KEATS AND THE FIGURE OF THE MAN-POET

STEVEN NICHOLAS CRAIG, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation describes, analyzes, and traces the development of the man-poet figure in Keat's poetry. The man-poet is a dual-natured manifestation of the poet, a figure who must reconcile the conflicting possibilities and responsibilities of being both dying young man and aspiring poet. The successful development of the man-poet is a movement toward wholeness and integration of self. It requires, in particular, that the man-poet overcome two obsessions that threaten to abort the poet's growth: fame and love. The early poems show that the question of fame is a pervasive concern for the man-poet. The issue of fame involves the man-poet's preoccupation with the achievements of past writers coupled with an intense ambition to surpass these achievements. In order to compete, the man-poet must understand and fully accept the real labor of poetic creation. An examination of the muse figure in Keat's poems reveals that (1) the development of the muse figure from chaste domestic to La Belle Dame reflects the development of the poet toward muturity, and (2) inspiration is manifested in the subject of love in the poems, and both inspiration and love are problematical in the development of the poet. The odes show the fully integrated man-poet in the act of creation. "Ode to Psyche" is an illustration of the process of translation and re-making required in the creative act. "Ode to a Nightingale" presents an analysis of the dual-natured man-poet, with the reference to Ruth operating as an intentional accumulation of the poem's many implications. "Ode on Melancholy" is a poem about art. It indicates that, though Beauty is a major concern of the artist, the reality of death and suffering in the world is the one truth that makes art necessary. In the Hyperions Keats is both presenting a series of parables (of Saturn, Hyperion, and Apollo) which together describe the whole man-poet as well as using the Hyperion story as an analogy that shows the poet making his audience by moving from a state of individual wholeness to one of social communion. Finally, Keat's poetry depicts with particular clarity what is actually a general characterization of the developing poet, for the man-poet is a universal paradigm representative of all artists.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

British and Irish literature

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