by Credo Buffa » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:16 am
It could just be for the simple, human fear of mortality. I have to wonder that, for all the musing that Keats does on death and the sort of romance he has with it in his writing, the fact that he is so in-tune with the living world seems to suggest a contrary view that he was actually very, very in love with life, even if living has to be a painful experience. It seems that someone like Keats would, if only on a subconscious level, prefer the sensation of pain and suffering, the psychological toil of having so little hope at survival, the emotional strain of leaving behind his friends and the woman he loved, to the nothingness of death. I think that also helps explain why Keats tried so desperately in the end to "find God" or some form of religious belief that would offer some comfort and assurance that death wouldn't just be nothing. He was a person who lived so entirely in and dreaming of physical sensations that the idea of "the end" would be enough to make him hold on to life as long as he possibly could, even if by doing so, he would be denying himself release.
If you take this view, you could then form a very romantic notion that Keats's attempts at suicide were a physically manifested symbol of "Keats the poet, who will do anything for a 'life of sensations rather than thoughts,'" versus "Keats the man, who, like so many before and after him, will do anything to make the suffering end." He attempted suicide, but never actually went through with it. Severn claims that he stood in the way, but, like you say Malia, Keats had plenty of opportunities if he'd really wanted to kill himself.
Apparently, "Keats the poet" won in the end.
"Holy Kleenex, Batman! It was right under our nose and we blew it!"