Poems From John Keats Bright Star Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art
Text transcribed past Keats into a book of Shakespeare in belatedly September 1820.
"Bright star, would I were stedfast as yard art" is a dearest sonnet past John Keats.
Background [edit]
It is unclear when Keats start drafted "Bright Star"; his biographers suggest different dates. Andrew Motion suggests it was begun in October 1819.[ane] Robert Gittings states that Keats began the verse form in Apr 1818 – before he met his honey Fanny Brawne – and he later revised information technology for her.[2] Colvin believed it to have been in the terminal week of February 1819, immediately afterwards their breezy appointment.
The concluding version of the sonnet was copied into a book of The Poetical Works of William Shakespeare, reverse Shakespeare's verse form, A Lover'southward Complaint. The book had been given to Keats in 1819 by John Hamilton Reynolds. Joseph Severn maintained that the concluding draft was transcribed into the volume in late September 1820 while they were aboard the ship Maria Crowther, travelling to Rome, from where the very sick Keats would never return. The book as well contains one sonnet by his friend Reynolds and one past Severn. Keats probably gave the book to Joseph Severn in January 1821 before his expiry in February, aged 25.[3] [4] Severn believed that it was Keats's last poem and that it had been equanimous especially for him.
The verse form came to be forever associated with the "Bright Star" Fanny Brawne – with whom Keats became infatuated. Gittings says it was given equally "a annunciation of his love."[5]
It was officially published in 1838 in The Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Periodical, 17 years later on Keats'south death.
The text [edit]
Brilliant star! would I were stedfast as thou fine art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the dark,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution circular earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snowfall upon the mountains and the moors—
No—nonetheless however stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my off-white love'southward ripening breast,
To experience for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken jiff,
And and so live ever—or else swoon to death.[six]
Addressed to a star (peradventure Polaris, around which the heavens appear to cycle), the sonnet expresses the poet's wish to be as abiding as the star while he presses against his sleeping love. The apply of the star imagery is unusual in that Keats dismisses many of its more credible qualities, focusing on the star's steadfast and passively watchful nature. In the first recorded draft (copied by Charles Chocolate-brown and dated to early 1819), the poet loves unto death; by the concluding version, death is an alternative to (ephemeral) beloved.
The poem is punctuated as a single sentence and uses the rhyme form of the Shakespearean sonnet (ABABCDCDEFEFGG) with the customary volta, or turn in the railroad train of thought, occurring after the octave.
In popular culture [edit]
In Alexander Theroux's 1981 novel Darconville'southward True cat the poem is discussed by the protagonist when didactics his English language course.
The 2009 biopic on Keats's life starring Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish, focused on the final three years of his life and his relationship with Fanny Brawne. It was named Bright Star later on this poem, which is recited multiple times in the moving-picture show.
In the Covert Affairs episode "Speed of Life" (Flavour three, Episode 4) the character Simon Fischer admits to Annie Walker that the tattoo on his upper left shoulder blade of Ursa Minor was inspired by John Keats's poem. Although she asks him, Simon doesn't tell her who in his life was his bright star or the reason behind getting the tattoo. This tattoo is the symbol used past Jai Wilcox to marker Simon Fischer'southward dossier within the CIA.
In the DC Comics event series Heroes in Crunch issue #half-dozen by writer Tom King and artist Clay Mann, Gnarrk recites the verse form on a total page showing him lying over his mammoth nether a clear cute sky.
References [edit]
- ^ Move (1997) p472
- ^ Gittings (1969) p 415
- ^ Notes and Queries Article, Oxford Journals, 2006. Notes and Queries article
- ^ "See the volume at the Keats House archive". Archived from the original on 2010-12-03. Retrieved 2010-06-08 .
- ^ Gittings (1968), p293-8
- ^ Keats, John (1905). Sélincourt, Ernest De (ed.). The Poems of John Keats. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. p. 288. OCLC 11128824.
Bibliography [edit]
- Colvin, Sidney. John Keats: His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics and After-Fame (London: Macmillan, 1917)
- Lancashire, Ian. 'John Keats: Vivid Star', Representative Verse Online (Toronto: University, 2003). Retrieved July 27, 2005.
External links [edit]
- An omnibus collection of Keats' poetry at Standard Ebooks
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_star,_would_I_were_stedfast_as_thou_art
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