Star Gazing By Nicole Brown (GRADE THIS ONE)

As I lay here by your side on your old, beat up blanket in the middle of my backyard, I wonder how you shine just as bright as the stars. Then, my thoughts start to wander, and I start to think all about you. Your personality draws me in like bait on the end of a fishing line. Your heart is as wide open as a child’s eyes when he presses his nose up against a window of a candy store. Your hair reminds me of the golden rays of the sun, and makes me wish for a summer day. Your eyes glisten like the sun spread across the warm summer ocean and the way your eyes look at me, you give me such a warm feeling inside of my soul. Your loves gives me butterflies in my stomach whenever I see you and you’re the only one who can make my heart beat faster and slower at the same time. I start to daze out of my dream world and look into your eyes as bright as my Christmas tree lit up for the holidays. The stars shine off of your eyes so perfectly; I begin to get stuck into your forest green eyes. Your dazzling eyes always remind me of your love for hunting. You look back into mine, and I notice the love and affections within them. Your luscious lips lean in for a kiss, slow and gentle, and softly peck mine. I get lost in the moment and wish I could be stuck here forever. Your lips taste like the strawberries grown in my backyard, and I long for the taste again. As we lay back down onto your childhood blanket, we begin to stare back at the glowing stars. Then, suddenly a shooting star passes by; I wish to have endless nights spent with you, just like this. I search for the moon, which is just a sliver of pie tonight. I turn toward you once again and your welcoming arms open towards me. Your arms wrap around me tight, like a koala bear tightly wound around a tree. My eyes begin to shut and I fall asleep in your loving embrace. Please God, let this amazing person stay in my life forever.

Love Never Fades by Nicole Brown

Oh love, how I adore you, and your constant mysteries. One day you decided to get up and pack your things, leaving me with the reminder of you everyday. How I loved the days and nights we spent together, the laughter we shared and the secrets we swore to keep. How could you leave me, dear love? Was everything a huge lie? You held my heart with your own two hands, but now it lies dead on the ground. How can I remake something half back into a whole? I wish that glue could repair a broken heart, but that isn’t true. Maybe if I find some extra strength it would work, but I’m just a dork for believing that. Did you forget every moment we shared? I sure did not. My love will never fade. You’re a constant reminder in my brain, a everlasting memory, and an amazing adventure. Did you forget that the journey wasn’t suppose to end? Did you really way to say goodbye? Do you have someone new on the side? My questions are never ending and flow like a river in my head. Sometimes I wish I was dead. God, please help me forget, I don’t want this pain anymore. Don’t you love me god? If you do take it all away. I’m begging you! My love never fades. Your hurting me so bad, more and more everyday, but I still love you. This is so funny. But, after all of this I still want you. I want you like a child wants a toy, or a ocean wants rain. You are my everything. Your not physically here anymore but your definitely in my heart. I swear I cant live without you, but I’m doing it everyday. I’m no longer a part of your life, but your still a huge part of mine. I promise you, love never fades!

"William Blake's Art and Poetry"

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The blog "William Blake's Art and Poetry" by Taylor Rice, Kevin Kaufman, Timmy Nguyen, and Hailey Milne, analyses many of William Blake’s Art and Poetry.
I like that the blog is very simple, and easy to navigate. The background is not distracting and the light texts boxes make the text easy to read. My favorite part about this blog is all of the unique paintings and videos. I learned from this blog that William Blake paints. I find that so interesting and special that he has multiple talents. The painting “The Ancient of Days,” strikes my attention due to the dark colors. The painting is a mystery to me, and it makes me think. I like when something is deep and makes me have to think about the meaning of it. After looking at the painting for a while I conclude that this man is somewhat of a god, and is standing on the sun. The man seems to be very powerful and has control of many things. The thing that struck me was this painting, and I ended up researching what “The Ancient of Days,” meant. I found out that he is a god in the old testament. This man is commonly distinguished by his long white beard. Which usually leads people to think he is old, but his age is never mentioned in the old testament.
I believe this blog is important because it gives a lot of good information to someone who knows nothing about William Blake. It provides you details about many of Blake’s poems and helps you understand them. This blog also shows you art created by William Blake himself. I think this blog is also a good one to see if you do know a little bit about Blake. I did know about William Blake but it still gave me more information about him and I learned about “The Ancient of Days,” painting, which is really cool to me. This blog teaches readers about some of William Blake’s poems, such as; “The Tyger,” “The fly,” “The Schoolboy,” and more. I enjoyed learning about William Blake through this blog.

