Keats's Poetic Creation And His Self-Treatment

This thesis aims to prove that John Keats s poetic creation is a means of self-treatment. To prove this point, the first step is to find out the evidence to prove that Keats does go through traumatic events when he is young and he does suffer from anxiety later in his life. The theories used in this part are Freud s theory of trauma and his theory of anxiety. The second step is to find out how Keats deals with his trauma and his anxiety. The theories used in this part are Freud s theory of id, ego and superego and his theory of defense mechanism, namely repression and sublimation. Finally, the results of Keats s sublimation are found out by analyzing his poems and that further proves that Keats s poetic creation is a kind of self-treatment.There are altogether five parts in this thesis, namely an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. The part of introduction includes a critical review and a brief introduction to the structure of this thesis. The first chapter is about the traumatic events Keats has experienced as a child and his reactions to these traumatic events. The first chapter tries to prove that Keats suffers from traumatic events when he is a child and his reaction to these events is anxiety. The second chapter is mainly about how Keats deals with his anxiety. In this chapter, a hypothesis is proposed that Keats copes with his anxiety by the conflict among id, ego and superego and through the defense mechanisms of repression and sublimation and directs his anxiety into his poetry. The third chapter is mainly about two aspects of Keats s poems. The first aspect is Keats s portrayal of two kinds of women, namely the motherly women and the treacherous women and the second aspect is the theme of treatment. Through the analysis of the relationship between Keats s trauma and his poetic creation, it can be concluded that Keats s poetic creation, especially his portrayal of two kinds of women and his concern for the theme of treatment in his poems are his means of self-treatment for his childhood trauma. Generally speaking, it can be concluded that literary creation can be a means of self-treatment for the author s trauma.