论济慈诗歌美学 --毕业论文.doc

【标题】论济慈诗歌美学 【作者】胡 珊 【关键词】济慈；诗歌；美学思想；诗 【指导老师】刘 敏 【专业】英语 【正文】I. Keats Pursuit for BeautyJohn Keats was an important transitional poet in the 19th century English Romantic poetry. His aesthetic thoughts were unique and tasteful. His poetry was the best annotation and corroboration for his thoughts. His poetic ideas were profound and novel，and his original poetic theories had been focus followed with interest by the critics. Keats poetry sought a realm in which he mixed the natural truth with ideal beauty. His persistent pursuit for beauty and truth were the reasons for his poems to win immortal fame, at the same time they embodied the magic charm displayed by the perfect combination of romantic and realistic writing methods. A famous critic named Wang Guowei in China had ever said that“大诗人所造之境,必合乎自然,所写之境,亦必邻于理想。”1 Keats poetry combined the truth of nature and the beauty of ideality. Keats touched the inner spirit of the Greek myth in life, but also found the mystery of eternal beauty in the Greek myth, which made his individual life obtain the distillation of beauty.Keats was a poet who loved life, art and beauty. And he always showed his pursuit for beauty in his poems. He detested the bad things in the society, such as fake evil and ugly, while he yearned towards the beauty of nature, fairy tale and the beauty in peoples real life. Then he tried his best to show his readers a semifictional and semipractical world, where they can sense the happiness of being beautiful. He said“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.”2 He believed that the beautiful things could bring happiness, which would last forever, and would not disappear. Then the dominant theme of Keats poems is that the world of nature is beautiful, the realm of art and poetry is wonderful, but the human society is full of miseries. For example, in the poem Ode to a Nightingale, Keats identified himself with the ideal beauty and hoped that the song of the bird would help him to escape from the world of sufferings, where“to think is to be full of sorrow”, into the world of eternal happiness. In Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats praised the everlasting effect of art and put forward his aesthetic idea when he said in the last two lines,“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye known on earth, and all ye need to know.”3Keats pursuit for beauty was mainly embodied in his poems, and also embodied in his attitude towards poetry. He treated poem as important as his life. So he chose to be a poet instead of being a doctor. Keats had proposed to the beauty as the main theme of poetry, allowing readers to enjoy beauty in the physical and psychological senses, to purify the soul and to be more courageous to face the pain and sorrow of the life.His views on beauty are mainly expressed in the pursuit of beauty of nature and the art of poetry. He engaged in the struggle against the ugliness, criticized the Church, and opposed the war of aggression, attacking reactionary authorities. There are two kinds of realms of beauty. The first one is in the imagination of art and nature to create a pure world; the second is the reflection of social life, reflecting the public weal and woe, giving poetry in a more profound content. His lyrics dare to point out problems exposed in the community, the most obvious characteristic is emotional, and full of physical passion. Another feature is the mood of the novel. Keats led us into the hypothetical state by virtue of imagination, and he paid attention to the wonderful ideas and novel conception.Keats tended to admire the emotional and material beauty and he had a deep insight into the things around.His poetry aims at exploring feelings of life, beautification of life, and is full of optimistic atmosphere, filled with the lives of his boundless love. In his point of view, the azure sky, golden sunset, beautiful flowers, lively birds, are pieces of a fascinating picture of a beautiful music. He showed us a semi-fantasy, semi-reality, full of human warmth and beauty of life in the world. The language of Keats poetry is fresh. There are no flowery rhetorical words, but moving to the beautiful mood. Particularly in his later works, he created the image of the natural sound and high rhyme. Clearly, he loves life and nature, has a positive and progressive life attitude, and continuously explores to be a great poet.II. Keats Views on Beauty and TruthThe lives of human being are comparatively short, and the happiness scare, but nobody can escape the pursuit of beauty and truth, some unmovable thing to believe in doubtlessly. Beauty is such an unchangeable absolute that is worthy of believing in. And beauty is also something concrete and palpable, something that human beings need as much as truth, but unlike truth, beauty is something that seems to be immediately recognizable. Beauty and truth are similar in so many ways that they are the same indeed.A. The Definitions of Beauty and TruthUnderstanding the nature and meaning of beauty is one of the key themes in the philosophical discipline known as aesthetics. The composer and critic Robert Schumann distinguished between two kinds of beauty, natural and poetic. The former is found in the contemplation of nature, whereas the latter lies in mans conscious, creative intervention into nature. Schumann indicated that in music, or other art, both kinds of beauty appear, but natural beauty is merely sensual delight. Poetic beauty begins where the natural beauty leaves off. 4The philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose aesthetic theory has been influential, noted that beauty seems to possess both subjective and objective qualities. Arguing for the subjective nature of beauty, he wrote,The judgment of taste, therefore, is not a cognitive judgment, and so not logical, but is aesthetic which means that it is one whose determining ground cannot be other than subjective.5 Kant also noted, however, that when someone calls an object beautiful,he judges not merely for himself, but for all men, and then speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things. 