The theme of death (To Autumn, When I have fears)

The theme of death (To Autumn, When I have fears)

Many of Keats' poems, not surprisingly, deal with themes of death and dying like 'To Autumn' 'Ode to a Grecian Urn' 'When I have fear that I may cease to be'. It's easy to understand why, first of all because Keats saw all his entire family die so death was a recurrent element during his short life.

In 'To Autumn' he celebrates the special qualities of beauty and melancholy of the fall season.

In the first stanza, the speaker dramatizes an overall description of autumn and what happen during that time of the year.

In the second stanza, the speakers shifts his focus from a description to a direct address of the season, speaking to autumn as if it were a person.

In the last stanza, there is an introduction of the harvest and Autumn is manifested in the role of a harvester. The end approaches within the final moments of the song and death is slow approaching alongside of the end of the year. However, Autumn is replaced by an image of life in general, and the song of autumn becomes a song about life in general.

So finally we can say that within the poem, the season of autumn represents the growth, the maturation, and finally an approaching death.

Mainly in the poem 'When I have fears that I may cease to be' we found the theme of death; in this poem there is an unimportant description of love, fame and other ideals. He fears that he will die before the realisation of the motive behind his poetry. He won't see the face of his beloved, but the poet is not just afraid of death, but he is afraid of death before the expression of his teeming brain. He is afraid because he finds himself standing on the shore of the world alone, without love and fame. Death without any achievement makes him worried, he knows that sooner or later he has to die but before his death he wants to capture the beauties of night starred face, and huge floating clouds of sublime romantic thoughts. Keats' poetry was mainly concerned with beauty, love, romance and fame. This sonnet contains all these elements. For all his life he cherished in his mind the idea of beauty, according to him "a thing of beauty is a joy for ever". However praising and enjoying beauty he led a dejected and melancholy life. He feared that he might miss the beauty of his thoughts, of romantic ideas, in case death approaches him untimely.