Summary on Ulysses

Having bored in his home, Ulysses declares that there is no reason to stay at home with his old wife. He also thinks that it's valueless to receive rewards as a king and give punishment those unknown people who live in his kingdom.

Speaking to himself he declare that he feels bound to live here and no more want to rest and wishes to travel the sea. He also said that as a sailor he travelled the sea and wants to ideal for those who wants to wander and roam the earth. His travels have given him many opportunities to expose different type of people and ways of living. His experiences in the seas have exposed him in the "delight of battle" during fighting the Trojan War with his men. Ulysses asserts that his travels in the sea and his fight against the natural forces have formed who he is.

Ulysses declares that to stay in one place is boring and to remain motionless is to rust rather than shine. To him staying in one place is to pretend that there is nothing to do in life but simple acting of breathing. In fact he knows that life contains much novelty and he wishes to encounter this. His soul always searches for new experiences and he believes that these experiences will broaden his horizons.

Now Ulysses talks with an anonymous audience about his son Telemachus. According to Ulysses, his son will govern the island as his inheritor when the great hero resumes his travels in the terrible sea. He also speaks proudly that his son has capability to govern a reign. In a word, Telemachus will do his work of governing the island while Ulysses will do his work of traveling the seas.

In the final stanza, Ulysses addresses those mariners with whom he has worked, travelled over many years. He declares that although he and mariners are old now but they still have potential to do something noble and honorable. There is a possibility that angry bay may wash them down or their ships may land on happy island. Though they do not have the strength as they had in days of old, yet their spirit is still strong united by their heroic hearts. Their ultimate will is to straggle, to seek, to find and not to return. This proves Tennyson’s firm faith in man's unattainable will.

Critical summary on Locksley Hall by Tennyson

This poem is a wonderful creation of Tennyson which was published in 1842.

In the "Locksley Hall" the speaker shows "Locksley Hall" as young life and it also embodies moral aspect, lackness and thirst of new blood. This beautiful piece is nothing but a piece of fancy in which we get the idea about life of the author of the poem.

This dramatic monologue poem starts with sad because of the loss of his much loved cousin Amy.In fact, beyond the surface meaning, the poem contains notions of Victorian Age in which the poet lived. The speaker compares his loss of cousin with the loss of Victorian age which has lost his own artistic capability.

The speaker traces parental authority in the poem.The consequence of parental authority is uttered through pitiful misconception by making of irritable scenery which replicates the anguish. For example-The speaker displays his depression without expectation of spring. Imagery used ,with the reference of Orion and Pleiades, which shine in spring and winter are omitted by speakers depressed mood.

The images which hold the poem are the brutality of time and its rapidity and according to the poet , these elements destroy the relationship between lovers and lovers creative capability. Here, the symbol, harp which creates harmony is devastated. The loss of love makes comprehend and doubt the speaker about his fate when father of Amy forces her to marry a guy, whom her father seems perfect.

The speaker states that suicide is the only solution to escape from depressive condition. The speaker states that suicide is the only solution to escape from depressive condition. His thoughtfulness drives from individual to society. To him the harm of the effect indicates one aspect of social injustice. The speaker's consciousness over the social awareness offer him a new dream of future.

At the end of the poem, the speaker's mind remains with psychological problem through self-confidence which also indicate social progress that means spring is not so far away.

Q: Keats as an avid reader of Greek civilization – discuss it.

Shelley expressed the opinion that “Keats was a Greek”. But actually Keats was a representative of Greek civilization. The Greek spirit came to Keats through literature, Greek sculpture, mythology etc. that made Keats as an avid reader of Greek civilization.
Keats was born in such a house where the environments were not favorable to be a Greek passionate reader. He was not a Greek by education. His knowledge of Greek literature was come from the English translation only. There was also nothing of Greek culture in his tradition. But he was desperately portrayed everything that was Greek. That shows “Greekness in his mind”.
His famous sonnet “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” Keats said that Homer, the blind epic poet of ancient Greek, came to Keats through Chapman’s translation. He says that his intellectual sphere was widened by Homeric poetry. No poet has been able to capture the spirit of ancient Greek poetry as Keats did.
His famous poem “Ode on Grecian Urn”, is directly inspired by the Greek sculpture which Keats saw in British museum. By giving us the imagery of the carvings on the urn, Keats was not thinking of a single urn but of Greek sculpture in general. Keats had sympathy for the Greek mind. This ode shows the full force of Greek influence in Keats works.
Towards the creations of Greek mythology Keats was attracted by their beauty, and a natural sympathy with the imagination that created them. We find the use of Greek myth in his poem “Ode to Psyche” where he became a great worshiper of Psyche, one of the Goddess in Greek Myth. His other poems such as “Endymion” and “Hyperion” he had borrowed subjects from Greek mythology.
Above all, he was a Greek on account of his passion for beauty. The Greeks were lovers of beauty. The beauty that Keats found through his imagination which was sensuous to him. For Keats to see things in their beauty is to know the whole truth about them. As he says –
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty that is all,
Ye know no earth, and all ye need to know.”

