Keats: Nature Reflects The Cycles of Life
Nature Reflects The Cycles of Life
To Keats, nature was the playground for the five senses. By leaving the urban life in London and going out into nature, Keats was able to fully live in the moment and enjoy the sensuality of nature. Nature balanced the scales of Keats’ life by providing solitude, inspiration and beauty in contrast to his urban world that was the backbone of his social life. In addition, nature mirrored the natural cycles of human life in Keats’ work. Keats’ relationship to nature was an intimate one. Nature was not only inspiration for his poetry but it was also the metaphor for the cycles of life. Being in nature enabled Keats to truly live in the present moment and use all of his senses to the fullest. Keats recognized that all of nature mirrored reality in both positive and negative ways. For example Keats sensed a balance between beauty and decay in nature and used this to illustrate the holographic nature of life. Likewise, winter always cycled into spring. In other words, Keats viewed nature as a microcosm of all of life. Its beauty can serve to restore sanity to the senses. Keats not only uses nature as a catalyst for his poetry topics, but he also discovers that nature reflects the spiritual and emotional states he experiences and then describes in his poetry. In “On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Keats moves the reader through the four seasons from the heat of summer to the frost of winter. Even though the sonnet is 14 lines it manages to trace the poetry of the earth through the four seasons by tracking some of the smaller inhabitants of the earth. Keats observes that even while the weather may seem to quiet some of nature’s creatures, there is still abundant life being lived on tiny levels. When the birds are quiet in the heat of the summer sun, the Grasshopper is jumping with delight through the lawn. Once the Grasshopper rests the Cricket arrives to take over. Keats uses words such as “faint with the hot
To Keats, nature was the playground for the five senses. By leaving the urban life in London and going out into nature, Keats was able to fully live in the moment and enjoy the sensuality of nature. Nature balanced the scales of Keats’ life by providing solitude, inspiration and beauty in contrast to his urban world that was the backbone of his social life. In addition, nature mirrored the natural cycles of human life in Keats’ work. Keats’ relationship to nature was an intimate one. Nature was not only inspiration for his poetry but it was also the metaphor for the cycles of life. Being in nature enabled Keats to truly live in the present moment and use all of his senses to the fullest. Keats recognized that all of nature mirrored reality in both positive and negative ways. For example Keats sensed a balance between beauty and decay in nature and used this to illustrate the holographic nature of life. Likewise, winter always cycled into spring. In other words, Keats viewed nature as a microcosm of all of life. Its beauty can serve to restore sanity to the senses. Keats not only uses nature as a catalyst for his poetry topics, but he also discovers that nature reflects the spiritual and emotional states he experiences and then describes in his poetry. In “On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Keats moves the reader through the four seasons from the heat of summer to the frost of winter. Even though the sonnet is 14 lines it manages to trace the poetry of the earth through the four seasons by tracking some of the smaller inhabitants of the earth. Keats observes that even while the weather may seem to quiet some of nature’s creatures, there is still abundant life being lived on tiny levels. When the birds are quiet in the heat of the summer sun, the Grasshopper is jumping with delight through the lawn. Once the Grasshopper rests the Cricket arrives to take over. Keats uses words such as “faint with the hot
Cited: "The Complete Poems - John Keats - Penguin Classics." Web. 29 Jan. 2012. .