On Artistic Conception And Spiritual Value In Keats's Poetry

The cream of literature, which implicates the objective truth and historic enlightenment, will not be forgotten by people of various ages. They possess the eternal value and permanent glamour. People can find out their spiritual answers from the ancients by reading the classic. Poetry makes people cherish their life more by sensing the faint of life. Keats is a poet who endeavors to capture the beautiful and touching scenes in nature and cultural classics and make them intensified to comfort and encourage the readers and the poet himself to pursue the positive and the beautiful in life. Readers can appreciate Keats's passion for life, his yearning for freedom and his longing for beauty through his splendid lines and beautiful artistic conception.This thesis will try to analyze Keats's poems, applying the appreciation method of classical Chinese poetry and with the help of related aesthetic knowledge. By interpreting the natural and Greek images in his poems and analyzing the artistic conception constructed through imagination and Negative Capability, this thesis reveals the beauty, the ideological content and spiritual value of Keats's poetry.This thesis consists of three parts: the introduction, the main body and the conclusion.The introduction mainly points out the purpose of this thesis and current situation of the research on Keats at home and abroad, based on which the personal research methods and insights are put forward. Theoretical and realistic significance is also presented in this part.The second part is the main body, which is made up of three chapters:Chapter One mainly interprets the natural and Greek images in Keats's poems. Misery life experiences make Keats closer to nature in heart and anything in nature that can stimulate the sense of beauty will become the subjects of his poems. The bright natural images and aesthetical connotations as well as the beautiful artistic conception reflect the poet's unique perception of beauty and his passion for life. The Greek Mythology has profound influence on the Greek culture and the world culture. The aesthetical and moral outlook about goodness and beauty in Greek Mythology has exerted great influence on Keats's poems. Reading these poems, we can understand the Greek Mythology further and experience Keats's humanities, his pursuit of beauty and his praise of art.Chapter Two analyzes the beautiful artistic conception of Keats's poems in the respect of the art of imagination and Negative Capability. Poetry is art of emotional imagination that can meet the thirst for ideal, by which Keats makes a transformation of the objects both in time and space with individual glamour. Negative Capability is an aesthetic principle put forward by Keats, who proposes the visual beauty under connotation. Poets should penetrate into the objective world to experience, and accept the results of objects acting on hearts. Therefore, the sense can break the constraint of reason, to watch and grasp the objects exactly, and to grasp the beauty through imagination.Chapter Three mainly discusses the spiritual value of Keats's poems based on his personal experiences and the former arguments. Keats encounters tremendous miseries in his short life but not conquered. The suffering and sorrow cultivates Keats's temperament and will, inspiring him to pursue the dream of poetry and the beautiful in life. He endeavors to break through the cage of suffering to seek the hope and happiness. Briefly speaking, miseries purify the poet's soul and encourage him to create infinite spiritual wealth.The conclusion summarizes the preceding discussion and points out the main purpose and limits of this thesis. The theoretical and realistic significance is reiterated in this part. The process of image-artistic conception analysis reveals the unique beauty of Keats's poems and their spiritual value. Suffering inspires Keats to seek for hope and joy between ideal and reality, and realize the meaning and happiness of life.