ENGLISH PROJECT

CLASS XII- B

NAME OF POEM: A THING OF BEAUTY

NAME OF POET : JOHN KEATS

 INDEX

1. ABOUT AUTHOR
2. EARLY YEARS
3. CAREER
4. PERSONAL LIFE
5. MEMORIAL TRUST
6. BACKGROUND OF THE POEM
7. POEM AND EXPLANATION
8. PICTURES
9. OTHER FAMOUS WORKS OF THE POET
10. THEMES/SUBTHEMES/MESSAGE
11. CONCLUSION
12. GLOSSARY/ LITERARY DEVICES
13. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 ABOUT AUTHOR

John Keats was a great English poet, and one of the youngest poets of the
Romantic movement. He lived only twenty-five years and four months
(1795-1821), yet his poetic achievement is extraordinary. Keats belonged to
a literary movement called romanticism. Romanticism was characterized by
its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the
past and of nature. Among other things, Keats is regarded as a romantic
poet for his fondness of sensation, the rich aesthetic of his language and
his love for nature.

Keats did not harness dramatic and narrative power necessary to present
individual characters. Instead, he was gifted with lyrical power to present
characters with expressive moods. Often, these moods were pensiveness,
romantic sadness, or indolence, as well as ecstatic delight, which can be
observed in his great odes.

Keats is best known for the Six Great Odes that he composed in 1819.
These are: Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Indolence, Ode on Melancholy,
Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to Psyche and To Autumn. Apart from these
odes, his most famous work includes the ballad La Belle Dame Sans Merci,
his narrative poem Endymion and a number of sonnets.
 EARLY YEARS

John Keats was born on October 31, 1795 in Moorefield, London. When he
was just 8 years old, his father, Thomas Keats, died. His mother, Frances
Jennings Keats, later succumbed to tuberculosis when John was 14. These
tragic circumstances had a profound impact on his mind, and brought him
closer to his other siblings: his brothers, Tom and George, and his sister
Fanny. He was the eldest of four surviving children, the others being
George (1797–1841), Thomas (1799–1818), and Frances Mary "Fanny"
(1803–1889), who later married the Spanish author Valentín Llanos
Gutiérrez. Keats was baptised at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, and sent
to a local dame school as a child. In the summer of 1803, John was sent to
board at John Clarke's school in Enfield, close to his grandparents' house.
The small school had a liberal outlook and a progressive curriculum more
modern than the larger, more prestigious schools. In the family atmosphere
at Clarke's, Keats developed an interest in classics and history, which
would stay with him throughout his short life. The headmaster's son,
Charles Cowden Clarke, also became an important mentor and friend,
introducing Keats to Renaissance literature, including Tasso, Spenser, and
Chapman's translations. The young Keats was described by his friend
Edward Holmes as a volatile character, "always in extremes", given to
indolence and fighting. However, at 13, he began focusing his energy on
reading and study, winning his first academic prize in midsummer 1809.
 CAREER

Keats registered as a medical student at Guy's Hospital (now part of King's

College London) from October 1815. Within a month, he was accepted as a
dresser at the hospital assisting surgeons during operations. Keats's long
and expensive medical training with Hammond and at Guy's Hospital led
his family to assume he would pursue a lifelong career in medicine,
assuring financial security, and Keats seems at that time to have a genuine
desire to become a doctor. However, Keats's training took up increasing
amounts of his writing time and he became increasingly ambivalent about
it. He felt he was facing a stark choice. While continuing to work and train
at Guy's, Keats spent more and more time studying literature and
experimenting with verse forms, particularly the sonnet. In early December
1816, under the heady influence of his artistic friends, Keats told Abbey he
had decided to give up medicine in favour of poetry, to Abbey's fury. Keats
had spent a great deal on his medical training, and despite his state of
financial hardship and indebtedness, made large loans to friends. The
winter of 1818–19, through a difficult period for the poet, marked the
beginning of his annus mirabilis (a marvelous year) in which he wrote his
most mature work. Although his poems were not generally well received by
critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew after his death. So by the end
of the 19th century, he had become one of the most beloved of all English
poets. He continues to have a significant influence on a diverse range of
poets and writers.
 PERSONAL LIFE

