Paganism/Christianity in Keats
Paganism and Christianity in Keats' The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode to a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale Many of Keats' poems reflect his spirituality, his sense of the connection between the environment and the link between pagan and Christian images that exist in daily life. The Eve of St. Agnes, for example, is a poem that defines many of these links and demonstrates the premises of Keats' focus on romanticism, spirituality and imagery based in nature. Other poems, including Ode to a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale, contain these elements Keats' lushly evocative imagery. Keats celebrates a decidedly spiritual, rather than religious, awareness of all that is around him in nature and other people. Keats' utilization of the images and language of both the Christian and pagan traditions reflects the social and cultural elements that have defined western society's transition from a pagan identity to a Christian identity. For example, the mysticism represented in The Eve of St. Agnes, as well as the spiritual references in his other poems, underscore the role that paganism and Christianity play within the lives of modern people. Farnell emphasizes that while Keat's treatment of paganism is usually positive, he te
For example, the Spenserian stanza he chose for The Eve of St. He reminds the reader that the woman will always be fair and that she will always invoke feelings of love and admiration in all who see her (19-20). For example, he juxtaposes intoxicating revelry and sober reality, the joyfulness of village life and the forest and wilderness, life and death, youth and old age and, finally, the spectrum of subjective feelings with objective reality. It will not do for the speaker of this poem to imagine that joy is only available to him in Christian communion with its single god, or through a socially prescribed life of goodness while on earth. Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring fourth thy soul abroad In such ecstasy! (55-8). Even when he examines the process of transformation as it occurs as a human ages in Ode to a Nightingale, he glories in the experience of it. Agnes perfectly suits the sensual and sentimental interactions of the two lovers (Stillinger 82). One of the great and certainly most enjoyable of Keats' talents represented in his poems is his ability to guide the reader through the framework of a specific place and time. Instead, he attempts to show complicity, to demonstrate the links that have brought together elements of pagan ritual with the observances of the Church in a way that acknowledges both as fundamental to the existing religious structure. This provides a clear link with The Eve of St. In Ode to a Nightingale, Keats combines a sensual spirituality with an attraction to death.
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