JOHN KEATS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS DEATH
JOHN KEATS’İN ÖLÜME KARŞI TUTUMLARI

Author : Abdulkadir HAMARAT
Number of pages : 147-154

Abstract

John Keats (1795-1821) is one of the greatest literary figures of English Literature. He lived in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Industrial Revolution. However, unlike most of his contemporaries, he was not much interested in social and political problems of his age. Rather, he was fascinated with beauty and he resented the fact that beauty, like everything else, must die. He was introduced to the reality of death with his father’s death in an accident when he was a small child. Later, he witnessed the death of his mother and brother from tuberculosis. He spent his time with his brother while he was languishing away day by day, which was at the root of Keats’s perceptions on the nature of life and death. He himself had the same disease and knew that the same fate was awaiting him. His tragic relationship with death was inevitably reflected in his poetry and personal correspondence, which ironically made him an immortal literary figure. This paper makes the point that death is a phenomenon which has a very central place in an individual’s life and he or she has to come to terms with it before they can function as a healthy member of the society. The paper goes on to investigate John Keats’ attitudes towards death as exemplified in his poetry and personal correspondance employing the textual analysis method. They will be discussed under four headings: fear of death, the sorrow he feels at the passage of time, philosophizing on death and longing for death.

Keywords

Death, Sorrow, Attitude, Romantic Period, Literary Figure

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