To Sleep

Question 1

overview

Answer 1

• speaker apostrophises a personified sleep describing
  = a direct address to an abstract force, common in Romantic and classical poetry
  = describes it as a soft and benign provider of ‘forgetfulness’ for the troubled human spirit

Question 2

context

Answer 2

• letter in May 1819 to George and his wife, Keats says he begun to ‘discover a bettie sonnet stanza than we have’
  = shown by form of this sonnet
• falls within Keats’s “Great Year” of poetic productivity
• Keats was plagued by illness (tuberculosis) and aware of his own mortality
  = sleep for him often symbolised more than rest. it hinted at death, oblivion, and release from suffering

Question 3

form

Answer 3

• experimental sonnet form
  = made modifications to typical Shakespearean form with rhymes that avoid making final couplet
  = convey sense of irresolution and openness
• sonnet usually written to one’s lover as a sign of appreciation
  BUT lover doesn’t give Keats the attention or sleep he craves
• “Then save me”
  = volta shows a tonal and thematic shift from gentle praise of sleep to a more desperate plea for deliverance

Question 4

main points

Answer 4

• personifies sleep as both a lover providing a peaceful/ beautiful experience and a god to be prayed to
• emotional relief that sleep provides is explored in gentle lines
• darker connection between sleep and death
  = LINk to Keats personal difficulty of sleep in spring 1819

Question 5

tone

Answer 5

• hushed and gentle= entreated w upmost courtesy and respect to perform its life giving function
• further emphasised as poem is a hymn= acts as sleep is a divinity that must be honoured
  = semantic field of divine due to its power to ‘save me’ and ‘soul’
  = ‘amen’ is trad ending to a prayer

Question 6

sleep as a person

Answer 6

• ‘careful fingers’ and ‘soft embalmer’
  = semantic field of caressing and gentle physical relationships
  = addresses and personifies sleep to give it human attributes to an object
  = present sleep as something beautiful and lusted or craved after
  = pleads for its embrace to escape from mental and physical torment of human life
  = provide rest and relief

Question 7

sleep as divine

Answer 7

• ‘cure for my soul’s deep sorrow’
  = personification of sleep as a healer suggests sleep is an active, restorative force that brings relief and healing to the ‘soul’
• ‘cure’
  = sleep offers form of salvation or temporary reprieve from life’s struggles
  = sleep is more than a physical necessity= acts as a sanctuary for the suffering soul
• ‘deep sarrow’= underscores intensity of speaker’s inner turmoil
  = suffering of profound emotional pain and anguish= sleep has served as a remedy
  = reflect heat’s own emotional state dealing with grief, ill health and uncertainty of life
• ‘fever of the world’
  = metaphor of fever evokes image of something out of control, intense and harmful= represents turmoil and chaotic emotions of life
  = overwhelmed by demands, stress and suffering of existence
• ‘embalmer’ means to preserve a corpse from decay
  = prepping body for funeral= imagery of death
  = connection of sleep and death= essential for humanity to escape emotional difficulty when conscience and darkness set in
• ‘will shine/ upon my pillow’
  = enjambment reflects fluidity of sleep’s actions
  = ‘pillow’ has connotations w comfort and relaxation= becomes place of respite for reader and speaker= personified as a healer
• ‘shine’ contrasts darkness and general mood of poem as sleep and darkness are linked yet light suggests gentle, serene release of suffering