Lockdown Literature 4.2

Hi all,

Thanks for your continued hard work this week, especially to those of you who have contributed ideas to the shared doc or who have emailed me your thoughts. I’m still waiting on a few of you however. Please check that you’ve completed the work from Monday here.

Further down this post, you’ll find the latest set of tasks. 

But first, I’d like to share some responses and thoughts of my own on those Keatsian concepts and interpretations we’ve been thinking about. Please read this carefully.

Here goes...

Negative Capability:

• The poem explores the subconscious and irrational response to tragedy and grief. As Jess points out, Keats doesn’t explain Isabella’s behaviour, but does pose the question to us about our fascination with and responses to death: ‘Who hath not loitered in a green church-yard…?’ (stanza XLV)

• Caitlin points out ambiguities and narrative gaps in the poem: Is the vision a ghost? Is Isabella insane? Why does she suddenly know exactly what to do when she sees the vision? What does she get from her nurturing of the basil pot. None of this is dealt with explicitly.

• Bob draws attention to the nature of Isabella’s love for Lorenzo: Is it romantic? Sexual? Is it maternal? Keats gives his lovers a lot of privacy and we don’t really get too much of a sense of what their relationship is like and how long it lasts. He bowers them away (XI) and wants to hide them from the brothers (lines 140-1) to protect them from ‘whispering tale’ (line 86).

• Evan astutely notes that the brothers demonstrate a complete lack of negative capability at the end of the poem. They need a rational explanation for their sister’s bizarre behaviour and alarming decline; they ‘wondered much’ (stanza LVIII) about the significance of the basil and cannot help themselves but to delve into the pot to uncover the mystery, just as they cannot resist the temptation to maximise their profits and control their sister’s life. Keats punishes them for this with the uncovering of the head, which is ‘vile with green and livid spot’. This moment of horror has a similar effect on them to the guilt experienced by the Macbeths when they see Duncan's dead body. They cannot hide or distance themselves from the truth of what they’ve done any more.

The Chameleon Poet

 Click here to see the full letter.

Tricky one, this. It’s in my head a lot because of Andrew Motion’s Keats biography, and I was intrigued about what you’d make of it.

This is the idea that, unlike the ‘egotistical sublime’ of Wordsworth, a true poet has no identity. A true poet, to Keats, is ‘unobtrusive’ and doesn’t have an individual’s ‘design’ upon the reader. A true poet can inhabit an Iago and an Imogen just as convincingly.

This characteristic in Keats’s poems is probably best seen in the other poems we’ll study, especially Lamia and The Eve of St. Agnes, but also in La Belle Dame Sans Merci, where there is real ambiguity about who inhabits the roles of hero and villain and victims. Keats empathises with them all. 

Isabella is a bit different. It could be said to have a ‘design’ on us, as Shaw noted when he saw an anti-capitalist message in the poem. Perhaps the way in which this idea is demonstrated in Isabella is in the contradictory natures of the characters; Isabella goes from naïve and sickly maiden to being possessed by a ‘feverous hectic flame’; the brothers are calculating in their ‘trade designs’ (line 165), but are ‘sick and wan’ (213) at the prospect of murder. Lorenzo is ‘meek and wild’, but finds his voice when he returns as an avenging spirit, like the ghost of the dead king in Hamlet. Keats explores these characters and their contradictions fully, especially when he tries to understand the cruelty and guilt of his villains.

Aspects of tragedy?

Certainly, as Bob notes, there is a major focus on VICTIMS and LOSS in this poem. Keats seems to see this loss as inevitable, and focuses on Isabella’s desperate attempt to salvage something from tragedy, focusing on music/poetry/art as a consolation.

Caitlin picked ANAGNORISIS as a key element; in this poem, we can pinpoint the moment of anagnorisis as Keats draws our attention to it – and then the character is transformed. Unlike in other tragedies, Isabella’s anagnorisis happens in the middle of the poem, giving a lot of focus in the poem to Isabella’s grief. In Macbeth and Othello (and, arguably, Death of a Salesman), the anagnorisis happens in the final stages.

So, what is Isabella really about?

I like Caitlin’s answer to this question on the shared document; it could be said to be about the consolation of art, and especially tragic art (‘the richest juice’, after all, is in ‘poison-flowers’), in dealing with the inevitability of loss and death. This idea is suggested by the reference to Melpomene, Music, Lethe and the ‘sad ditty’ at the end of the poem. He urges ‘sprits in grief’ to ‘lift up your heads, and smile’. There’s dejection in this line, but also acceptance. As Victor Hugo said, ‘Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad.’

This is my list:

Thank you to the three brave souls who wrote on the shared doc, and also to those of you who emailed your responses.

Now, onto the next set of tasks:

1) Have a go at this quiz.

2) Choose one of the interpretations on the image above and turn it into a topic sentence. Then write a paragraph in support of your topic sentence, including:

• at least three pieces of textual evidence
• some analysis of Keats’s methods
• one of the following phrases: negative capability or chameleon poet (demonstrating understanding of biographical/literary context)
• a concluding sentence or two which reflects on tragedy

Spend around 20 minutes on this task. Stick it in an email when you’re done.

3) Do some revision on Quizlet: Othello/Keats flashcards

That’s it for this week. Next week, we might have a go at planning a longer response and do some general revision. Soon: The Eve of St Agnes.

Let me know if you need anything.

Have a good weekend.

Mr M