6What is beauty? Keats pointed it clearly that beauty is truth. Then what is truth? He believed that truth is beauty. He held the same point of view with the German poet Goethe, who considered beauty as the only way to the truth. In the social reality the real things are beautiful and the beautiful thing also must be true. The beauty sought by Keats is the essence of the spiritual facts. Keats believes that in order to obtain this the real beauty, the poet must take advantage of all his knowledge, looking at the world in a wise way. The rich knowledge and intuitive thinking of the actual contact with human beings are the keys to the success in writing a poem with human suffers and sorrows.Keats was a composer of poetry of wonderful beauty. He seemed to have studied words more carefully than did his contemporaries, and so his poetic expression, or the harmony of words and thought was generally more perfect than theirs. More than any other he emphasized beauty, because to him, as shown by his Ode on a Grecian Urn, beauty and truth were one and inseparable. To him,“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.” He was an apostle of beauty.B. The Relationship between Beauty and Truth“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” This is the perspective of Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher. He considered that beauty is the ideal realm in the world of the highest level, and the real poet can see the truth, which is beauty. In Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats gave this wisdom with a new meaning: art and the real world are inseparable, and the true thing is beautiful. Then the so-calledtruth refers to the eternal beauty from experience of the art in the real world. In fact, in Keats opinion, human beings cannot get the real beauty without truth. Ode on a Grecian Urn can express the best minds of faith. In February 1818, in a letter to John Taylor, Keats said:Poetry should let readers feel it just expressed their own hearts, not the lofty sentiments, which is creating a sense of familiarity. Poetry if not the formation of the tree sprouted new leaves as natural, if not better written.7The meaning of thetruth is not only referred to theobjective reality of authenticity, but theart of authenticity. Although the poem does not focus ontruthfulness, the whole poem reveals truth by pursuing and realizing the beauty of the ancient urn. Though the mouth of the ancient urn Keats called on a relationship, which is more real, more harmonious than the reality. He affirmed that harmonious, idealistic and imaginative truth could be found in the ancient Greek art and poetry art. That is truth beauty. The fiction and the imagination of the art is one of the major aspects to achieve artistic authenticity. From this point of view, Keats truth does not refer to the objective truth of an object, nor subjective feelings, but the true feelings from the impact of the objective reality and poets inner emotion. Keats also believes that truth makes beauty truthful, and beauty makes truth beautiful.III. Keats Aesthetic Views on PoetryA. The Definitions of PoetryThere are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry asthe spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; Emily Dickinson said,If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry; and Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way:Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing. One of the most definable characteristics of the poetic form is economy of language. Poets are miserly and unrelentingly critical in the way they dole out words to a page. Carefully selecting words for conciseness and clarity is standard, even for writers of prose, but poets go well beyond this, considering a words emotive qualities, its musical value, its spacing, and yes, even its special relationship to the page. The poet, through innovation in both word choice and form, seemingly rends significance from thin air.The definition of poetry is an important issue in Keats exploration of poetry. Keats believed: First of all, poetry should have wonderful exaggeration, rather than the strange, uncanny words; should make readers feel that this is the noblest idea expressing a warm memory. Secondly, the beauty of poetry is to make readers satisfied: the birth, development, and the end of the image should be as natural as the sun, shining on the reader first, and then setting solemnly, bathing him in the splendid scenery of the evening. Keats said: Poetry is the expression of the lofty ideology, which arouses resonance from peoples feeling. It should make people satisfied with the aesthetic feeing; the image of the poetry, and the formation and the revelation of emotion should be reasonable and natural.In Keats opinion, the content and form of poetry should be natural, natural for the beauty. Therefore, the poem creation must ferment maturely in the thought and the expression, the poetic appeal surges, cannot be hindered, and only then the poet may take up the pen to write. Keats poem principles mainly stress that poems are formed naturally, not false decorative carving. In Keats opinion, the beauty of poem and the touching strength lie in the plain nature, without losing purity. Poem itself is a goal, rather than means. The poet should live in the poem state; poets inherent responsibilities do not lie in changing the present society with practice, but in surpassing the reality with intuition, imagination and illusion to construct a more real, beautiful and eternal world. Therefore, Keats wrote,“Beauty is truth, truth beauty” in Ode on a Grecian Urn. To the poet, the beautiful world is the real world.B. Poetry and LifeKeats believed that