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    When I Have Fears

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    manazar hussain
    The poem "When I Have Fears" by John Keats expresses the poet's three main fears: 1) That he will die before fulfilling his ambition of becoming a great poet, as his mind is filled with ideas, 2) That he will die before tracing the romantic symbols in nature that inspire him with his "magic hands", and 3) That he will die before enjoying looking upon his beloved, who is indifferent to him. In the final couplet, Keats realizes that all of his dreams of fame, poetry, love will come to "nothingness" if he dies, leaving him feeling lonely and sad "on the shore of the wide world", facing the gulf between life and death.

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    When I Have Fears

    Uploaded by

    manazar hussain
    342 views2 pages
    The poem "When I Have Fears" by John Keats expresses the poet's three main fears: 1) That he will die before fulfilling his ambition of becoming a great poet, as his mind is filled with ideas, 2) That he will die before tracing the romantic symbols in nature that inspire him with his "magic hands", and 3) That he will die before enjoying looking upon his beloved, who is indifferent to him. In the final couplet, Keats realizes that all of his dreams of fame, poetry, love will come to "nothingness" if he dies, leaving him feeling lonely and sad "on the shore of the wide world", facing the gulf between life and death.

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    John Keats

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    The poem "When I Have Fears" by John Keats expresses the poet's three main fears: 1) That he will die before fulfilling his ambition of becoming a great poet, as his mind is filled with ideas, 2) That he will die before tracing the romantic symbols in nature that inspire him with his "magic hands", and 3) That he will die before enjoying looking upon his beloved, who is indifferent to him. In the final couplet, Keats realizes that all of his dreams of fame, poetry, love will come to "nothingness" if he dies, leaving him feeling lonely and sad "on the shore of the wide world", facing the gulf between life and death.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    342 views2 pages

    When I Have Fears

    Uploaded by

    manazar hussain
    The poem "When I Have Fears" by John Keats expresses the poet's three main fears: 1) That he will die before fulfilling his ambition of becoming a great poet, as his mind is filled with ideas, 2) That he will die before tracing the romantic symbols in nature that inspire him with his "magic hands", and 3) That he will die before enjoying looking upon his beloved, who is indifferent to him. In the final couplet, Keats realizes that all of his dreams of fame, poetry, love will come to "nothingness" if he dies, leaving him feeling lonely and sad "on the shore of the wide world", facing the gulf between life and death.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    CITY POSTGRADUATE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN

    JHELUM
    .1 What are the Poet’s Fear?
    When I have Fears is an autobiographical poem in which the poet gushes forth
    his frustration and agony regarding his premature death. He wants to transform all
    his great ideas into concrete sheep and leave his name among the Immortals.But
    the angel of death was not ready to give him time and here he expresses his three
    fears.

    Firstly, in the opening stanza, he expresses his first deep-seated fear that he may
    die at any moment. He regrets that his untimely death will not allow him to fulfill
    his ambition of becoming a great poet. He feels that his mind is over flowing with
    poetic thoughts and fancies. His mental harvest needs time to get mature. Then he
    would reap it with help of his pen.

    When I have fears that I may cease to be 


    Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

    Then he expresses his Second fear. When he looks at the sky full of shining stars
    and huge clouds, it intensifies his fears. These shining stars and huge clouds are
    romantic symbols and are source of inspiration for him. These beautiful objects of
    nature, such as the dark face of night decorated with shining stars agitate and
    inspired him. Romantic ideas come crowding to his mind like thick clouds. The
    poet wants to trace these hints of poetic truth with magic hands of chance but he
    regrets that he may never live to show his poetic worth.

    When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, 


    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

    Then Lastly,he expresses his third fear. When he looks at fair creative of an hour,
    his heart is filled with pain and sorrow as he will not remain alive to enjoy his
    poetic faculties. He is in love with a beautiful girl who is cold and indifferent to
    him. He feels sad that his untimely death will deprive him of pleasure of looking
    on her charming face.

    And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! 


    That I shall never look upon thee more,
    In the final couplet of the poem, keats tells the reader that upon considering
    these fears, he realizes that in the end the fact is simply that he is going to die,
    and all of these other things- fame, poetry, greatness and love, "to nothingness
    do sink"- in other words, they become worthless to him if he is going to die
    anyway. Also in the final couplet Keats says  “then on the shore of the
    wide world,” which suggests that Keats is on the edge between life and death,
    because at the time he knew he would soon die.

    Q.2 why does Keats feel so lonely and sad on the shore of the wide world?

    Ans: John Keats is one of the greatest poets of English language. He had inherited
    T.B and died before reaching the age of twenty six. During the last years of life, he
    feels so lonely and sad due to certain Firstly, he knew he did not have much
    wealth to attract women or friends to enjoy their company happily. It is well said

    “Living alone is easy but dying alone is not easy”

    Secondly, he was a great poet and could only write beautiful verses. But the
    worldly people do not have great vision to understand him. They do not desire to
    have high ideas or description of an ideal world in poetry. They were loosening the
    arrows of criticism and created many troubles for him. They rather want to have
    show, glamour and glitter of life in the form of place – like houses dances, drinking
    and other forms of merry-making. Keats could not have any of these in his life to
    share them with others.

    Thirdly, Keats feels alone because the girl whom he loves from the care of his
    heart and leaves him in the quagmire of despair. Her callous behavior makes him
    feel isolation.

    Fourthly, he has already lost his younger brother; tom, whom he misses a lot and
    feels isolation.

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