When One Ceases to Be - Understanding Keats

John Keats (1795 - 1821)

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;-then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Analysis

On a starry summer night, in the year 1817, English Romantic poet John Keats picked up his pen after contemplating the vast, dark sky. The grand panorama above him had convinced him of his smallness and frailty in a gigantic universe that would continue churning long after his demise. With those thoughts in mind, Keats penned When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be, a poem that addressed the ambitions of life in the face of the onslaught of death.

When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be is a 14-line Elizabethan sonnet. The poem is written in iambic pentameter, which means that it contains three quatrains and a couplet. Keats, whether prompted by an appreciation of the brevity of the human lifespan or by the touch of Death's cold finger to his gentle frame, expounds on his reasons for living by claiming he is yet to reach his full potential.

Keats tone changes throughout the poem. His earlier lines begin with the words "when" and "before" in which he describes events in his life that are happening or are to happen. Later lines give his reaction to the course of these events. This gives the sonnet a certain polarity. In the beginning and middle of the poem Keats seems anxious, almost impatient. He is yet to truly experience "high romance" and he has yet to entirely "glean" his "teeming brain." By the end of the poem, Keats has resigned himself to his fate. The "Love and Fame" that he seeks so ardently will eventually sink into "nothingness." regardless of what he does. It is hard to tell whether his surrender is one of bitter dejection or one of peaceful acknowledgment.

The imagery of When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be is quite extensive even for a Romantic poem. Anyone can complain that the Grim Reaper does not give him or her enough time. Yet Keats takes a fairly mundane subject and injects it with visions of fertility, magic, shadows, starry nights and forgotten shores. Keats takes his readers within his daydreams so that one can feel with him the sad, sweet longing of a lost romance or stand with him overlooking the entire world and all of life. The poem a mystical feel to it as if it was written out in a dewy field under a full moon. The imagery gives the reader a sense of peace in the place of mortal fear.

The imagery would mean nothing and evoke no emotion if Keats did not make use of symbols, some simple, others arcane. His references to his pen and his brain are obvious: he simply believes that he has a ways to go before exhausting his poetic brilliance. Yet his use of the word "shore" requires a deeper analysis. One stands on a shore and looks out over a body of water. Expanses of water can mean many things: a barrier, a crossing, the vast depths of the unknown, or death. In Greek mythology, the dead were ferried over the river Styx which divided the world of the living and the world of Hades. Keats might have been standing on the shore of the living considering what he would lose when he passed over. However, the shore was not just a place to peer into the abyss but was also a place of inspiration, catharsis, and enlightenment. On this shore Keats gained an understanding of death that banished his fears and longings.

Although the poem seems to be tranquil and dreamy at first glance, Keats alludes to controversial concepts. One must note the wording of the very first line: Keats says "When I have fears that I may cease to be" not "When I have fears that I might die." According to the religious beliefs of the West in the 1800s, death was followed by an afterlife of either everlasting life or everlasting torment. To state a fear of simply ceasing to exist implies that Keats did not believe in the afterlife treasured so dearly by his fellow men. Death, for him, was the final stroke, and love and fame no longer mattered beyond the grave. To dismiss such a large tenet of the Christian faith was quite radical for his time. However, being a Romantic poet, Keats probably did not feel he had to adhere to society's status quo.

It becomes necessary to understand Romanticism's hold on the poem seeing as the speaker was a Romantic poet. Romanticism was an artistic movement made manifest in the paintings, music, and writing of Western Europe over the later half of the 1800s. By this time the Industrial Revolution had convulsed the United States, England and Germany. The rationalization and subsequent destruction of nature became reasonable according to the new ideals of the Scientific Revolution. The aristocratic political and social norms of theAge of Enlightenment had taken root. Romanticism was a rebellion against what each of these eras stood for. Romantic icons opted for a return to the rustic beauty of nature, an appreciation for Classical and medieval art and philosophy, as well as the heroic celebration of the imagination, creativity and emotions of man. In many ways Romantic artists and writers defied popular beliefs, and constrictions. Many, for this reason, were ahead of their time. William Blake, for example, believed in equality for all regardless of sex or skin color, long before it became popular to do so.

Keats was able to fit so much into so little: appreciation for the poetic process, idealization of the divine female, an understanding of death and life, love, healing, and so forth. In penning this poem Keats was able to evoke mortality and immortality. He was affected by death, but somehow within 14 lines he was able to step outside himself, to shake off the mantle of puny humanity and look outside the orb of simple existence in order to see the true meaning of life, or rather, the futility of it.