literary art must reflect the reality of life, as well as the beauty and ugliness in life, light and darkness, happiness and bitter, so that it can be full of artistic charm. Without the reality of life, there is no artistic vitality. Keats had reflected the contradiction of life in his poetry. He believed that the poet, as an artist, could achieve the highest boundary only by understanding the pains in the society so as to reflect peoples lofty life. In Keats works, there is no lack of descriptions of real life. In Ode on a Grecian Urn the small town, deep lane, flowers and trees, and the lovers in the picture reveal the rich life appeal; Isabella is similar to Romeo and Juliet, exposing the realistic and ruthless society deeply, eulogizing the firm and unyielding ideal love; while Ode to a Nightingale demonstrates contradictory and the pain in real life incisively.Ode to a Nightingale describes the poets strong desire to escape from the painful sadness in the society after hearing the nightingales wonderful singing sound. This poem is passing through a main clue from the beginning to the end, which is the conflict between imaginative world represented by the nightingale and the poets real world: the former is full of music, delicious wine, the tranquility under the shade of dim light, while the latter fills with trouble, indisposition, deeply worried restlessness. On one hand the poet hopes that he can fly to the beautiful world with the nightingale; on the other hand for all this he does not dare to forget and reminds himself unceasingly that he lives in the unfeeling world. These two contradictory worlds appear alternately in the poem, displaying that the poet is wandering between life and death. And they show the poets negative thought that he wants to take advantage of the poetry, the pure strong wine and the death to escape from the world. However, the poet does not only pour out his own sadness, but also express his feelings. And he makes a comparison between the nightingales happiness and sorrows in the real world, which foils the poets eternal beauty theme and displays the poets intense humanism tendency.Keats poems are plain and natural, quiet and tasteful, and full of quiet essential beauty. This kind of beauty of implicit poems exists in the real life, waits for the poets seeking and excavation. Keats had said: In any event, Id rather fill the life with feelings, but not fill the life with thinking. This shows that he had a positive and optimistic attitude towards life. But his love for life often passes through his poetry.In May 1818, in a letter to J.H. Reynolds, Keats wrote:I compare human life to a large Mansion of Many Apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me. The first we step into we call the infant or thoughtless Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think.- We remain there a long while, and notwithstanding the doors of the second Chamber remain wide open, showing a bright appearance, we care not to hasten to it; but are at length imperceptibly impelled by the awakening of this thinking principle within us- we no sooner get into the second Chamber, which I shall call the Chamber of Maiden-Thought, than we become intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere.8We may see Keats outlook on life from the above description: Before a man transits from the simple-hearted child to the happy success, he must experience new things, know how to think, and taste the rubs and worries of life. We can arrive at the happy end if only we dare to explore without fear. This conclusion is drawn from the poets own personal experience. When he was young he lost his parents, and a younger brother died of pulmonary tuberculosis. He met many difficulties in the journey of literature. Even worse, when he fell in love with his girlfriend they could not get married because of his sickness. The poet tasted the innumerable tribulations of life, but he was always firm and unyielding, facing the difficulties bravely with a positive attitude. He studied diligently, and entered the great poets ranks finally. Keats believed that the life tribulation would be the best textbook for a poet. Someone who wants to reach the artistic peak must taste the pains and sorrows first, which is the common experience of all successful poets. It is precisely this attitude that enables the poet to stay calm in face of life, and to soothe the sorrow of the people with his poems.C. Poetry and Imagination“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”, while imagination is the bridge between the two. Imagination is the driving force to know beauty, and obtain beauty. Keats is a poet with strong creative power and rich imagination. In Keats opinion, the reason why the writer can be a writer and why Shakespeare becomes the literature giant is that they have the exceeding imagination. They enter a hypothetical situation to present the colorful and all-encompassing life. Keats considers that only by starting from our soul and drawing on our rich imagination can we get the real beauty existed in truth. Imagination is the motive power to realize beauty, and to gain beauty.Although we are difficult to find direct imagination in any lines in Ode on a Grecian Urn, the whole poem is full of warm praise of it. The entire poem is the poetic imagination to the artistic conception of beauty. Keats has demonstrated another fine world to the reader with his remarkable imagination through the ancient Greek urn. With imagination, Keats has explained the artistic essence of eternal truth between imagination and reality, subjective and objective, stillness and movement to achieve the reunification of beauty and truth, and thus to show the poets unique aesthetic pursuit and profound artistic aesthetic concept.However, the poet has not immersed merely in the perceptual world, at the same time, he also borrows the ancient urn as the carrier, pours int