John Keats:An Escapist


John Keats As an Escapist & Thinker


A tremendous number of critics belonging to past and present era regard him as an escapist. But for us it would be but pertinent to have considerate analysis of his writings in context with his particular period. Keats was born and grown up amidst exciting turmoil of French revolution. It would not be wrong if we say that after Renaissance, it was the second major influence on the general public of the whole Europe. The literary figures too could not make them alien to this revolution and the literature of that period brought a radical change. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelly etc._ all got new dimensions in writing but we find Keats an Escapist who was not stirred by the contemporary trends.

In Keats' early poetry, inclination towards escapism is prominent. This earlier phase of his poetry is marked with immature youthful imagination. But Keats was undergoing a gradual development of his genius. Firstly, he pursued Beauty everywhere; in nature, in medieval chivalry, and in Greek tales. Beauty was his dominant passion. Other poets gave coverage to the problems of man, socio-economic crisis, equality and liberty but Keats was only concerned with beauty. But the most noteworthy element in Keats' poetry is the CONTINUOUS REFINEMENT. Along with the ripeness of his art in odes, he had got the maturity of thought too.

At the mature stage of life, Keats had started thinking beauty synonymous with truth. It is the profoundest experience of Keats' soul which made him less escapist and more realist..

Beauty is truth, truth beauty 'that is all

Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.

The aim of pursuing beauty and to capture truth cannot be regarded as escapism. 

In the odes, Keats sometimes wants to fly away from earth such as when he aspires to move to the world of Nightingale to avoid the worries of life. But this is just a passing mood with Keats when he is contrasting human lot with that of nightingale. Keats, at the matured state of mind is not forgetful of the sorrows and sufferings of man. He emphatically asserts that no one can flee from this world as fancy cannot cheat the inevitable realities;

Adieu! The fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

ODE ON MELANCHOLY is another concrete instance of his close observation of the fever and fret of life. The ode reveals Keats' maturity of thought because he is able to see melancholy side by side with beauty, joy, pleasure, and delight. The deep spiritual experience discloses to him the truth of life. Keats accepts life as a whole_ the life which is harmonized by the alteration of joy and sorrow and delight and despair. Hence he becomes less escapist and more a realist.

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