Favourite works

[greymouse]

I also like the sonnet "To a Friend who sent me some Roses". It's a nice poem, but really I just like the idea that a man could give another man pretty flowers, and it would be considered masculine and normal. I think that's great.

I agree with "When I Have Fears" definitely.

[Malia]

I also like the sonnet "To a Friend who sent me some Roses". It's a nice poem, but really I just like the idea that a man could give another man pretty flowers, and it would be considered masculine and normal. I think that's great.

I agree with you there, greymouse. Back in Keats's day it wasn't uncommon to see straight men walking down the street holding hands. Of course this was a time when the sexes were pretty well separated--i.e. it wouldn't at all have been common for men and women to just be best friends (without being related or the notion of someday being married to one another). So, men tended to form very close and intimite (not in the sexual sense, but in the emotional and intellectual sense) relationships and were more demonstrative about them than perhaps they are today.

[dks]

Can you see it? Two beefy American guys sitting down to watch Monday Night Football, opening up a twelve pack and then one saying to the other, "Oh, wait, dude--I forgot to give you these--you like 'em? Pretty aren't they? Yeah, I love those hothouse daisies. They're for you, dude."



I agree. It is a shame that masculinity has been so defined by a certain, expected interplay between men.

[greymouse]

Well when you put it that way dks, I'm starting to have second thoughts. Actually, your idea sounds perfect for a tv commercial, I'm just not sure what for ...

[dks]

:lol:

Well when you put it that way dks, I'm starting to have second thoughts. Actually, your idea sounds perfect for a tv commercial, I'm just not sure what for ...

Oh, greymouse, I was really kidding. I think it great for men to display friendly affection toward one another, too. I was really just making merry fun about Monday Night Football guys who drink 12 packs and languish in front of the t.v.--wait. I married a guy like that once.

[Saturn]

I'd like to point out that the vision of ALL young men in the Regency period walking arm in arm and giving each other flowers is not quite correct, though by reading about the period from the viewpoint of the Romantic poets it does seem that this is the norm, it was in fact not so common outside of those small literary coteries.
This trend I suppose continued on to Wilde's day and probably up to World War Two but was more or less discontinued or frowned upon until today's more expressive times.

Actually I think the modern American guy culture is much more akin to Keats' day than the culture in the UK and Ireland, even in today's post-feminist climate.

The idea of going around hugging your friends every time you meet that American guys seem to do is definitely for the most part just not the done thing over here.

Only in extreme cases of distress would you touch another man in any way - or perhpas in playful fighting. Even a pat on the back can be considered excessive believe it or not.
Oh yes we are a repressed bunch teh Irsh and British [well maybe not so much the Irish ]

The American way, though as always has perpetrated the younger generation in these chilly Northern Isles. In my teenage years it was definitely frowned upon as effeminite and even gay.

Repression and the old 'stiff upper-lip' has a lot to answer for

[Brave Archer]

Isabella, Why Did I Laugh Tonight? are a couple of my favorites. The imagery in Hyperion-- there are too many I love of his to list, but these are a few ''favorites''.

[jamiano]

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

The Human Seasons

John Keats


Happy Spring to everyone.


peace to love,

jamiano

p.s.

Imagine a lion, paused,
for the first step of Spring...

[DanielEdwards]

Hi for me its "La Belle Dame Sans Mercy".
Dissertation Writing | Term Paper Help

[BrokenLyre]

For what it's worth, I like "Nightingale", "Autumn", and many others mentioned. I don't think this was mentioned yet, but I have a fondness also for "To Sleep" and "To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent." Just a remarkably great ending. Peace to all.

[ingridsey]

You are right Tina , It's really tough to choose best works among the so many good works. But, following are my favourite.
Ode to a Nightingale
Ode on Indolence
The Fall of Hyperion
The Eve of St. Agnes

[Raphael]

Mine are ( not in any order of preference):

Isabella or The Pot of Basil
O Blush not so
On Death
Bright Star
Sleep and Poetry
I stood tip toe on a little hill
Sharing Eve’s Apple
To Hope
Ode To A Nightingale
Ode To Autumn
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Endymion
Ode on Melancholy
The Eve of St. Agnes
Lamia
When I have fears that I may cease to be
The Human Seasons

[BrokenLyre]

Excellent choices Raphael. I enjoyed reading all those favorites from many people. For what it's worth, these are mine (to no surprise): No particular order.

Ode To A Nightingale
To one who has been long in city pent
When dark vapors have oppressed our plains
Keen fitful gusts
On first looking into Chapman's Homer
When I have fears that I may cease to be
To Sleep
To Autumn
On Seeing the Elgin Marbles
A thing of beauty
Bright Star
Sleep and Poetry
I stood tip toe on a little hill
To Hope
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Song of the Indian Maid
Ode on Melancholy
The Eve of St. Agnes
This Living Hand
Song of Myself

I managed to memorize the first 10 of these for various reasons (though I start losing them if I don't review them a few times a year, memory not being what it used to be )

[Raphael]

Broken Lyre, I was reading When dark vapours have oppressed our plains last night. I will add that to my fave list now. I felt he was writing about himself- especially the last two lines:

The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs,
A woodland rivulet, -- a Poet's death.

He seemed to know his time on Earth was running out...

[BrokenLyre]

Yes, Raphael, quite remarkable is that early poem. Despite it being one of his earlier works, I can easily identify with its imagery and feeling.

"The anxious month, relieving from its pains,
Takes as a long lost right the feel of May,
The eyelids with the passing coolness play,
Like rose-leaves with the drip of summer rains."

That is just so familiar to me having been raised in rainy NY State. It just strikes me as almost a remembrance of my childhood.
There is a definite feeling I get from the lines that makes me feel as though I had written it. I wonder if others in our Forum ever experience that unique feeling. As Keats said, reading a good poem "should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance." That doubly fascinates me because I have thought the same thing. Keats's own statement here is a "remembrance for me" since I have thought the same, but I also get a sense of "remembrance" reading his poems, that's why it doubly fascinates me.

I don't know how other people read poetry, but I guess I read poetry with the anticipation of attachment - whether it be mental, emotional or experiential. I find more to "attach to" in Keats than any other writer. That's probably true for others as well.