John Keats's perspective on melancholy is essential to the history of English literature, the Romantic movement, and modern understandings of depression and mental health.
Romanticism emphasized emotion, individualism, and nature. It also grappled with the darker aspects of human experience. In the early 19th century, people did not see melancholy as sorrow or depression but as a complex emotional state that could lead to artistic inspiration. Beethoven’s symphonies and sonatas are in this tradition. Keats approached melancholy from a poetic perspective, viewing it as an indispensable counterpart to joy and beauty.
Loss and illness marred Keats's personal life, directly shaping his worldview. The early death of his parents, the suffering and eventual death of his brother Tom from tuberculosis, and his own failing health gave a tragic dimension to his life and work. His final poems were composed in Rome at the age of 25, as he, too, was succumbing to tuberculosis. Keats knew he was dying. His words are the embodiment of melancholy. We should read them because they are true.
These experiences of grief informed his understanding of melancholy, imbuing it with a sense of certainty and depth. Keats's immersion in classical literature and his admiration for Shakespeare and Milton gave him a rich tapestry of melancholic motifs and ideas.
Keats's most direct engagement with melancholy is his 'Ode on Melancholy.' This poem rejects our simplistic modern notions of melancholy as mere sadness. Keats is no Sartre. Instead, Keats presents melancholy as an integral part of the human experience, intimately connected with meaning, beauty, and pleasure. The poem's imperative tone urges the reader to embrace melancholy rather than flee from it, suggesting that genuine appreciation of beauty and joy necessitates an awareness of their transience and the inevitability of sorrow. From 19th-century Rome, Keats rejects 21st-century self-help culture; melancholy can be a source of wisdom, strength, and beauty. Reading the poem is a journey of introspection, like a session in Jungian analysis, from the shadow to the self.
In the first stanza, Keats advises against seeking oblivion through death when faced with melancholy (echoing Camus). The second stanza emphasizes the fleeting nature of beauty and pleasure, symbolized by the transient bloom of flowers and the swift flight of joy. The final stanza introduces the idea of melancholy as a goddess presiding over the dual realms of pleasure and pain. This personification underscores melancholy's complex and sacred nature, positioning it as a source of emotional and artistic insight. Somehow, the divine moves within the interplay between melancholy and joy. Life is a process, valuable and short. Keats asks if we will participate.
In "Ode to a Nightingale," Keats weaves melancholy into the idea of escape. The nightingale's song represents the ideal of transcendent beauty and timelessness, which sharply contrasts with the poet's mortal suffering. Keats's longing to merge with the bird's eternal song reflects his desire to transcend human limitations and the sorrow they entail. The realization of the impossibility of this union brings him back to the inescapable reality of human melancholy. The poem captures the tension between the yearning for transcendence and accepting sorrow.
For Keats, melancholy was not a passive state but an active engagement with the complexities of existence. His poetry juxtaposes moments of intense beauty with an awareness of their fleeting nature, creating a poignant sense of longing and loss. This duality is central to his artistic vision, wherein recognizing beauty's impermanence enhances its emotional impact. In Keats’ world, joy, sorrow, beauty, and decay are inextricably linked.
Keats's exploration of melancholy shows his understanding of the human condition, characterized by the interplay of beauty, joy, and sorrow. He gives meaning to melancholy, presenting it as a complex and essential aspect of life and art. Keats says life is the other side of melancholy, a message that makes modern readers uncomfortable. That being said, Keats deserves a hearing. We shouldn’t walk away. His depiction of this emotion, influenced by his suffering, demonstrates the significance of his poetry and its emotional resonance.
How might our lives be deepened by a greater awareness of the emotional impact of melancholy? Where is beauty awaiting behind the shadows?
If you’d like to keep reading:
Bate, Walter Jackson. John Keats. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963.
Keats, John. The Letters of John Keats. Edited by Hyder Edward Rollins, Cambridge University Press, 1958.
Motion, Andrew. Keats. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.
Plumly, Stanley. Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography. W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.
Stillinger, Jack. The Hoodwinking of Madeline and Other Essays on Keats's Poems. University of Illinois Press, 1971.
Wolfson, Susan J. The Questioning Presence: Wordsworth, Keats, and the Interrogative Mode in Romantic Poetry. Cornell University Press, 1986.
This is a very interesting article, Richard. I've just reposted it with a comment.