Q: Describe Keats notion of “negative capability” and apply this theory in one/two of his poems.

Negative capability is a phrase mostly used by the English poet John Keats means the capability of negating oneself. This can be possible when the character of the poet is not confirmed, when he has no ego, not any philosophy. The character of the poet should be flexible rather than confirmed.
As John Keats made up the phrase in the letter written to his brothers George and Thomas –
"I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties,Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."
As we know that John Keats life was full of sufferings; his mother’s death, Tom’s death, his own ill-health, the faithlessness of Fanny, financial difficulties, his fierce criticism as a poet by the reviewers of his time, etc. But his poetry does not show all these sorrows. To find these effects we have to read his poems carefully and deeply.
Keats’ odes are best example of this capability. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn” Keats avoids personal statements in his narration, rather choosing to focus on imagery instead of the impact of the imagery, and allows the urn to communicate its message to create a poem without self-interest, achieving negative capability. As the poet says in the second stanza:

"Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!"

Here, the speaker comes closest to personal involvement as he empathizes with these characters, but even here the focus remains on the image and not on the image’s effect. This quality is related to the concept of beauty. The ability of discovering beauty in everything overpowers all other considerations. As the poet says-

‘Beauty is truth, truth Beauty’ – that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.'

In another “Ode to Autumn” the poet merges himself with the spirit of Autumn. He becomes in turn a reaper who is sitting in the granary floor, or as a gleaner. The poet finds pleasure in light as well as in shade. He does not care for spring when he treats of autumn. As he says-

“Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.”

Keats attached great importance to imagination, as Coleridge attached importance t fancy. The negative capability of a true poet is not the result of any intellectual process; it is the result from imagination. Keats was always suspicious of reason; he believed n imagination alone. It was with the help of his rich imagination that he could make his poems spontaneous.

Assignment On “Ode on Indolence” written by John Keats

This assignment has been published for those who are really interested about Keats’ poem. I made this assignment for the course which I finished the 5th semester named romantic literature II.The assignment has been given below.

The Ode on Indolence is one of five odes which are composed by English poet John Keats in the spring of 1819.The other are “Ode on a Grecian Urn”,”Ode on Melancholy”,”Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode to Psyche”. Here is an attempt to give an interpretation about “the ode on Indolence” In two ways which has been given below.

First Interpretation

Bad health and misfortune harassed John keats’ life from his birth in 1795.Afterwards his parents died his early life and beside his health became worst that assured him an early death. He continued to write poetry throughout his short-lived life to illustrate his inner most anguish that came as a result of unrequited love and his coming death.

In Ode on indolence, the speaker confronts three figures on marble urn which attempt to lure him away from his sprit less life which is full of indolence and the speaker identifies those three figures as love, ambition, and poesy. Later the speaker, abandoning his praise for peaceful indolence, becomes greatly interested by these three figures and before his willingness to follow the three figures, he changes his mind and then rejects these very desires. In the ode, the speaker says,

“Vanish, ye phantoms! From my idle spright,

Into the clouds, and never more return!”

In this ode, Keats utilizes the speaker’s dilemma to convey his agonizing frustration that made reach him the inevitability of death and he is no longer interested to earthly life. Keats’ vivid word choice throughout the poem follows the narrators conflicting desires towards Love, Ambition, and Poesy. These conflicting desires ultimately come to represent keats’ own aspiration to avoid everything because they make the inevitable dying process far more difficult.

Second Stanza

How is it, shadows, that I knew ye not?

How came ye muffled in so hush a masque?

