Presentation onKeats’s SensuousnessAnika Nazneen

Id No: 1302410401606

Dept. of English, Premier University, Chittagong

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JOHN KEATS was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets along with Loard Byron and “Percy Bysshe Shelley”. Sensuousness is the another character of his poetry with the Treatment of Nature & Romance. 2

SENSUAL WRITER The poetry of Keats is characterized by Sensual Imagery most notably in the series of “Odes”.

Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analyzed in English literature. 

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KEATS SENSUOUSNESS Keats pre-eminently the poet of the senses & their delights. Most readers intends love towards suffering humanity. No one has catered to and gratified the five human senses (touch, taste, smell, sight & hearing) to the name extent an Keats. Sensuous poetry does not present ideas & philosophical thoughts.

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SENSE OF SIGHT: Keats is a painter of words. In a few words he presents a concrete and solid picture of sensuous beauty.

Her hair was long, her foot was lightAnd her eyes were wild.

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SENSE OF HEARING: The music of nightingale produces pangs of pain in poet’s heart.

The voice I hear this passing night was heardIn ancient days, by emperor and clown.

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SENSE OF TOUCH: The opening lines of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” describe extreme cold:

The sedge is withered from the lakeAnd no birds sing.

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SENSE OF TASTE: In “Ode to Nightingale”, Keats describes different kinds of wine and the idea of their tastes in intoxication.

O for a beaker full of the warm SouthFull of the true the blushful Hippocrene.

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SENSE OF SMELL: In “Ode to Nightingale”, the poet can’t see the flowers in darkness. There is mingled perfume of many flowers.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulnessClose bosom friend of the maturing sun; 10

A GREAT LOVER OF BEAUTY Keats is a great lover of beauty in the concrete. His religion is the ado-ration of the beautiful. He asserts-“Beauty is truth. Truth beauty that is allYe know on earth and all Ye need to know”

He expands sensuousness from pictures of physical love to the pictures of the natural beauty.

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KEATS SENSUOUSNESS IS UNIVERSALKeats sensuousness is universal the song of Bird, rustle of an animal, changing pattern of wind, a smile of a child’s face--- nothing escaped from his watchful eyes.

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Every poem is replete with sensuous beauty. No other poet except Shakespeare could show such a mastery of language and felicity of sensuousness.

In sum, poetry comes to him as “joy wrought in sensation”. Keats is richly sensuous. His sensuousness is not only delicate and delicious, but also aesthetic and tasteful. Hence, no question eminence in the keats’ poetry of the quality of sensuousness.

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“Thanks to All of You For being with me”.

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