Paganism/Christianity In Keats Essay, Research Paper

Paganism and Christianity in Keats & # 8217 ; The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode to a Greek Urn and Ode to a Nightingale

Many of Keats & # 8217 ; verse forms reflect his spiritualty, his sense of the connexion between the environment and the nexus between heathen and Christian images that exist in day-to-day life. The Eve of St. Agnes, for illustration, is a verse form that defines many of these links and demonstrates the premises of Keats & # 8217 ; concentrate on romanticism, spiritualty and imagination based in nature. Other verse forms, including Ode to a Greek Urn and Ode to a Nightingale, contain these elements Keats & # 8217 ; lushly redolent imagination. Keats celebrates a unquestionably religious, instead than spiritual, consciousness of all that is around him in nature and other people. Keats & # 8217 ; use of the images and linguistic communication of both the Christian and heathen traditions reflects the societal and cultural elements that have defined western society & # 8217 ; s passage from a heathen individuality to a Christian individuality. For illustration, the mysticism represented in The Eve of St. Agnes, every bit good as the religious mentions in his other verse forms, underscore the function that pagan religion and Christianity play within the lives of modern people. Farnell emphasizes that while Keat & # 8217 ; s intervention of pagan religion is normally positive, he tends to be critical of Christianity ( 402-3 ) .

The Eve of St. Agnes features an luring blend of contrasting images and constructs, including the heathen and Christian, heat and cold and noise and quiet.

The Ag, snaping huntsman’s horns & # 8216 ; gan to call on the carpet:

The degree Chamberss, ready with their pride,

Were glowing to have a 1000 invitees:

The carven angels, of all time eager eyed ( 31-4 )

The predating line absolutely describes the rock angels, and the description is enhanced by the ulterior mention to Madeline & # 8217 ; s eyes: & # 8220 ; She danc & # 8217 ; d along with vague, irrespective eyes & # 8221 ; ( 64 ) . The brotherhood of the dance of the heathens and the position depicted by the carven angels underscores the key to Keats & # 8217 ; esthesia. At the same clip, The Eve of St. Agnes demonstrates that Keats does non deny Christianity or pagan religion as primary forces in the development of the Romantic esthesia. Alternatively, he attempts to demo complicity, to show the links that have brought together elements of heathen ritual with the observations of the Church in a manner that acknowledges both as fundamental to the bing spiritual construction.

Keats reveled in experimentation both with poetic signifiers and imagination. He chooses the perfect voice and poetic meter to accommodate the narratives told in his poesy, and he used his ain structural and thematic brotherhood to back up the basic tones of his plants. For illustration, the Spenserian stanza he chose for The Eve of St. Agnes absolutely suits the animal and sentimental interactions of the two lovers ( Stillinger 82 ) . Keats is able to show vocal, image, dance and integrity throughout the patterned advance of his subjects and through the beat of his structural format.

One of the great and surely most gratifying of Keats & # 8217 ; endowments represented in his verse form is his ability to steer the reader through the model of a specific topographic point and clip. He creates chances for the reader to see a scope of what are basically polar antonyms on the graduated table of emotions. For illustration, he juxtaposes elating revelry and sober world, the joyousness of small town life and the wood and wilderness, life and decease, young person and old age and, eventually, the spectrum of subjective feelings with nonsubjective world.

In Ode to a Greek Urn ( one of his most easy recogniz

able plants ) , Keats uses the urn as a representation of the civilization and life of ancient Greece. Keats’ impressions sing the adult female in the image on the urn demonstrate the consolidative subjects in many of his plants: transcendency, consciousness of beauty, spiritualty and infinity. He reminds the reader that the adult female will ever be just and that she will ever raise feelings of love and esteem in all who see her ( 19-20 ) . However, the dry turn in her flawlessness arises from her unavailability. The curious turn in his poesy sing the beauty around him is besides approximately unavailability. If what he experiences at any given minute can be so perfect, beautiful and filled with life, it must be religious. Even when he examines the procedure of transmutation as it occurs as a human ages in Ode to a Nightingale, he glories in the experience of it. This provides a clear nexus with The Eve of St. Agnes, showing the patterned advance of elements that have transformed spiritual rites and have marked people’s ain transmutation.

In Ode to a Nightingale, Keats combines a animal spiritualty with an attractive force to decease.

Now more than of all time seems it rich to decease,

To discontinue upon the midnight with no hurting,

While thou art pouring 4th thy psyche abroad

In such ecstasy! ( 55-8 ) .

Despite his doped sense of desperation, the talker is able to admit the & # 8220 ; light-winged Dryad & # 8221 ; ( 7 ) . The wood nymph is a tree nymph, the female psyche or human embodiment of the oak tree. While mere persons may decease, a wood nymph will non decease until her tree does. As Keats expounds upon the joy and gustatory sensation of Earth, he acknowledges the beauty of that which he seemingly seeks to get away. It will non make for the talker of this verse form to conceive of that joy is merely available to him in Christian Communion with its individual God, or through a socially prescribed life of goodness while on Earth.

The Eve of St. Agnes, every bit good as a figure of Keats & # 8217 ; other verse forms, underscores the deepness of Keats & # 8217 ; catholicity and the attending that he focuses on associations between pagan religion and Christianity. Though many of the elements of Christianity appear to be profoundly rooted in scriptural premises, it is Keats & # 8217 ; contention, as is demonstrated in his plants, that Christianity has a conflicting history and a base in the rites and elements of pagan religion, its precursor. Keats is able to show the leftovers of heathen rites and the overpowering presence of antiquity in the nature and development of Christian positions, and he relates these through his poetic imagination.

Keats is able to show the elements of the human spirit that are the same whether within the design of heathen experiences or in the range of Christianity. He recognizes that lovers are lovers and nature is beautiful, whether they are considered in heathen footings and related to the history of ancient civilisations or whether they are embraced as factors in finding people & # 8217 ; s dedication to God and a socially-sanctioned Christian life. It must be noted that Keats himself appeared to prefer the sensualness of pagan religion over the limitations of Christianity.

Plants Cited

Farnell, Gary. & # 8220 ; & # 8216 ; Unfit for Ladies & # 8217 ; : Keat & # 8217 ; s The Eve of St. Agnes. & # 8221 ; Surveies in Romanticism, 34, 1995: 401-12.

Keats, John. The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode to a Greek Urn and Ode to a Nightingale. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Ed. 6, Vol. 2. M. H. Abrams, editor. New York: Norton, 1993.

Stillinger, Jack. & # 8220 ; The Hoodwinking of Madeline: Incredulity in The Eve of St. Agnes. New York: Modern Language Association, 1954.