“Was it a silent deep-disguised plot

To steal away, and leave without a task

My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;

Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower.

O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense

Unhaunted quite of all but- nothingness?”

In the second stanza the narrator states “the blissful cloud of summer-indolence benumb’d my eyes; my pulse grew less and less; Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower.” In this line keats’ depicts his own experience in his final years. In this “blissful cloud of indolence” he conveys that the pain and frustration that comes with life can be avoided simply by evading the aspects of life. A life of indolence doesn’t allow for a life of ache because nothing is present to cause pain. In the fourth stanza, the speaker states:

“They faded, and, the forsooth! I wanted wings:

O folly! What is Love? Where is it?

And for that poor Ambition-it springs

From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;

For poesy!-no, -she has not a joy, -

At least for me, - so sweet as drowsy noons.

And evening steep’d in honied indolence;

O, for an age so shelter’d from annoy,

That I may never know how change the moons,

Or hear the voice of busy common-sence!”

The speaker denounces his earlier desire to follow the love, Ambition, and poesy because he reasons that love is momentary and short-lived, ambition ultimately leaves a man disappointed, and poesy has nothing to offer that compares with an indolent summer day. For example , in the ode the speaker says,

For poesy! –no,-she has not a joy,-

Atleast for me,-so sweet as drowsy noons.

In the end, the speaker bids them adieu and decides to spend his days in indolence. However, if the poem is read as the final poem in the 1819 ode series,” Ode on indolence” suggests that Keats is resigned to giving up his career as a poet because poetry can’t give him the immortality that he wanted from it. Ironically, the poem provided Keats with such immortality.

Another interpretation

Ode on indolence was probably the second ode and it was composed in the spring of 1819 after “Ode on Melancholy” and a few months before “To Autumn”. However, when the odes are grouped together as a sequence, “Indolence” is often placed first in the group. This arrangement makes sense because Indolence raises the glimmering idea which explored more clearly in the other five odes.

Ode on indolence holds that the pleasant numbness of the speaker’s indolence is more preferable state than the more excitable states of love, ambition, and poetry. One of the great themes of Keats’s odes is the anguish of mortality - the pain and frustration caused by the changes and endings inevitable in human life which are contrasted throughout the poem with the permanence of art. In this Ode, the speaker’s indolence seems an attempt to forget this real world so that the “short fever-fit” of life seems no longer so agonizing. The speaker rejects love and ambition simply because they require him to experience his own life too intensely and hold the inevitable promise of ending. In terms of love, the speaker wonders what and where it is and in terms of ambition, he notes that “the pale cheek” and “fatigued eye” and observe that it springs directly from human mortality. On the other hand, poetry is not mortal and changeable. In fact, poesy is a demon. But it is a curse towards indolence and it also demand to the speaker to feel his life too acutely. Thus poetry has no joy for the speaker as sweet as indolence.

For poesy! –no,-she has not a joy,-

Atleast for me,-so sweet as drowsy noons.

Though the poem ends on a note of rejection, once the speaker’s impassioned indicate that he will have to raise his head eventually and confront Love, Ambition, and Poesy more directly.

Then faced, and to follow them I burn’d

And ached for wings, because I knew the three;

The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;

The second was Ambition, pale of cheek.

And ever watchful with fatigued eye;

The last, whom I love more, the more of blame

I knew to be my demon poesy.

In this ode, we get some idea about odes which are coming eventually. Many of the ideas and images in “ode on indolence” anticipate more developed ideas and images in the later odes. For example: the portrait of summer landscape, with it’s “stirring shades/and baffled beams” anticipates the aesthetic numbness of “ode to a nightingale” and the anguish numbness of “Ode to a Melancholy”; the birdsong of the “throstle’s lay” anticipates the nightingale and the swallows of “To Autumn”. The Grecian dress of the figures and their urn-like procession anticipates the “Ode on a Grecian urn”. So, if we consider this poem as the first of those very five odes, then it is plain to us that this poem is the anticipation of later odes.

However, Interpretation can differ from person to person but it’s true that it’s another wonderful creation of John Keats’ and it’s beyond the question. Many critics praise this poem for its structurally infirm. Such as Walter Event wrote that “it is unlikely that the ‘Ode on Indolence’ has ever been anyone’s favorite poem, but it is repetitious and declamatory and structurally infirm, and these would be reasons enough”