The Comparison of Keats's and Shelley's Poetry - Essay Example

?Keats and Shelley: a Comparison Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats are two of the most important poets of the Romantic age. They belong to the second generation of the Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron. Their poetry, in a lot of ways is similar, but also displays differences that arise out of a difference in the way they perceived nature and other poetic faculties. Their backgrounds in terms of their class were also as far apart as it could be; this resulting in a lot of dissimilarities as far as their poetry was concerned. Shelley’s greater involvement in the political activities of the time is visible in his poetry. The politics of Keats’s poetry is however, more subtle. Whether this made it any less revolutionary than the poems of Shelley and the other Romantic poets is a matter of great debate. Both these poets have a lot of similarities in as much as they belong to the same age and are classified under the same movement of literature. The use of nature in the poetry of Shelley and Keats is proof of this. Objects of nature are present in the poetry of both these poets. Both poets attribute characteristics of divinity to elements of nature in their poem. This can be seen in the way the nightingale and the West Wind are treated in the poems, Ode to a Nightingale and Ode to the West Wind. Both these poets talk about how these elements can create changes in the way human beings act and more importantly, feel, which is what most of Romantic poetry talks about. The nightingale and the West Wind are capable of exciting in the poets emotions that are then reflected in the poetry that they produce. There is, however, a fundamental difference in the way that both these poets perceive nature, even though it forms a very important part of both their poetry. Shelley’s use of nature in Ode to the West Wind and in Prometheus Unbound is restricted to a use of items that are found in nature as symbols to represent a greater revolutionary consciousness. This revolutionary nature in man is something that would gear him up for the production of a society that is egalitarian and free from inequalities. Strife for this purpose, Shelley believed, was part of man’s nature. For Keats, however, nature constituted an object in itself, something that in its entirety was capable of transporting the poet to a different world. Nature would provide the poet with new and varied experiences that would produce the emotions that are necessary for the production of poetry. The nightingale and the draught of hemlock together are capable of transporting Keats into a world where the experiences that await him differ from the mundane ones of the normal world. We see this ability of nature also in The Fall of Hyperion, where the garden and a draught of juice make him capable of communication with the divine being, Moneta. Keats termed this ability of the poet to travel out of his own body and exist at another plane, with objects of nature for company, “negative capability”, and it formed a crucial part of his poetry. This differentiates Keats from Shelley, in whose poetry nature played a largely symbolic role. The role of imagination in the poetry of both Keats and Shelley is an important one. As mentioned earlier, negative capability involves the use of imagination to a great extent. Shelley too, emphasizes on the use of the imaginative faculty. The use of imagination, in the poetry of Shelley, however, is used to provoke direct action on the part of the reader. An example of this is present in Ode to the West Wind, where wind is given the characteristics of the revolutionary masses that swept through France and caused the great success of the French Revolution in its initial days. In Prometheus Unbound too, the winds and other elements in nature are attributed certain characteristics that are human. They are thus personified for the purposes of the poet and for his ideologies. This is different from Keats’s poems, where the call to action is more subtle and depends not on the imaginative attribution of characteristics to objects in nature. In Keats, the address is direct, and to the object of nature that is also usually the object of his poem, as in To Autumn. Keats’s poetry has often been contrasted with the poetry of Shelley and is talked of as non-revolutionary. This is not to be taken as a negative trait of Keats’s poetry, though. Shelley was a part of the aristocracy of England and was intimately associated with the political events of the time, as were most other poets of the age. Keats, however, was a commoner, who unlike the gentry, had to work for a living (having to work for one’s living was considered to be a sign of low birth till about the middle of the nineteenth century). Unlike in the poetry of Shelley, Keats’s poetry reveals a keen awareness of approaching death, something that he was aware of, from personal experience. Even though Shelley too died at an early age, he was not aware of the impending nature of his death. This makes Keats’s poetry more of a comment on the nature of his existence and dissociates it from the political events that Shelley was closely connected with, as a result of his position in life. Keats’s poetry is thus centered more on the universal existence of man than the events in France during the late eighteenth century. Shelley too, believed that he was talking about a universal situation of mankind; however, his themes centered on the destruction of tyranny through ideals that were gained through the French Revolution. This was something that Shelley argued was universal. It would however, be wrong to imply that Keats was unaware of the Revolution and its possibilities in England. In the Fall of Hyperion, he talks of change that was necessary and unavoidable in the world of politics. The fall of the mighty Titans is necessary for the ascension of the newer gods who were superior in terms of their beauty. The ascension of the god of poetry, Apollo, for Keats, follows a war that is both mental and physical as is seen in the birth of Apollo as a celestial. The poetry of Keats and Shelley, thus, though it may seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum as far as their political views and also those regarding poetry are concerned, have certain similarities that place them within the Romantic movement. Both these poets employed conceptions of nature and imagination that were unlike those of previous ages. Their use of these elements was also for purposes that were vastly different from that of each other. However, as mentioned in this essay there are points where these poets meet and reach a consensus, one that reflects the beliefs and the concerns of the times that they lived in. Works Cited Bhattacharji, Shobhana, eds. The Romantics. New Delhi: Worldview Critical Editions, 2007. Print Cox N., Jeffrey, eds. Keats's Poetry and Prose. New York: Norton Critical Editions, 2008. Print Fraistat, Neil; Reiman H., Donald, eds. Shelley’s Poetry and Prose. New York: Norton Critical Editions, 2002. Print Read More