“When I have Fears” by John Keats
John Keats’ Shakespearian Sonnet, “When I have Fears”, deals with two major themes. This specific sonnet is divided into 3 quatrains and 1 couplet at the end. The two themes are love and fame. The author portrays different scenarios in the poem that create imagery that helps the reader John Keats’ sonnet uses similes and metaphors to compare the depicted stories to love and fame.
The first quatrain of the poem describes the author’s fear of not succeeding. With the use of similes, he narrates that he “[ has ] fears that [ he ] may cease to be”, before he can write many books that will immortalize him due to their intellectual context, which he compares to a “ full-ripen’d grain”.With these similes Keats accomplishes his purpose by helping the reader understand and sympathize with his fears of not succeeding. John Keats throughout the poem either talks to an anonymous person, or even to himself.
The second and third quatrain portray another fear. The author feels that he will not love or feel loved by anyone before he dies. He emphasizes that love does not exist and he will not fid it, by comparing love to an abstract object that “ is a faery power”. All the way until the last two lines the tone makes the poem have a regretful mood. From the 12th line on, the mood changes. Keats no longer talks about his fears; he actually realizes in the last couplet that love and fame do not matter in the end of life, because everyone dies.