Keats / Happiness

[dks]

*Sigh* I wish I could convey how happy it makes me to find so many kindred spirits!

Here, here! "Kindred spririts"--yes! Cyber or not--who gives a damn? I love being in all of your company!

[BrokenLyre]

*Sigh* I wish I could convey how happy it makes me to find so many kindred spirits!

Here, here! "Kindred spririts"--yes! Cyber or not--who gives a damn? I love being in all of your company!

Boy, do I ever agree with you both. I fully and happily concur.

[Gavinci]

I was sitting alone in my Den late on a Saturday night. I laughed. It was a strange laugh. And I remembered the poem by Keats which I had not read for years. This morning I searched, and found the poem, and this site.

Reading the poem again, it made me happy. This perfect sonnet, still alive. And it took me to that place where poetry is born. A very particular impulse, wants expression, its form, and when it is found it answers more than the poet ever knew to ask. So here, Keats laughs with, and against Death.

Also, in the first lines, he celebrates the Mystery of his utterance, as its only answer. He asks, and finds a poem in answer. A rhythm of words, like a little craft of meaning, rowed across a difficult sea, with the sure calm strokes of a master oarsman. It is for me the triumph of poetry when its rhythm of meaning takes over the mind, and induces a state of perception which "sees" with the poet, a world which can only be sung.

I have often thought that poems, the true vatic voice, is never about things. It is more like a door, a gateway, a portal. And perhaps we too need some "negative capability" to permit ourselves entrance, hear the call, and go through. And Keats invites, uniquely for me. It is an extraordinary intimacy, a company of the most genuine human warmth, he shares instantly. He is right there, and how should I not be delighted at the glow which comes with him, like the measure for everything he allowed to stay on a page.

[Raphael]

I was wondering does reading Keats make you feel happy?

Some of the words are so magical then yes they make me happy. As BrokenLyre said:

Reading Keats makes me think and feel many things - joy, peace, sorrow, heavy, amazed, stunned, compassionate, vibrant, sad.

The same goes for me.

Do you have to be passionate to enjoy Keats?"

Nope! I’m about as passionate as a dead fish but I like the passion in his work!

So I think it helps to have passion (sensitive emotional registers) to understand Keats - at least to understand him existentially. I just wonder why more people don't "get Keats" even after long exposure. So I ask myself often, why does Keats strike me so deeply and not others? It's probably like why certain music strikes some people but not others. Oh well.

When I first was introduced to him at a literature class a few years ago, he bemused me, intrigued me, perplexed me with his emotional intensity. I didn’t get him but thought he was brilliant. I didn’t read him after the class but later on as a cynical middle aged person feel I get him now. I think it’s to do with my spiritual life- I’m into nature spirituality and Keats’s words on nature and the aliveness of it, death, cycles and the gods really resonate with me.

I have often thought that poems, the true vatic voice, is never about things. It is more like a door, a gateway, a portal. And perhaps we too need some "negative capability" to permit ourselves entrance, hear the call, and go through. And Keats invites, uniquely for me. It is an extraordinary intimacy, a company of the most genuine human warmth, he shares instantly. He is right there, and how should I not be delighted at the glow which comes with him, like the measure for everything he allowed to stay on a page.

Ooh I like that- the concept of a gateway, portal or door! I’ve been feeling this the past few nights reading the poems…I kind of feel I’m drifting into the images he evokes at times. I’m really sold on negative capability actually- that was one thing that baffled me years ago!
Great posts folks- keep them coming!