In the summer of 1818 Keats went on a walking tour in the Lake District
with his friend Charles Brown, and his exposure and overexertions on that
trip brought on the first symptoms of the tuberculosis of which he was to
die. Upon formally leaving his hospital training in December 1816, Keats'
health took a major hit. He left the damp rooms of London in favor of the
village of Hampstead in April 1817 to live with his brothers, but both he and
his brother George ended up taking care of their brother Tom, who had
contracted tuberculosis. About the same time, he met Fanny Brawne, a
near neighbour in Hampstead, with whom he soon fell hopelessly and
tragically in love. The relation with Fanny had a decisive effect on Keats’s
development. She seems to have been an unexceptional young woman, of
firm and generous character, and kindly disposed toward Keats. Tom died
of Tuberculosis on December 1st, 1818. After Tom’s death (George had
already gone to America), Keats moved into Wentworth Place with Brown,
and in April 1819 Brawne and her mother became his next-door
neighbours. About October 1819 Keats became engaged to Fanny. Over
the course of the year 1820, Keats’ symptoms of tuberculosis got more and
more serious. After the summer, Keats had to agree to move to Rome with
his friend Joseph Severn. Upon getting to Rome, Keats also started having
stomach problems on top of respiratory problems, and he was denied
opium for pain relief, as it was thought he might use it as a quick way to
commit suicide. Keats died in Rome on February 23, 1821. His remains
rest in Rome’s Protestant cemetery. His tombstone bears the inscription
“Here lies One whose Name was written in Water.” Seven weeks after the
funeral, Shelley wrote the elegy Adonais, which memorialized Keats. It
contains 495 lines and 55 Spenserian stanzas.
 MEMORIAL TRUST

Founded in 1903, and based in London, the Keats-Shelley Memorial

Association is the charity that supports the Keats-Shelley House in Rome,
where the English poet John Keats died in 1821. They purchased the
House in 1906. Over the past century, They have transformed the first-floor
apartment into a museum and library dedicated to the Romantic writers,
above all those - Keats, PB and Mary Shelley, Lord Byron - with strong
attachments to Italy. They run the annual Keats-Shelley and Young
Romantics Writing Prizes to find promising poets and essayists from
around the world. And they aim to help budding scholars and writers
through the Sheila Birkenhead Bursary and the Keats-Shelley Fellowship.
 BACKGROUND OF THE POEM

In Greek mythology – a vast component of Romantic-era education – the

Aeolian shepherd Endymion, who resided in Olympia, attracted the
attention of the Titan goddess Cynthia, of the moon. So enamored was she
of the mortal that she asked Zeus( the King of the Gods) to make him
immortal so that he would never leave her as mortals did when they died.
Zeus decided to grant her wish, and put him into an eternal sleep, which
allowed Selene to visit him every night. The subject of the story of
Endymion has gone through a few variations over the years, but it was on
this that John Keats based his 1818 poem, Endymion, which featured ‘A
Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever’.
 POEM
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
 EXPLANATION

The basis of the poem by Keats, is a Greek legend involving Endymion, a

young shepherd and Cynthia, the Moon Goddess. Endymion once had a
vision of Cynthia and after that, he made a resolution to look for her, seek
her and find her. In the course of doing so, he crosses the sea, the woods,
wanders under the sea and much to his amazement finds beauty in
everything.

While reading the Thing of Beauty you will find that the poet believes that
our attachment to the earthly things is like a flower wreath. It is these traps
of attachment that refrain us from enjoying the more beautiful things
providing eternal happiness. Materialistic attachment pushes us more and
more towards acquiring wealth leading to greed, hatred and other
negativities. The beauty of positive things, A Thing of Beauty will inform you
is that it helps us to overcome these negativities. A beautiful thing not only
provides peace and serenity, but refreshes and relaxes us by driving away
aggression and restlessness. It keeps people away from worldly concerns.
The imprint the beauty leaves on our mind is indelible. Thus, its loveliness
can never fade away or die out. Beauty, according to the poet, is not
ephemeral but eternal.

