John Keats

John Keats, a British Romantic poet of the 19th century, was one of the most outstanding representatives of the Romantic Movement. Many of Keats's poems have now become the cream of British poetry and world literature. The two-century Keats studies are quite fruitful and creative. This dissertation attempts to explore, on the basis of former studies, the reasons why Keats's poetry has been constantly receiving attention from critics. The life-force of his poetry lies in its uniqueness and foresightedness. This dissertation first surveys the former studies on Keats, and then explores Keats from four aspects: the life experiences and poetic career, the Romantic features of his poetry, the uniqueness, and the foresightedness. Keats's life was on the whole a short one and with many destructive mishaps, yet his poetic development was surprisingly one of the fastest among all poets. He is in the first sense a Romanticist, for all those Romantic features revealed in the subjects of his poetry as well as methods of creating poetry. Meanwhile, Keats is a unique poet. This dissertation discusses Keats's uniqueness from four aspects: his view on nature, his heroism, his principle of beauty and the frequent paradoxes revealed in his poetry. Also, Keats is a foresighted poet. This dissertation attempts to explore the successive relationship between Aestheticism, Eliot's theory of the "impersonality" of poetry, Imagism and Keats's creation of poetry, and interpret Keats's poetry with the approach of Eco-criticism. It demonstrates the modern characteristics of Keats's poetry as well as his far-reaching influence. Finally, this dissertation comes to the conclusion that Keats is a unique and foresighted poet of Romanticism.