Keats research context PDF

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Keats research context...

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Personal context of John Keats - Romantic poet - Trained initially to be a doctor, but gave up his education to become a poet - He experienced many deaths since he was young (death of father, mother, then brother, all to tuberculosis) → triggered his fear of premature death and deep desire to leave a legacy - Negative capability: the ability to p  ursue a vision of artistic beauty even when it leads them into intellectual confusion and uncertainty - He was greatly influenced by Wordsworth (1st gen), and consequently followed Wordsworthian celebration of the natural world and an innate love of life Historical and literary context - keats poems - Romantic era (late 18th, early 19th): romanticism was a shift from classicism; a dominant movement in literature and art, a reaction against the enlightenment period and Augustan age, where order, harmony and objectivity were preferred, and response to the industrial revolution and French revolution; contrast to neoclassical era. - Pantheism and focus on power of nature (almost religiously) where it should not be perceived scientifically but as a living force instead of a tool for man (rejects industrialism) - Emphasis on imagination as a positive and creative faculty - A new capacity for wonder and pull to the innocence of the vision of childhood - Lives of marginalised and outcasts of society (beggars, tramps & the poor and disregarded) - More focus on the individual and importance of self-expression and individual feeling - the poet’s perceptions and feelings mattered most & more emotional and imaginative spontaneity rather than reason - Significant contemporary poets included: William Blake (pre-romantic), William Wordsworth (1st gen), Percy Shelley (2nd gen) - His poetry conveyed: - His emphasis on bodies, blushing, the sensuous and sensual (perceived to be a more feminist trait in poetry) - The sense that we are completely physical in a physical world - The allied realisation that we are compelled to imagine more than we can know or understand - Negative capability: the ability of writers to contemplate the world without the desire to try and reconcile contradictory aspects or fit it into closed and rational systems Historical and literary context - bright star (film) - A contemporary film (2009) - Focuses on John Keats and Fanny Brawne’s relationship through Fanny’s perspective in his last three years of life

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And viewing him and his issues through his lovers perspective humanises john keats from just the disembodied poet seen through his poems creates a more intimate connection with the audience - Symbolises contemporary emphasis on the female over males and their increasing dominance in society of the 21st century, empowering women - Acknowledgement of females personal voice and emotions that was disregarded in Keats’s time - This is reinforced by the numerous shots that revolve around Toots - Her feminist views are likewise shared in “the piano”, “Top of the Lake: China Girl” However reflects the Romantic focus on sensual imagery: focuses on hands and intense emotions; moves from shots indoors gradually to outdoors (nature) as the relationship develops (elevation of nature)

Key themes - pain/pleasure - Dream or vision/reality - joy/melancholy - The ideal/the real - mortal/ immortal - Fear of mortality/death and immortality - life/death - separation/connection - Being immersed in passion/Desiring to escape passion - Power of imagination and the sublime beauty/value of divine nature - Exploration of keats’s emotions...