Keats, as a worshipper of beauty, felt that life on earth would not be worth
living without its treat of beauty. In spite of misery and gloom, one is
inspired to live owing to the moments of beauty which he finds on [Link]
poet in A Thing of Beauty will also let you know his take on beauty where
he tells beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. The poet goes on to
mention a good number of things as created by God and present all around
us which call for our ardent admiration. Be it the sun, the moon, “trees old
and young”, “simple sheep; and such are daffodils”. While the green plants
bring liveliness and greenery into our existence, flowing brooks bring a
splash of refreshment and coolness on dreary hot days. “Rich with a
sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms” the forest is also a feast for the eyes.

As we further prod into the explanation of A Thing of Beauty, we will find the
poet describing the literary beauty of the tales of the mighty warriors who
gave their life for the sake of their country or other noble reasons. He finds
beauty in that [Link] stories of their bravery, which we have heard or read,
inspire us to be brave and courageous like those people. A summary of the
Thing of Beauty will be incomplete without mentioning that the poet thinks
that all the beautiful things are God’s gifts for us, “Pouring unto us from the
heaven’s brink”.

As the poem comes to an end, you get to know that the beautiful things
are similar to the nectar that are full of immortality and can help us find a
reason to live. These give us hope even amongst the sorrow we
experience in our lives on earth. In a nutshell, A Thing of Beauty is all about
the values of the beautiful things that surround us. We very often fail to
admire them but, as the poet emphasises, we must cherish them as “an
endless fountain of immortal drink”.
 PICTURES

The author John Keats, in his study at the Wentworth Palace.

Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon..
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in;
… and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
 OTHER FAMOUS WORKS
When I Have Fears

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my
teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love-then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

"When I Have Fears" primarily explores death, the fear of it, and what it
prevents Keats from doing. Using the phrase "cease to be" shows an
emphasis on the life Keats will miss out on rather than simply death itself.
The repetition of "before" represents the anxieties Keats has about what he
cannot achieve before death. He fears he will no longer be able to write,
witness the beauty of the world, or experience love or fame once he dies.
While the poem ends with a slight resolution, with "Love and Fame" no
longer mattering to Keats, it is a resolution found in isolation and excessive
thought. The two do not matter to Keats because death is inevitable and
will prevent him from making those achievements, so they sink away from
Keats.
References to nature also appear throughout the poem, including
harvesting grain, the night sky, clouds, and the shore. Nature is a common
theme in Romantic poetry, but in Keats' poem it demonstrates how
essential and natural writing is to his being. The shore and water that love
and fame sinks within represent an expanse of fears that sit before Keats,
giving the natural world a darker theme in those lines.

The theme of creating coincides with references to nature and beauty. The
first quatrain equates writing to harvesting grain. Thoughts are tangible
items to be grown into "high-piled books," as Keats feels he can allow his
ideas to flourish if he only had a long enough life. The second quatrain
contains more abstract concepts. Stars, cloudy symbols, shadows, reflect
the intangible beauty of the world which Keats can also not attempt to
understand because of a life cut short. The couplet shows abstract
concepts of Love and Fame becoming tangible, though they sink to
nothingness as Keats realizes he has no time to
achieve them.
 To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

A great lover of nature and romantic poet, John Keats wrote autumn. Unlike
other poets who generally discuss the characteristics and beauty of spring,
Keats describes the autumn specifications. Autumn has its music, which is
rare and attractive.
At the start of the poem, the sun and autumn conspire to bless the trees
with ripened fruits. The autumn is linked with the granary floor, and in the
second stanza, autumn is represented as a woman by John Keats. The
woman is mostly seen sitting on the granary floor, taking rest and sleeping
in the fields calmly, and found in front of a cider press while watching the
squeezing of apples.
In the third stanza, autumn is told not to wonder where the spring songs
have disappeared. Instead, autumn should enjoy her music. Clouds sparkle
with the sunlight, and tiny gnats mourn like a blowing wind over the sallow
trees. The lambs bleat from hills, cricket started to sing, and robin whistles
from the garden.
The poem ends with the swallows gather and sing for their upconbia
migration.
 THEMES/SUBTHEMES/MESSAGE

