John Keats Accomplishments

Throughout the history of literature, Keats is arguable the most influential writers of the romantic era. Although, at the time of his life, his poetry was unread and frankly unheard of. Those who did read his writing were appalled and stated that he wouldn’t make it as a writer. This started Keats disbelief in himself, but he continued writing because his dream was to become recognized for his work. It’s clearly seen that his writing was matured much beyond his time, therefore his recognition did not come until much later after his untimely death. At a very young age, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and he knew he was going to die soon because he started to cough up blood. Although, it would have been an amazing feat if he had survived
When knowing about his inevitable death, Keats sits down can articulate his fears of dying so young. One of his greatest fears not being able to fully express himself and show or write down everything he thinks, “When I have fears that I may cease to be, before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain." (Ln. 1-2) This poem is so powerful because many people can relate to this text. Everyone has fears that they will die before passing away. This is all in our nature of trying to accomplish our very best. Unfortunately, for Keats this fear has become reality and he is truly feeling a true pain, a mental realization that he won't be able to accomplish what he wants. He has to accept the fact that he can't achieve what he wants before he dies. This is the most painful because all hope is gone and hope is the single largest driver in all human actions, either the hope to achieve something, hope to gain pleasure, or hope to avoid pain. The Goldschmeding Foundation explored how people use hope as an incentive and their conclusions were, "Hope is aware of the tension between reality and the ideal the people envision. This makes it a motivating force for development that distinguishes itself from optimism." John
The most powerful words in the poem are the last two lines, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (Ln. 49 - 50) This means that if you only understand beauty as one thing, understand it as the truth. See the beauty as what it is in front of you without anything covering it up. It is hard to differentiate the difference between attractiveness and beauty, but Vicki Courtney gives the a perfect example in women’s eyes, “Women strongly agree that physical attractiveness is about how one looks, whereas beauty includes much more about who a person is.” Keats brings this to a Grecian urn and carefully looking over every image on it. He sees how everything caught on the urn is timeless and the feeling will never