John Keats Attitude Towards Nature

Visit This Site for the poem "Ode to Autumn"

The poem about is called "Ode to Autumn" By John Keats. This poems helps support Keats love for nature and how he incorporates it into his poems. In “Ode to Autumn,” Keats explains autumns relationship with the sun. Keats also explains how autumn brings flowers, and fruits, and the beautiful songs that autumn produces. I believe that “Ode to Autumn,” helps support the idea that Keats attitude toward nature is a good one. In this poem is explains a lot of beautiful sights, feelings, and sounds, which makes me believe that Keats loves nature. Keats uses senses so that readers can relate to the scene and somewhat feel apart of it all.
　
John Keats was apart of the Romanticism era which means he loves and appreciates nature. Nature is a huge part of being a romantic poet and often nature will somehow be apart of their poems. Keats love for nature is very simple compared to many of his fellow romantic poets. Keats describes nature exactly how he sees it or feels it. Nature is such a beautiful thing to Keats and describes it beautifully in his poetry, mainly using senses. Nature is a huge mystery to Keats and is dedicated to figuring out what he sees and hears. Other poets look for a deeper meaning in nature and they try to explain it, while Keats is just busy trying to simply describe what he sees. Byron is interested in the vigorous aspects of nature, while Coleridge thinks nature has a moral touch, while Shelley intellectualizes nature. All romantic poets have different aspects on what nature is and how they incorporates in their poems, but the main point is that all romantic poets are interested in nature itself. Keats love for nature shows up in his poems which paints a beautiful picture with words. The beautiful nature images in his poetry makes me feel like I have the ability to be there in the scene. Keats poems also make the natural objects have a life of their own, like they are living. John Keats did love nature and strived to portray it in his poetry.

Reading Response #3

The article “Keats and Chaucer” by F. E. L. Priestley analyses John Keats infatuation with the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. This article provides evidence of Keats’s interest in Chaucer as early as May 16, 1817. At first Keats doesn’t show any similarities to Chaucer, but then looks for poetic narration; often used in Chaucer’s style of poetry. In Keats earlier poems, such as, “Endymion,” he lacked character feelings, which were often used in Chaucer’s poetry. “Endymion,” showed no significant proof of similarities to Chaucer’s poems. Keats heard Hazlitt’s lecture on Chaucer in hopes to learn more about Chaucer’s style of poetry. Soon after attending Hazlitt’s lecture Keats began to write “Isabella.” Ghittern and swelt were both common words used by Chaucer, and nobody else, which were both found in Keats poem “Isabella.” Hazlitt’s lectures provided Keats with passages by Chaucer and Keats became encouraged to further study Chaucer. After Keats learned from Hazlitt’s lecture that Chaucer’s characteristic is intensity, he soon writes to his brother stating that he wants to achieve the same thing. It is apparent that “Isabella,” was influenced by Chaucer; Priestley writes “This was the first poem in which he had tried the detailed presentation of the feelings of a character; like signs of inner feeling; he tries unsuccessfully to imitate Chaucer’s superb ability to concentrate pathos into a simple speech.” “Isabella” shows more evident signs that the style of poetry used is based off of Chaucer. Keats used Chaucer’s narrative structure and starts to give emotions to characters. After Keats wrote “Isabella,” he still has interest in learning more about Chaucer. Keats could not understand many of his fellow poets writings; including Chaucer, so he began to learn Greek and Italian in order to successfully read those poems and continue his study on Chaucer. After learning those languages, he starts to notice “The contrast of the warm comfort within the storm without,” and begins to use this contrast in his own writing. Keats begins to write very visual, dark scenes. Keats wrote many letters to family members and other poets, in these letters it shows evidence of Keats interest in Chaucer. Keats interest was sentimental and therefore used many of Chaucer’s techniques in his own poetry. Chaucer had dramatic power and characterization power which Keats admired.
 

