosophy. Keats loved ‘the mighty abstract idea of Beauty in all things’. He could see Beauty everywhere and in every object. The beauty appeared to him in various forms and shapes—in the flowers and in the clouds, in the hills and rills, in the song of a bird and in the face of a woman, in a great book and in the legends of old. Beauty was there in the pieces of stone with carvings thereon. He hated didacticism in poetry. For the poetry itself was a beauty so he wrote, “We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us.”  ’The lines of his poem ‘Endymion’ have become a maxim:

            “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:            Its loveliness increases; it will never            Pass into nothingness”