On The Influence Of The Ancient Greek Culture On John Keats’s Poetry

John Keats is an outstanding representation of the British romantic poets in the19th century. In the flourishing period, Keats’s unique angle of view in poetry writing and creation principles make him outstanding and receive different studies from the literary circle and the critics. In his short life, Keats produced a lot of famous and popular poems which involve six odes such as Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Autumn, Ode to a Nightingale and other sonnets. As a romantic poet, he focused on the praising of the nature and the liberty of the individuality just as his contemporary romantic poets. However, his different life experiences stimulate the poet to find the different creation methods to feel his own miserable destiny. Finally, he found the outlet of experiencing life from the ancient Greek culture. In his ideal world created by his imagination, he entered into every objects that he had interest to seek the existence of the beauty in a state of dead drunk. He indulged in the ancient Greek culture to feel the immortal life and the eternal beauty. So he started to hold the positive attitude towards his hard life with his further study. He can bring the beautiful things from the bitterness.This thesis makes the thoughts origin of John Keats’s poetry as the research object and stands on the basis of explaining and analyzing John Keats’s poetic principles and interpreting those themes applied in his poems. And it attempts to reveal the profound and lasting influence of the ancient Greek culture on John Keats’s poetry by means of digging deep into the thoughts origin of John Keats’s poetry composition.This thesis can be divided into three parts: an introduction, the main body and a conclusion.The introduction part mainly aims to introduce the purpose of choosing this topic to analyze and the overseas and domestic research status of John Keats and his poetry. Those overseas and domestic researchers focus on the analysis of the artistic conception of his poems, John Keats’s religious thoughts in his poetry, his symbolism and other aspects. And scholars also make the comparing study of Keats and other romantic poets from the comparative literature. On the basis of these overseas and domestic research achievements, this thesis pays more attention on the effect of the ancient Greek culture on Keats’s poetry writing and seeks to reveal the ideological value of his poetry.The second part is the main body which consists of three chapters. The first chapter uses John Keats’s poetic creation principle as the entry point and gives the detailed interpretation of these two concepts: no identity of poet and the negative capability. He advocates that the beauty of images should be presented implicitly. In order to pursue the pure beautiful realm, the poet should give up all things of the subject and go deeper into the objects to feel and experience. The poet tries to make the object in the obscure state. At the same time, the poet also give up his identity to reflect all kinds of experiences and feelings just like a chameleon and prevent his feelings and thoughts from interrupting the delivery of those true feelings. Therefore, the poet constantly obliterates himself and integrates his identity into the object. Keats abandons the idea that the poets should be the center of the romantic poets and makes him break the bandage of the reason to represent the beauty and truth of objects more precise and fairer.The second chapter digs John Keats’s thoughts origin further and indicates the effect of the ancient Greek culture on Keats. His love for the ancient Greek culture can date back to his education in his early years and especially to the influence of his mentor Leigh Hunt. The miserable life drives the poet to seek consolation from the ancient Greek. He found the approach to deal with the painful reality from the Greek culture which is the exploration of the beauty from the bitterness. He holds the positive attitude towards the hard reality. The Dionysian spirit which is an important component of the ancient Greek culture is an essential thought of Keats’s thoughts. It exists not only as the theme in his great poems but also as a media to represent the state of his poetry writing. He argued that poet should be in a state of ecstasy so that he can show the beauty and the truth of the nature precisely.The third chapter carries out the analysis of the theme in John Keats’s poetry. The miserable life and the hard destiny of Keats promote the poet to devote to the nature and the ancient art. John Keats felt the eternal beauty and the infinite life from the mysterious nature and the antique which cannot achieve in the hard reality. John Keats devotes his life to pursue the truth and beauty which can be found in the charming nature. So the nature and the antique become the basic themes in his poems.At last, the conclusion summarizes the main points of this thesis and points out the shortcomings of it. John Keats can be regarded as a unique and outstanding romantic poet and his particular poetic presentation and his worship of the ancient Greek culture together show his unremitting pursuit of the beauty and truth and his reinterpretation of his life and destiny.