On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

It is a sonnet about Keats’ relationship with the drama that became his idea of tragic perfection, and how it relates to his own struggle with the issues of short life and premature death. Keats uses the occasion of the rereading this play to explore his seduction by it and its influence on himself and his ways of looking at himself and his situation in spite of his negative capability.

King Lear- old king with 3 daughters (Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril) who were told they could have land in return for telling him how much they loved him.                                                  http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/kinglear/kinglearps.html

Romance- narrative fiction, including love, betrayal and forgiveness, it is set in a exotic locations which may involve travel and adventure. Normally comprises of a happy ending.

Romanticism- is an artistic and cultural movement, in a period in European cultural history.

Keats want to turn away from Romance into the realities of tragedy. He ‘burns through’ King Lear, and by using the particular verb ‘burn’ Keats describes himself as fire- it is also considered a form of suffering – ‘to burn through’- hinting in the fact that he is reading through pain.   Keats want the outcome of reading of the poem to transform him, ‘ give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire’.

Keats sits down to read King Lear Again- it is not his first time. J

-          From the first few lines Keats alludes to the great romances of the previous ages as opposed to William Shakespeare’s great tragedies. While it could be discerned that Keats is referring to his poem Endymion: A Poetic Romance, the underlying meaning of the lines remains. Keats writes "O golden tongued Romance, with serene lute!/ Fair plumed Syren Queen of far-away!/ Leave melodizing on this wintry day,/ Shut up thine olden pages and be mute." (Lines 1 - 4)

-          Romance is made to sound attractive: ‘golden tongued’- gold is rare and expensive | ‘Queen’ – name of power.

-          Keats rejects Romance in this poem, the genre is called a ‘Fair plumped Syren’ Syren- in Greek mythology is beautiful but dangerous. In the mythical story, soldiers are lured by the beauty of syrens just as how the readers too are fascinated and entranced by romantic poetry.

-           ‘Lute’ and ‘mute’: they are like binary opposites. ‘lute’ make beautiful noise and ‘mute’ makes none- however there is also beauty in silence, which needs to be accounted for too.

-          ‘Shut up thine golden pages’- Keats admits that romantic poetry are exquisite and desirable to the mind, he sound almost angry in the demand ‘shut up’. - shows not only the strong attraction romance holds for Keats, but also Keats’ recognition of the Romance as a personified thing he can converse with and bid "Adieu!" (5).

-          ‘Shut up’, ‘be mute’ ‘Adieu’ ‘Leave’ -> repetition of imperative language throughout the poem.

-          Syren- used in the sonnet to introduce the beauty and the attraction one feels to Romantic poems

-          From the line ‘betwixt damnation and impassioned clay’ – there is a change in the tone of in the poem, the beauty of Romanticism is no longer the key focus and Keats’s fear of death etc is taking precedence. 

The second quatrain gives the reader the insight of the reasons why he must pull himself away from the pull of the Romance and focus on the tragedy.

-          Keats writes "once again, the fierce dispute/ Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay/ Must I burn through," (5 - 7). This shows that while tragedy, in this case King Lear, may not be as attractive as the "fair plumed Syren" (2) he forsakes, it is much more necessary for Keats to "burn through" (7) tragedy in order to concentrate on his own impending mortality.

-          Keats’ use of the term "Albion" (9) identifies England in the terms used in an earlier time by the ancient Kelts. As King Lear is set in Keltic Britain we can see which piece of "Shakesperian fruit" (8) Keats is bearing here.

-          ‘Begetters of our deep eternal theme!’ – Keats refers to how he will remain in England eternally.

-          "Let me not wander in a barren dream" (12) could be an allusion to Lear’s stupefied wanderings after being dethroned and humiliated, but it is probably also a use of imagery to describe his lack of desire to wander through the afterlife unaccompanied by those who live, but to accompany the living within their memories.

-           The ending couplet uses the image of the Phoenix whose death brings new life. "When I am consumed in the fire,/ Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire." (13 - 14) reinforces Keats’ need to live to live on past his inevitable youthful death in the only way he knows how, through his writing.

Rhyme: ABBA ABBA CDCD EE Form: sonnet divided traditionally into an octet and a sestet with the final 2 lines being the resolution in the focus of the poem.

The regular rhyming scheme in the octet is used when the focus of the poem is on Romantic poetry and one’s attraction toward it – the rhyming scheme is a representation of these attraction because as tragedy and the realities of life comes into attention the rhyming scheme too changes. (poem doesn’t fully flow)