Critical Analysis: John Keats' Poem 'When I Have Fears That I May'.

This essay provides a critical analysis of John Keats' poem "When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be," exploring the poet's anxieties about death, unfulfilled potential, and the fleeting nature of fame and love. The analysis delves into Keats' use of imagery, symbolism, and the structure of the Shakespearean sonnet to convey his fears. It examines how Keats grapples with the limitations of his mortality and the realization that worldly achievements may ultimately be futile. The essay also draws parallels with Shakespeare's Sonnet 55, contrasting different perspectives on poetry and immortality, and concludes that Keats ultimately suggests accepting death as the ultimate truth and a solution to life's anxieties. This analysis offers a comprehensive understanding of Keats' exploration of mortality and the human condition.

Running head : CRITICAL ANALYSIS
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John Keats today is one of the most widely read English poets of the Romantic Age. His
works are celebrated all over the world even today. However, the poet was not renowned when
he was alive. He became famous only after he died. The young poet succumbed to tuberculosis at
the age of twenty-four. It was a few years before his death that he wrote the poem, “When I have
fears that I may cease to be” that primarily deals with the fear of his death1. It was as if Keats
was having a premonition of his own death.
The poem is a reflection of his own fears and anxieties about death. Keats is fearful that
he will not have enough time to become a great poet or find the love of his life. However, by the
end of the poem he understands the futility of fame, money and relationships in this impermanent
world. Keats was so sure about his unrecognized stature and premature death that his tombstone
bears the following inscription: ‘whose name was writ in water’. He was constantly worried
about the limitations of his life. Little did he know that he would become one of the greatest
poets in the history of English literature. The poem is structured as a Shakespearean sonnet2. By
the end of the poem he reaches the realization that fame and love is futile in this world and can
only give momentary happiness. He establishes in the first quatrain that he is fearful that he will
not be able to write the best of his poems in that short duration of time. He uses words like
‘gleaned’, ‘garners’, ‘full ripen’d grain’ that gives us the poet’s idea of creation. Keats’ mind is
like a fertile landscape. He uses a lot of symbols and paradox in this poem. He compares his
imagination with that of a granary where he is the man who is harvesting and he is also the
product that is being harvested. Keats is angry about the fact that while his “teeming brain” is
1 "When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be By John Keats", Poetry Foundation, 2018
<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44488/when-i-have-fears-that-i-may-cease-to-be> [Accessed 30
December 2018].
2 Brian Richards, "Analysis Of John Keats's "When I Have Fears:" Death & The Freedom Of Limitations",
Inquiries Journal, 2019 <http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/316/analysis-of-john-keatss-when-i-have-fears-
death-the-freedom-of-limitations> [Accessed 4 January 2019].

2CRITICAL ANALYSIS
full of ideas, his days on Earth are numbered. He looks up in the sky at the glittering stars and
constellations and he realizes that he will “cease to be” way before he can trace their shadows3.
Most of Keats poems are about his love for nature or about the emotions of love. In this
poem too, Keats stresses over his failure to find true love. He is a dejected lover in the hands of
his own death. He is afraid that he will “never have relish in the fairy power” not because he is
going to die but because he knows he will never succeed in his mission to find true love. He is
very much concerned about his time on Earth, which is evident by his use of ‘when’ at the
beginning of every stanza. He further mentions that love has the ability to transform the world of
the lovers. But he also doesn’t hasten to mention that love with its ‘faery power’ is nothing but
an illusion. Love consumes us as it involves emotions rather than thoughts. Keats contemplates
about human solidarity and its insignificance in this material world. It is through his fears that he
understands the unimportance of fame and relationships and accepts death as a friend4.
Keats loved a girl named Fanny Brawne but their relationship never saw the light of the
day as it was not accepted by Brawne’s mother and secondly because Keats died at a young age.
The last two lines sound even more nihilistic than existential, as the reader might envision Keats
himself standing alone on the edge of the universe, trying to get perspective and reflect on these
fears. Keats thinks that such woe seems hard to despair because in the end, these desires he feels
so panicked to attain despite time’s “cruel hand.” Shakespeare’s sonnet sixty ends with:
‘And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
3 "A Short Analysis Of John Keats’S ‘When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be’", Interesting
Literature, 2019 <https://interestingliterature.com/2017/03/09/a-short-analysis-of-john-keatss-when-i-have-fears-
that-i-may-cease-to-be/> [Accessed 4 January 2019].
4 "Analysis Of When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be By John Keats", Poem Analysis, 2019
<https://poemanalysis.com/when-i-have-fears-that-i-may-cease-to-be-john-keats-poem-analysis/> [Accessed 4
January 2019].

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Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.’
Both the sonnets represent different perspectives and views on poetry. But both the sonnets
describe love and death. The idea that “tyrants’ crests” and “tombs of brass” are “spent” while
“this poor rhyme” grants a lover “thy monument,” one must be reminded of Shakespeare’s
Sonnet 55, where “Not marble, not the gilded monuments / Of princes, shall outlive this
powerful rhyme.” Keats offers a humbler discussion of his poetry—so humbling it is depressing
—and reflects a sort of Marvellian perspective on immortality and art: “Nor, in thy marble vault,
shall sound / My echoing song.” In the last stanza, the idea that fame sinks to nothingness
challenges the very notion—for what is fame if not a human’s chance at immortality? Nothing
seems immortal in the cyclical sea the speaker gazes upon, but it is the lack of immortality that
tells Keats not to worry because all the things he wishes to accomplish before death will be
rendered nothing by death5. Death is the ultimate truth of life and it is inevitable. But it does not
mean that one should look for excuses in death as it is not the remedy to cure us of our fears. It
was Keats who famously wrote, ‘Truth is beauty’. Therefore, in death lies beauty. Keats tries to
convey the message that it is useless to stress over fame and emotions as both of these are not
even worth discussing. One should not have high hopes to attain fame or true love as death
always nullifies their value. Some may feel that this is Keats’ nihilistic attitude towards life but
we must ponder a bit more and realized that death is actually the solution to all our problems.
Death is the fear and the remedy6.
5 "A Short Analysis Of John Keats’S ‘When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be’", Interesting
Literature, 2019 <https://interestingliterature.com/2017/03/09/a-short-analysis-of-john-keatss-when-i-have-fears-
that-i-may-cease-to-be/> [Accessed 4 January 2019].
6 Brian Richards, "Analysis Of John Keats's "When I Have Fears:" Death & The Freedom Of Limitations",
Inquiries Journal, 2019 <http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/316/analysis-of-john-keatss-when-i-have-fears-
death-the-freedom-of-limitations> [Accessed 4 January 2019].

4CRITICAL ANALYSIS

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References:
"When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be By John Keats", Poetry Foundation, 2018
<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44488/when-i-have-fears-that-i-may-cease-to-be>
[Accessed 30 December 2018]
Richards, Brian, "Analysis Of John Keats's "When I Have Fears:" Death & The Freedom
Of Limitations", Inquiries Journal, 2019 <http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/316/analysis-
of-john-keatss-when-i-have-fears-death-the-freedom-of-limitations> [Accessed 4 January 2019]
"A Short Analysis Of John Keats’S ‘When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be’",
Interesting Literature, 2019 <https://interestingliterature.com/2017/03/09/a-short-analysis-of-
john-keatss-when-i-have-fears-that-i-may-cease-to-be/> [Accessed 4 January 2019]
"Analysis Of When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be By John Keats", Poem
Analysis, 2019 <https://poemanalysis.com/when-i-have-fears-that-i-may-cease-to-be-john-keats-
poem-analysis/> [Accessed 4 January 2019]