Keats the Eternal Hero
We no longer ask if existence has meaning but, ‘Does meaning exist?’
Kenneth Rexroth
Roland Barthes, the darling of structuralism and post-modernism, laboured long and hard in his academic career to destroy the ‘myth’ of genius. To his thinking it was not possible for the human brain to create art through the powers of an original imagination. Barthes was a Marxist, a scourge of the bourgeoisie, and a follower of surrealism, a school which he ardently believed defined the true role of the artist.
By insisting that there is no individual vision, Barthes posited that literature is merely an amalgam of external references, and thus merely plagiarism. The artist is only capable of producing a kind of literary and conceptual collage. Such a view is in line with the modern view of the commonality of the Internet where any unique voice must be subservient to the general babble on Twitter and My Space. Anonymity is the death of the individual, the heroic vision no longer exists to inspire.
John Keats, in his life, philosophy, and most of all his poetry, demonstrates dramatically that the opinion of our French intellectual is simply incorrect. Not only did the poet possess a singular view of the world, he depicted that landscape, peopled with figures of myth and marvel, in a masterful manner. Keats’ verses will be remembered long after Barthes and his theories have long been forgotten.
Keats is the symbol of consummate lyricism in poetry, and much else besides.
The astonishing facility of his composition, combined with the white hot intensity of the sentiments make up the stuff that he transforms into the musicality of his lines. Once savoured, his words are engraved upon the soul of the reader.
We must not be diverted from the true worth of Keats’ great achievements by the fact that he left the world so soon. True, he personified the words of his fellow poet Byron, ‘...whom the gods love die young...’, but this is a tragedy rather than the fulfilment of any judicious prophecy. His epitaph – ‘Here lies one whose name was writ on water’ is fitting for a soul who alternately ascended to the heights and willingly swam in the deeps to retrieve for us the resplendent treasures of his soul.
~o00o~