When I have fears that may cease to be

Question 1

overview

Answer 1

• speaker expresses his fears that he will die before he has had an opportunity to accomplish his work. He has so much he wants to write and possibly little time to put his thoughts on paper
• speaker sensitive to beauty, whether manifested in the stars or in a woman seen by chance
  = thought that he may die young and never be able to experience again either beauty or love makes him feel desolate, contemplating ‘nothingness’

Question 2

context

Answer 2

• poem was written between 22 and 28 January 1818
• Richard Woodhouse (lawyer who gave literary and legal advice to Keats’ publishers), often discussed Keats’ poems with the poet
  = he noted that the phrases, ‘And think that I may never live to trace / Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance’ give some insight into Keats’ mode of writing poetry
  = he has repeatedly said that he never sits down to write, unless he is full of ideas
  = if poetry doesn’t come naturally, it had better not come at all
• Keats wrote this sonnet at the age of 22
  = he had already lost both his parents by his early teens, and his brother Tom was dying of tuberculosis (the disease that would soon claim Keats himself)

Question 3

form

Answer 3

• first quatrain shows how much Keats feels he has stored in his creative imagination
  = language is of overflowing fecundity: ‘gleaned’, ‘teeming’, ‘rich garners’, ‘full-ripened grain’
• second quatrain has language which is more abstract as he contemplates the beauty of the stars: ‘symbols’, ‘romance’, ‘shadows’, ‘magic’, ‘chance’
• third quatrain focuses on feminine beauty and human love and the sorrow of loss
  = poignant effect of the stressed ‘f’s in ‘feel, fair’, ‘faery’ and ‘unreflecting’ and the repetition of ‘never’ in lines 10 and 11 (the latter gaining emphasis by being an inverted foot
• final couplet’s desolation is enhanced by all the long vowel sounds in ‘wide world … alone’ and the clipped endings of ‘think’ and ‘sink’
• sonnet shows the extent of Shakespeare’s influence on Keats. It adopts the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet (abab cdcd ef ef gg)
• iambic pentameter creates a rhythmic control that contrasts with the emotional turbulence of the content
  = this formal restraint mirrors Keats’s effort to impose order on chaotic, existential fears
• three quatrains move from creative to cosmic to emotional loss, before the final couplet offers reflection, not resolution, but acceptance

Question 4

nature

Answer 4

• “When I have fears that I may cease to be / Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain…”
  = metaphor of poet’s mind as a field full of “grain” presents his thoughts as natural, fertile, and overflowing with creative potential
  = use of agricultural imagery “ripened grain” frames poetry as an act of harvest
  = suggesting that writing is a form of gathering and preserving ideas before they perish= urgency implied by “before” highlights a fear of death interrupting the process of artistic fulfilment
  = his concern is not death itself, but what it will prevent him from completing
• ‘teeming’ conveys the limitless fertility of the creative imagination. Like the soil in which crops are planted, the human brain produces a rich harvest to be ‘gleaned’ by the poet’s pen and stored for posterity on the printed pages of books
• nature is creative catalyst= reflects romantic awe of the sublime
  = an inspiring and powerful force
• ‘behold’
  = elevated diction is a formal, almost biblical/ prophetic tone
  = must witness the awe of nature= spiritual significance

Question 5

fear of death

Answer 5

• struggles with the concept of fate and the possibility that death is outside of the speaker’s control
  = “trac[ing]” symbols from the sky “with the magic hand of chance,”
  = suggests on the one hand that, if granted the opportunity, the speaker would be able to effectively “trace” the sky into poetry
  = however, these lines could also suggest that the speaker may not “live long enough to trace / Their shadows” as a result of the “magic hand of chance,” i.e. the whims of fate
  = speaker clearly concerned with the idea of “chance” and struggles with the notion that the achievements of his or her life may depend on randomness
  = fear of death is intimately linked to a desire for control
• ‘trace their shadows’
  = element of humility as image moves from writing to drawing
  = suggest beauty of nature cant be put into words and we can only hope to chase the ‘shadows’ of it
  = shadows are metaphor of beauty the speaker fears hell never capture or experience
• ‘magic hand of chance’
  = metaphor that blends mystical w the human= he imagines an agent that guides and reveals beauty, live and destiny
  = forces guiding love and artistic inspiration are out of human control
  = respect for the mystery of existence
• ‘chance’
  = fear of death tied w fear of losing control and having to acknowledge the randomness of life and death
  = romantic idea of fate= imagination is a mystery that allows the creation of art= poet is a vessel for something greater

Question 6

love

Answer 6

• ‘fair creature of an hour’
  = believed to be woman he met in vauxhall gardens 1814
  = connection of love and time shows that narrator is realising the temporality of earthy joys
  = marks Volta of Shakespearean sonnet as speaker’s focus pivots from poetic ambition and awe of nature to the human, personal and romantic
  = shifts to something intimate and emotionally raw
• ‘feary power of unrequited love’
  = volta come just before end of quatrain= ironic as laments idea that he may run out of time before being able to truly appreciate and enjoy everything he wants to do, yet runs out of time before Volta must come

Question 7

time

Answer 7

• ‘an hour’
  = emphasis brevity of time= intensify speaker’s sense of urgency and mortality
  = fears he’ll lose even a brief moment of love or connection
  = romantic obsession w impermeance= the more fleeting something is, the more beautiful and tragic it becomes
  = praised and mourned the beauty of the world= forced to grieve it’s transience
  = keatsian irony= drawn to beauty as its doomed to fade
  = increase the intensity of emotion

Question 8

realisation

Answer 8

• ‘then on the shore/ Of the wide world I stand alone, and think’
  = like typical shakespearean sonnet, Volta comes after 3rd quatrain
  = sees resolution and conclusion of problem through rhyming couplet
  = contrast to previous quatrain where speaker concerned about love
• imagery of standing on shore is symbolic as shore is boundary between sand and sea, life and death
• ends poem on full stop
  = poet’s desperation and urgency to get everything down before he dies
  = cant afford to waste time= death is inevitable
• ‘til love and fame to nothingness’
  = static ending= image of transience and temporality that paralyses us
  = is he scared to losing love or failure to be famous?
  = reflect his own desire for immortality
  = juxtaposition of love and fame= love is passion and connection vs fame is poetic immortality and legacy of literary success
  = presents meat’s driving forces of ambition and emotional fulfilment
  = both equally vulnerable to time and death
• quiet surrender to the inevitable after wrestling through anxieties and longing throughout the poem
  = he comes to terms with his mortality
  = there’s beauty in stoic acceptance
  = NEGATIVE CAPABILITY of embracing uncertainty and loss wo trying to impose meaning or resolution
  = philosophical resignation= existential undertone of ‘nothingness’
  = stark and total= no afterlife, no poetic fame or preserved beauty, just oblivion
• existential question of purpose of life if everything we desire and create will vanish
  = he doesn’t answer it, just confronts it