Sonnet bright star
In the eighteenth century, English poets generally stopped writing sonnets. For Wordsworth and the other Romantics, then, writing sonnets became one way of distancing themselves from the eighteenth century. And Keats, who had a special devotion to Shakespeare, seemed to see writing sonnets as a way to become in some ways a more Shakespearean poet--a challenge and a technical exercise, as well as a form within which he could work out his Keatsian themes.The sonnet begins with an apostrophe--a direct address to the star: "Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art." Such a direct address also implies some degree of personification of the star--that is, treating the star as if it has some human attributes. But what attributes? Keats immediately begins to tell us what it is about the star that he doesn’t envy: Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patent, sleepless eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors . . . So: he wishes that he were as steadfast as the star, but not "in lone splendor hung aloft the nig
Some topics in this essay:
Wordsworth Romantics, Couldn’t Keats, Keats Nightingale, Reading Pope, Grecian Urn, Bright Star, Pope Keats, Milton Pope, Donne’s Valediction, fair love, writing sonnets, moving waters, bright star, human shores, round earth’s human, swoon death, lone splendor, splendor hung, splendor hung aloft, hung aloft, earth’s human shores, doesn’t envy, moving waters priestlike, hung aloft night,
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Approximate Word count = 1067
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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