John Keats devoted his short life to the perfection of a poetry marked by
vivid imagery, great sensuous appeal, and an attempt to express a
philosophy through classical legend. Keats repeatedly combines different
senses in one image, that is, he attributes the traits of one sense to
another, a practice called synaesthesia. His synaesthetic imagery performs
two major functions in his poems: it is part of their sensual effect, and the
combining of senses normally experienced as separate suggests an
underlying unity of dissimilar happenings, the oneness of all forms of life.

The themes of Keats’s work were love, beauty, joy, nature, music, and the
mortality of human life.

The poem ‘A Thing of Beauty’ gives a message that beauty never

diminishes or fades. We can choose to see beauty in the most simple and
common things around us. It transcends time. It will never fade away.
Beauty has the power to remove darkness and negativity and helps us
survive when there is a 'dearth of noble nature' or when one is surrounded
by evil. But this beauty becomes a source of unending joy for us. Despite
the fact that our lives are full of sorrow and suffering, the beautiful things
around us give us the strength to endure the sadness of life. They dispel
the dark cloud of sorrow and give us a reason to keep living. Beside above,
how does Keats describe a thing of beauty? Full of sweet dreams, health,
and quiet breathing. Very simply put, yet poetic, Keats describes a thing of
beauty as emanating joy forever. Its beauty only increases and it will never
cease. The benefits proffered by a thing of beauty are listed as giving
sound rest with good dreams and well-being.
 CONCLUSION

The poet concludes by saying that in spite of these beautiful things, beauty
of nature remains incomparable. The beauty of nature is like an endless
fountain pouring on us from Heaven. These are the never-diminishing and
endless source of pleasure and delight and a precious gift from Heaven.

These beautiful things have a resemblance to the fountain of immortality

bestowed upon us by God as a gift and a blessing. Such beautiful things
are an inspiration for all of us to continue living. They make life worth living.
Also, they also help us in maintaining our faith in goodness. Life without
these beautiful things would certainly become very hard.
 GLOSSARY

1. Bower: A shady place under the tree

2. Morrow: The following day
3. Wreathing: surround, encircle
4. Despondence: depressed
5. Gloomy: sad
6. Boon: blessing
7. Rills: a small stream
8. Brake: a process to slow down
9. Boon: blessing
10. Rills: a small stream
11. Brake: a process to slow down
12. Grandeur: high rank or socially important
13. Mighty: enormous
14. Immortal: never dying
15. Brink: edge
 LITERARY DEVICES

1. Rhyme scheme: aabbc (forever, never, keep, sleep, breathing)

2. Alliteration: Use of consonant sound at the start of two words which
are close in series (Sleep-Sweet), use of consonant sound at the start
of two words which are close in series (‘b’ in Band Bind, ‘n’ in Noble
nature, ‘s’ in some shape).
3. Metaphor: bower quiet (calmness of the bower is compared to the
calming effect of a beautiful thing), wreathing a flowery band (the
beautiful things of our life bind us to the earth), immortal drinks
(beautiful objects of nature are forever like a never ending portion of a
drink).
4. Anaphora: Use of same word in two consecutive lines (of noble
natures)
5. Imagery: creating a sensory effect of beautiful things lined up in a
string (a flowery band to bind us), trees giving shade (sprouting shady
boon), growing process of daffodils (daffodils with the green world
they live in), clean river streams (clear rills)
6. Inversion: normal order of words is reversed (are we wreathing a
flowery band)
7. Antithesis: opposite words placed together (old and young).
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

❖ Class XIIth NCERT Flamingo book.