John Keats’s Thanatopsis

John Keats (1795-1821) was a famous Romantic poet as Byron and Shelley inEnglish literature in19th century. His life was short but romantic. For a century and ahalf, research on Keats has been an important field in English literature. Two hundredyears later, his works continue to hold its influence and have been receiving more andmore praise in contemporary times. In the modern western world, Keats enjoys a higherruputation than all other Romantic poets including Shelly, Byron, Wordsworth etc. Hispoems attract people not only because of its aesthetic beauty but also because of theprofound thinking on life and death they reflect. Comprehensive and in-depth analyseshave been made on his poems, delving in the most prominent and important themes inhis poems—love, sorrow, art, the natural world and death. Death is a timeless theme inliterature creation. Martin Heidegger (German philosopher) once said that human isbeing-to-death. Through death narratives in Keats’s poetry, the present thesis sets out tounderstand Keats’s idea and view on death, and make further analysis of theirrelationship to the culutral background and his individual experiences.The present thsis consists of a total of six chapters. The first chapter is a generalintroduction which comprises an overview of Keats’s life and works and a completedescription of the arguments, research method and significance of the thesis. The secondchapter is a thorough review of past literature. The third chapter focuses on analyzingthe shaping of Keats’s thanatopsis. By using the method of induction, I arrived at theconclusion that Keats’s special view on death was the joint effect of the thensocial-cultural background and the poet’s individual experiences. Factors from thesetwo aspects combined to exert a huge impact on the poet, creating his specialthanatopsis, giving him inspiration and promoting the artistic quality of his poems. Thefourth chapter makes a brief specific analysis of death narrative in Keats’s poetry. It ismainly based on “Ode to a Nightingale” and “To Autumn”.“Ode to a nightingale” hasbeen regarded as a lasting English poem and the art peak of Keats’s creations,“ToAutumn” was the last written ode and was considered to be perfect. Keats expressed hiscomprehension of death in these poems and readers can know clearly about the poet’sinner world and communicate with his soul by reading these poems. The fifth chapter ofthis thesis continues to analyze Keats’s thanatopsis and it shows in the three aspects asfollows: death is inevitable, it is the process of alternation between the old and the new; death is life’s high meed; being-towards-death, we should praise and cherish life. Whenwe read Keats’s poetry, we can have an insight into his inner world, we can find that thepoet discovered beauty which is lacking in reality and strength to fight against theterrible fate. At the same time, the poet understands death is not so different from thedeath of nature’s living beings and the replacement of social things. Death is a naturallaw which cannot be changed by people’s will. The sixth chapter is the conclusion ofthis thesis.John Keats’s life is short-lived but splendid. He disappeared swiftly just like ameteor which is transitory but bright. He left a valuable legacy to English literature andworld literature. Readers can understand this Romantic poet deeply and know the timethe poet lived in profoundly by studying his thanatopsis.