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7 - Late lyrics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Susan J. Wolfson
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
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Summary

When T. S. Eliot cited Ode to a Nightingale for the “impersonal” art that he esteemed over the Wordsworthian effect of “personality,” he was repeating Keats's own favoring of a “poetical Character” that, unlike “the wordsworthian or egotistical sublime,” presented “no self [. . .] no Identity” (KL 1.386-87). This value would become the New Critical standard of “objective” poetic form, for which Keats's Great Odes provided textbook models. It is thus remarkable to see this hallmark Keatsian effect so starkly subverted by poems he wrote after these odes, from late 1819 to early 1820: “The day is gone,” “I cry your mercy,” “What can I do?,” “Physician Nature, ” a revision of “Bright Star,” and an enigmatic fragment, “This living hand” - all inspired, or haunted, by Fanny Brawne. Desperately in love, despairing of success as a poet, struggling financially and in failing health, with no aim of publication, Keats still turned to poetic form to grapple with a passion, so he told her, that he knew had turned him “selfish,” that is, self-occupied (KL 2.123; 223).

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

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  • Late lyrics
  • Edited by Susan J. Wolfson, Princeton University, New Jersey
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Keats
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521651263.007
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  • Late lyrics
  • Edited by Susan J. Wolfson, Princeton University, New Jersey
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Keats
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521651263.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Late lyrics
  • Edited by Susan J. Wolfson, Princeton University, New Jersey
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Keats
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521651263.007
Available formats
×