Is Keats a sensuous poet?
Keats Sensuousness
Keats is a mystic of senses. His poetry is sensuous. The type
of poetry which has a quality to appeal the senses is called sensuous poetry.
It activates the five senses of a reader. This type of poetry appeals to the
five senses: sense of taste, smell, touch, hearing and visual. Sensuous poetry
also meant, a poetry which is not devoted to an idea or a philosophical thought.
Sensuous poetry provides pleasure to the penta-senses. The reader sees a clear
picture through the word image created by the poet, hears the musical impacts, smells
the odour of flowers, and tastes the epicurean images.
Milton says poetry should be ‘simple, sensuous and passionate’.
Keats poetry fulfills all the standards. He uses simple diction, similes and
metaphors. Sensuousness has become a landmark of his poetry. His poetry is
passionate, full of feelings and emotions. William Wordsworth is also sensuous,
he writes about the symbol of nature. S.T Coleridge uses supernatural elements
in his poetry. Keats is a lover and admirer of beauty. For him ‘Beauty is truth
and truth beauty.
“A
thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
Keats is a master of imagery. Images used by him are concrete
and tangible. He never lives in the world of abstractions. He uses concrete and
tangible images and pictorials which appeal to one of our senses or the other.
Each line and verse of his poetry gives pleasure the reader. His poetry is a
picture gallery printed on a cinematic reel. These are full of many cinematic
scenes which appeal to the senses.
Sense of Hearing
In Ode on a Nightingale, we hear the songs of nightingale.
These songs allure the ears. The poet with the help of these songs escapes from
the world of realty to the world of nightingale. These songs were heard by
ancient clowns and emperors. Ode on A Grecian Urn says,
“Heard
melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.”
Sense of Sight
Ode on a Grecian Urn
has many images that appeal to the sight. When reader goes through this ode, he
visualizes many objects belonging to ancient Greek.
“O Attice shape! Fair Attitude! With brede,
Of marble
men and maidens overwrought
With forest branches and trodden weed.”
Sense of Taste
Keats implies images which appeal to
sense of taste. The images used by him are very sweet and epicurean. When an
average reader go through his poem, he feels that his tasting buds are tasting
the ‘Taste of Flora’ as if he were sipping a draught of vintage with purple
stained mouthed.
“O for a
draught of vintage! That hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved
earth.
Sense of Smell
In Ode to Autumn, reader smells the
faded colours of autumnal flowers, the cold and icy evenings and the smell of
ripen grapes, apples and gourd.
“Season of
mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.”
Sense of Touch
There is a sense of touch when the poet
says in Ode on A Grecian Urn
“What leaf-fringed legend haunts about
thy shape”
Summing up the discussion we can say
that Keats is a master of imagery. He is more sensuous than all the romantic
poets. His poetry appeals to the penat-senses of the reader.
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