Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse by Anahid Nersessian

Author:Anahid Nersessian [Nersessian, Anahid]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Literary Criticism, General, European, English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, Poetry
ISBN: 9780226762708
Google: swcUEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2021-02-10T06:00:00+00:00

Besides, there is no urn. The figures only move as if they are on one. This is a vision after all, not an ekphrasis, and the absence of anything concrete to look upon—any “alertness of countenance”—is another cue that this is Keats in the attempt of a very un-Keatsian frame of mind. No body can be truly in no pain; if we’re not hurting now, we could be soon, or perhaps recently have been. And so, the poem takes as much leave as it can from things, fixing its gaze in the hazy never-been where pain could have “no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower.” The fantasy is not, as the speaker seems to suggest, of nothingness but rather of no consequences. Bobbing amid the no-risk equilibrium of idle days, pain is hypothetical, and pleasure comes with a cap; it will never bloom into the agonizing embrace of everything you have ever wanted nor will it fade and die. This is, perhaps, a good compromise.

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