When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be
{ the poem }
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never move to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; —then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
John Keats, January 1818
published posthumously
{ literary analysis - 2002 }
"No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perception of loveliness. In the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare."
~Matthew Arnold (The Complete Poems of John Keats, inside cover)
John Keats' simple sonnet, "When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be," illustrates in one glorious sentence the thoughts of the speaker on both the possibilities of life and the disappointments of death. Though the first impression one receives from the poem is that the speaker is miserably contemplating the moment he will cease to exist, a deeper meaning becomes clear as one reads through the vivid images of each quatrain.
Poetical descriptions convey the theme beautifully. In expressing the meaning, the speaker mentions three main thoughts—one per quatrain—and how those thoughts make him feel. First is his fear of dying before he has succeeded as a poet, second, his fascination with the unsolved mystery of life and the heavens, and finally, his mourning the impossibility of a perfect, unreflecting love. The way Keats describes each circumstance leads one to feel as if these are the speaker's greatest ambitions-the things he has always wanted to accomplish. The point of view is first person, which creates a very personal tone throughout the poem. It is not simply outlining mankind's fear of death; now it becomes an intimate apprehension-the feeling of having left behind an unfinished life.
Dealing with themes of death and sorrow, the poem can have a depressing mood. However, along with the speaker's fears there is also a faint hope that just maybe the answer is findable. In the closing lines the speaker "stand[s] alone, and think[s]/Till love and fame to nothingness do sink" trying to come to some conclusion about the meaning of life. With these lines Keats brings us past the speaker's gloomy thoughts of death and on to the great question of which of life's possibilities is most important, considering that a man's time on earth is limited. The mysterious element in the poem, along with the clear imagery used by Keats, gives it an atmosphere of its own. It is easy to see the awe the speaker holds in his mind for the world in the way the poem is centered on what he is thinking. Keats' imagery and metaphors give the main idea of this sonnet an extra dimension. The reader can see the "high-piled books, in charactery," "the full ripen'd grain," "the night's starr'd face," "Huge cloudy symbols," and "the shore/Of the wide world."
To offset the mystery of the poem's theme and the richness of Keats' descriptions, the meter and form are quite straightforward. Though Keats was also influenced greatly by Spenser (Kirkpatrick 804), "When I Have Fears" is one of Keats' Shakespearean sonnets, in nearly perfect iambic pentameter and a rhyme scheme of abab/cdcd/efef/gg (Napierowski and Ruby 296). The vocabulary and complex metaphors reflect Keats' poetic genius and add to the hidden meaning of the fear of death and the hope of a fulfilled ambition.
Keats utilizes an important universal theme in this poem. All men fear the day when at last they will leave their mortal life, but paradoxically within that fear is the faith that it will not happen before they have lived a full life and accomplished some of their dreams. Keats focuses here on both the fear and the faith while adding a little of the necessary ambiguity. After all, what comes after death no one exactly knows.
WORKS CITED:
Kirkpatrick, D. L., Ed. English Literature. 2nd edition. Vol. 2. St. James Press. 1991
Napierkowski, Marie Rose and Mary K. Ruby, Eds. Poetry For Students. Vol. 2. Detroit, Michigan. Gale Research. 1998
The Complete Poems of John Keats. New York. Random House, Inc. 1990
