Keats

I finally got the chance to read Keats and loved every second of it. He is very poetic, even though his spelling and speech in general is somewhat incoherent. Keats has this idea of "authenticity of the imagination" which I must take a deeper look at before attempting to blog on it (which I must say I am really looking forward to). Keats openly admits that he is not certain of anything ata ll exceot the heart's affection and the truth of the imagination. Keats believes that beauty must be truth...another point I shall ponder on when I have more brain power.

My first lightbulb moment came when Keats said that passions are all in the sublime. This immediately struck me because Kari did a fabulous presentation of her critic and explained the sublime to us. It is an expression, a flash of light (and oh so much more)! So this is what Keats views all passion to be? Wow!

This idea of "Negative Capability" was also new to me. According to Keats, Shakespeare "possessed this so enormously"
~"When man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason--"
All I can take from this is that some beings see reason and clarity after being in such situations, while others who possess "negative capability" do not see anything- no reason, no clarity, nothing after being in these situations...I am unsure about this one...any other ideas?

When Keats began to discuss poetry in his letters was when I really sparked some interest. I was a bit apprehensive to accept Keats' statement that poetry should not come at all if it cannot come naturally and still do not know what to think of that. Maybe it takes some work to get the truth out? Perhaps some poets have to work at expressing their emotions so honestly. Is it not poetry then if it does not come naturally? And what exactly does naturally mean? Does this mean that there are no drafts? Raw material? I loved these passages from Keats regarding poetry:

~"Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity"

~The idea that poetry should leave the reader breathless is also magnificient...very well
put. Poetry at its best should leave us breathless and it should "shine over him and set
soberly although in magnificience leaving him in the luxury of twilight"

~"Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does
not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject"

Lastly, Keats began to discuss two chambers in which the individual begins to form, I believe. the first chamber being the "infant" or the "thoughtless chamber". This is the chamber in which there is no thinking- no thought process whatsoever. There is however one door visible that leads to a light-filled passage. The second chamber is the "Chamber of Maiden". Thought begins here, but this chamber gradually darkens due to this thought. In this chamber we are convinced that the world is full of "misery & heartbreak, pain, sickness and opression". When in this chamber "we are in mist"and feel a "burden of the mystery"- this mystery being the unknown world of those dark passages. All doors visible in this "chamber of Maiden" lead to dark passages. We remain in this second chamber for quite some time...a long while. And this is where my next major lightbulb came!!! Keats began to describe us as being in a "vale of tears", "the vale of soul making". Perhaps to in order to get out of the darkness of the chamber of maiden we need to look past these "vales". The curtain of tears that is keeping us in this soul making world needs to be opened in order to see past those dark passages. If we venture through the dark passages this chamber leads us to we will eventually be lead to a curtain in which we can choose to look past and see the light. Or we can choose to not open that curtain and stay in those dark passages, never knowing the mystery of that unknown path past this "soul making" chamber.