The idea that John Keats admires Geoffrey Chaucer is the main theme in the article “Keats and Chaucer.” Keats used many of the same techniques as Chaucer used in his poetry. I believe that this article supports the idea that Keats has interest in Chaucer, and provides evidence as well. As I read the poem “Isabella,” by John Keats I noticed the similarities to the famous poem “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer. In the selection The Franklin’s Tale in The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote; “No one alive--it needs no arguing, But sometimes says or does a wrongful thing; Rage, sickness, influence of some malign, Star-constellation, temper, woe or wine, Spur us to wrongful words or make us trip. One should not seek revenge for every slip.” This portion of Chaucer’s poetry shows many emotions and feelings which Keats begins to use. As I read Keats earlier poem “Endymion,” I found rarely or no character emotion. I also found him to write very masculine and dark. Hazlitt recommends to Keats to start to use character emotion like that of Chaucer which is shown in Keats next poem “Isabella.” John Keats added emotions to his characters in his poem “Isabella,” which is commonly done by Geoffrey Chaucer. Stanza 30 of “Isabella,” John Keats writes; “She weeps alone for pleasures not to be; Sorely she wept until the night came on, And then, instead of love, O misery!” In the selection Isabella feels alone and is crying by herself because her lover Lorenzo is not with her anymore because her brothers killed him. She also says that she can not feel his love anymore and all she feels is misery. In this portion of the poem, I can see that Keats is beginning to use character emotions; which supports the article’s idea of Keats new technique. By Keats adding emotions to his characters, it helps readers understand and synthesis with the character. It also helps readers feel more attached and engaged to the poem. After all my research I agree with F. E. L. Priestley that John Keats admires Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry and begins to show similarities to his style of poetry.

Isabella and the Pot of Basil Painting by William Holman Hunt

The painting above was painted in 1868 by William Holman Hunt of Isabella holding onto the basil pot containing her lover Lorenzo’s head. Hunt began to work on the illustration of Isabella in 1848. This drawing showed a very different scene then presented in the poem. In 1866, Hunt reread the poem “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil,” and he had a new idea on how to illustrate Isabella. Hunt’s wife died soon after his return to painting Isabella, and the years after were dedicated to painting her. Finally, Hunt returned once more to the painting and finished it in January of 1868. Hunt wanted to portray Isabella unable to sleep, so she held onto her basil pot for comfort. This painting of Isabella was to reflect Keats words of “hung over her sweet Basil evermore, and moistened it with tears unto the core.” In my opinion I believe that William Holman Hunt did a wonderful job of bringing Isabella and her emotions to life.
John Keats poetry often inspired artists to create a painting of a scene they visualize. Many of Keats poems were appealing to artists and illustrators mainly in the 1840’s to the 1930’s. Paintings were especially inspired from Keats poems, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil,” “Endymion,” and “The Eve of St. Agnes.” These poems had very vivid imagery and also inspired imagination. Keats poetry allows images to from in ones head, and to feel the emotions of the poems. Sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste are often incorporated into Keats poems. Since Keats poems have such imagery, artists are drawn to the imagination of making those senses come to life. Keats also wrote about artists in his poetry which made them grow fond of him. So, Keats became commonly know in the artist world, which also increased the amount of paintings made based on his poems. A biography was published about John Keats in 1848 which increased the general interest of his poetry. Soon after Keats became one of England’s greatest poets. All of these factors increased the likely hood of one of John Keats poems to be painted.

"Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil" by John Keats

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The poem “Isabella or, The Pot of Basil” describes the forbidden love between two young adults. Lorenzo captured the heart of Isabella, but their love was frowned upon. Isabella had two older brothers who owned a business and were absorbed in their wealth. While Lorenzo was one of their workers. Since Isabella came from a rich family, she was not aloud to have encounters with the less fortunate. Although the two lovers would secretly see each other knowing it was wrong. Isabella’s older brothers found out about the meetings and grew very upset. One day, the brothers tricked Lorenzo to go outside of the city with them. Once they got Lorenzo where no one could see them, they murdered him and buried him in the ground. When the brothers returned from their outing, Isabella asked where Lorenzo had gone. The brothers responded that he had gone on a journey to explore foreign lands. Isabella began to become very depressed and was lost in a sea of questions. Eventually, after months went by Isabella laid in her room and cried for Lorenzo. Lorenzo’s ghost appeared and explained to her that her brothers had murdered him outside of the city. Isabella woke up in fear but was determined to find Lorenzo’s body, left with the image in her mind of the scene of the tragedy. Isabella found a piece of land that looked recently disturbed and within found her lover Lorenzo. With a knife in her hand she cut off his head and placed it in a pot. When Isabella returned home, she planted basil inside the pot watered by orange water, but mainly by her tears. It comforted Isabella to know that her lovers flesh was capable of growing a beautiful plant. The basil grew increasingly strong, until one day Isabella’s brothers found the pot. They took the pot away from her to discover hair coming out of the pot, after recognizing the face inside of the pot the brothers knew their murder was discovered and fled to Naples. Isabella eventually died with the basil and her lover still by her side.