Keats’s poetry presents the contrast between
love that is the result of overflowing emotions and soberer love – that which
requires patience and careful consideration.
Keats’s opinion of which style of love is more fulfilling is confused in
this regard, for his narrators extol the benefits of both spontaneous, joyous
love and love which is born out of labor and of a sense of duty. Keats also suggests that pure moments of love
and extended worship can both have possible pitfalls.
In
“Bright Star,” the narrator describes the star as “nature’s patient, sleepless
Eremite” (4). The narrator admires its
consistency, reflecting on this desire in the line, “would I were steadfast as
thou art” (1). Moreover, the events that
the star observes are the unchanging patterns of nature. For example, the rise and fall of the ocean
waves are described as a “priestlike task” (5), suggesting that an act of
constant toil is required by nature. The
narrator demonstrates how he would hope to exploit the star’s qualities of
stoicism, for he declares his wish to be “Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening
breast” (10) forever. The act that the
narrator desires to perform is one of worship – pleasure that is extended over
a period of time rather than existing in a fleeting moment. If he achieves his wish, he will be no
different than a priest constantly worshipping a higher deity, or the tide of
the Earth rising and falling. The act of
nestling in his lover’s breast requires patience and hard, consistent work that
will provide Keats’s life with structure while at the same time draining it of
all spontaneous revelations. “Bright
Star” paints the possible extension of the narrator’s moment as blissful, and
presents his commitment to this goal as positive.
“The
Eve of St. Agnes” presents a more negative vision of worship. The poem begins with the image of a Beadsman
praying. Keats describes the beadsman as a “patient, holy man” (10). However, the narrator’s opinion of the man
shifts as he walks through the hallowed halls of the cathedral. Keats writes “Emprison’d in black,
purgatorial rails: / Knights, ladies,
praying In dumb orat’ries, He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails / To think
how they may ache in icy hoods and mails” (16-19). The beadsman has failed to acknowledge the
human emotion that lies at the core of his act of worship, and is therefore
condemned by the writer.
Keats
demonstrates how these two perspectives can achieve the same end goal. In Ode to Psyche, the narrator represents
himself as being priest-like, telling the goddess Psyche, “I will be thy
priest, and build a fane / In some untrodden region of my mind” (50-51). This line suggests that the narrator will
dedicate himself to her, constructing a shrine.
The intention of this temple to Psyche is to “let the warm Love in!”
(67). Keats’s view of religion in “Ode
to Psyche” differs entirely from his beliefs in “The Eve of St. Agnes.” Whereas Keats in “St. Agnes” saw continuous
religious worship as exhausting the true pleasure from the objects one is
worshipping, Keats in “Ode to Psyche” acknowledges the potential of religion to
replenish and actually encourage emotion.
Keats suggests that worship can have a use if one remembers that at its core
is the concept of “love” – one must be in a constant state of affection for
their object of worship, and cannot simply go through the motions of worship without
truly connecting with the overall intent of the worship.
Keats’s
failure to reconcile sober pleasure and the joy of spontaneous love reflects
the larger mechanisms at work in his poetry.
His wish to extend his moments of pure elation, to become “priest-like”
and dedicate his life to the cause of love, will result in the dulling of that
joy. All of Keats’s poetry plays on the
inherent contradiction – the inability to have the ability to worship in such
small moments of happiness, and to be truly happy in one’s period of worship.
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