Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Keats and "When I Have Fears..."
It seems to me that in “When I Have Fears That I May Cease
To Be”, Keats is not afraid of death, but what he may miss by dying. I am sure
by being trained as a medical doctor, Keats was well acquainted with death.
Seeing people go before their time can cause a person to reflect on his or her
own life. Keats seems to be reflecting on what he has, and does not have. He is
nervous to die without experiencing everything he wants to experience. I think
this is important because it is a common theme for many people. Nobody wants to
die before their time and before they get to truly live. I think Keats is
expressing a common fear for people in a way they can relate to.
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I think that experience and reflection are really at the center of this poem. For a man like Keats, the fear is not so much about death itself, but the loss of life. There is a difference. Keats had so much in his head that he wanted to get on paper, so much reading that he wished to immerse himself in. Keats was, in a sense, drunk on the heady wine of life itself, and did not wish to stop till he had had his fill. The world Keats describes is a mythic place. Descriptive phrases like "night starr'd face," "high romance," "magic hand of chance, and " "faery power" fill this short poem. The reader almost falls into the poem and experiences this life Keats loves so much. The tragic thing, perhaps, is that this is a life that all of us could be living, is the life we should be living, and what that means for those of us who are not.
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