Reading response #3 Gale of Life

Lavinia Greenlaw is the author of the article "GALE OF LIFE", which is written about the life works of John Keats. The Popular Penguins collection of Keats poems includes favorites such as Ode to a Grecian Urn, La Belle Dame sans Merci and Ode to a Nightingale. There is an interesting introduction, and a selection of Keats’ work including a small collection of light-hearted and nonsense poems from letters written by Keats to family and friends.  Greenlaw says that this book of keats' work is seemed to be preceived as if the reader had never even heard of Keats as an author.  "What if we had never heard of Housman or Keats but came to them for the first time through these books? This seems to be the spirit in which these editions are intended. They are produced "in the form in which they originally appeared", without introduction or annotation, just endnotes by Michael Schmidt that concentrate on their publication." This article has nothing but good things to say about keats' work. The article goes on to say that these poems are mostly in ballad form, they have a poetic foot of two syllables or trochaic beat.  The book displays huge psychological shifts brought by world war one.  These stories are full of lives being belittled, overthrown and ultimately erased by the chapters of history, ultimately to serve no good purpose.  Lamia was John Keats's final book.  It was published a year before his death.  This book contained some of his most famous works, including three eponymous poem, the great odes, and his desired fragment, "Hyperion."  Greenlaw potrays the beauty of Keats's work so well with her descriptive views on all of his poems and writtings in his books.  "Keats is one of the most physical poets I can think of.  Lamia in her snake incarnation is a nauseating excess of exotic beauty: "Vermillion spotted, golden, green and blue", "Striped like a zebra", "Eyed like a peacock", all chilly, chimerical moons and fire.  But when she speaks, her voice is "bubbling honey",  and even though we've not yet seen her guise as a woman, we know Lycias doesnt stand a chance.  This change of temperature is as sudden as that in "the honey'd middle of the night".  Here, Keats seduces us with voluptuous (a word he seems to have liked) descriptions of their feast: "With jellies soother than the creamy curd,/And lucent sirops, tinct with cinnamon.""  

A poem that I found interesting was one that goes by the name of  'A Song About Myself'. It is quiet short compared to many of Keats' writtings.  The reason for this, I believe, is because he is obviously writting about himself (hence the title 'A Song About  Myself').  This poem talks about his younger years. It has a theme of saying that "There was a naughty boy", one might wonder why he refers to himself as "a naughty boy".  He goes on to say how he used to keep fish in the tubs in spite of the maids.  Also, i believe he says that he was a theif and would steal.  The last stanza of this curious poem says how he ran away from home to Scotland.  He says while being there he noticed how that everything he saw and felt and experienced was completely the same as when he was back in England.  There was a naughty boy, And a naughty boy was he, He ran away to Scotland The people for to see- There he found That the ground Was as hard, That a yard Was as long, That a song Was as merry, That a cherry Was as red, That lead Was as weighty, That fourscore Was as eighty, That a door Was as wooden As in England- So he stood in his shoes And he wonder'd, He wonder'd, He stood in his Shoes and he wonder'd. This poem is very intruiging to me because i love how much of an adventurous kid he was. I have always dreamed about running away to a new and bright place different from where ive lived my whole life.  Sometimes when i read Keats' work and writtings i just want to be where he is describing or see what he sees.  Keats has such a magnificent way of creating something out of nothing.  His flow with his words is amazing.  Keats achived so much and died so young that people read these collection of both as a culmination nd an arrested start.  Someone could know absolutely nothing about Keats, but by reading Lamia would know everything just becasue of the way it communicates his acuity and intensity.