Allusions In John Keats Poetry Essay

Allusion Project: “Natural” Keats John Keats was a Romantic poet who wrote primarily about the natural world around him (something of which he was heavily criticized for) and did so while alluding to many Greek myths and religious speculations. Keats took the criticism as fuel for his overall determination for success in the poetic world. Dying at the age of twenty-five, he was only able to write for six short years, yet these six years gained him the venerability he so rightly deserved. Throughout his three volumes of poetry, Keats primarily alluded to one central concept: nature. As a Romantic poet, his passion for this was so clearly and consistently made, providing allusions in nearly all of his work. It is because of his appreciation …show more content…
The poem strongly parallels this Greek mythology in that he is on a quest for reaching absolute bliss with the natural world. In this poem he expresses his belief of loves durability and its ability to lurk in materials otherwise overlooked. He also continues to share his appreciation for nature by describing many of the “things” as the sun, the flowers, the streams, the moon, or the trees. The objects of beauty are ultimately never ending, and because they are found in such commonplace objects, the human spirit is more easily filled with joy and happiness. In the first few lines of the poem Keats writes, “A thing of beauty is a/ joy forever/ Its loveliness increases, it will never/ Pass into nothingness,” (1-4). With this he is simply yet poetically saying that there is a strong direct relationship between a beautiful thing and joy. The beauty will never diminish and it only grows stronger with time. This also means that he believes there to be a difference between something with a distinct/independent existence and actual objects of beauty. The regular entities only linger for a short amount of time in one’s memories, whereas things of beauty cease to