Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art— steadfast: unwavering, resolute Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, Eremite: a Christian hermit or recluse The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death. swoon was used by Keats in his poem Endymion to describe sexual ecstasy Keats: Biographical / Historical Context It is not certain when the poem was written. Some suggest it was written in October 1818 and say it was about Isabella Jones, but most argue it was written in July 1819, on another visit to the Isle of Wight (where he wrote On the Sea in 1816), and that it was about Fanny Brawne. Look at the contextual information below and consider how you might we apply it to a reading of the poem.
In June 1818 Keats wrote the following in a letter to his brother Tom, describing Windermere in the Lake District. ‘the two views we have had of [the lake] are of the most noble tenderness – they can never fade away – they make one forget the divisions of life; age, youth, poverty and riches; and refine one’s sensual vision into a sort of north star which can never cease to be open-lidded and stedfast over the wonders of the great Power.’ Do you think this is sufficiently convincing to argue the poem was inspired by the Lake District rather than the Isle of Wight? As for who the poem was inspired by there are, as alluded to above, two theories: Robert Gittings believes that the lover that Keats is referring to is Mrs Isabella Jones, with whom Keats supposedly had an affair. But most critics believe that he’s referring to his fiancée Fanny Brawne.
In a letter Fanny Brawne in July 1819 (the same month a comet was seen in the sky above London) Keats wrote: I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Hethen. Your’s ever, fair star, John Keats’. Is this enough to convince you the inspiration was Fanny Brawne rather than Isabella Jones?
Keats met Fanny in December 1818 and they declared their love for each other shortly afterwards. They were engaged in October 1819. Because Keats burned all but her last letters – and these were buried with him – it is hard to know the precise nature of their relationship. What is clear, however, is that it was passionate (though probably not sexual) and mutual. It was the central, intense experience of their lives. Indeed, Fanny copied out Keats’ poem ‘Bright Star’ in a volume of Dante which Keats had given her. Is this enough to convince you the inspiration was Fanny Brawne rather than Isabella Jones? Literary Context The star, in literature, is often used to symbolise a quiet and universal fixedness – something that is constant. Here are two examples from Shakespeare:
But I am constant as the northern star, Love is not love Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality Which alters when it alteration finds, There is no fellow in the firmament. Or bends with the remover to remove: The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks; O no; it is an ever-fixéd mark, They are all fire and every one doth shine; That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; But there's but one in all doth hold his place. It is the star to every wandering bark, Julius Caesar Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Sonnet 116
Consider the similarities and differences between Keats’ imagery and Shakespeare’s. Task 1: Read the poem 2 or 3 times and write down a summary of what ideas you think Keats is exploring in this poem. Task 2: Make detailed notes on the possible effects of the following form and structure features in the poem: - What might the use of the sonnet form and iambic pentameter suggest? - How does the tone shift between the octave and sestet, and how does this fit with the shift in ideas? - Why might Keats have structured the sonnet as a single sentence? For what effect? - What might be the effect of the exclamation and apostrophe at the start of the poem? - Comment on the use of dashes at different points of the poem. - What might be the effect of the repetition of ‘still’ in lines 9 and 13? - What might be the effect of the repetition of ‘for ever’ in lines 11 and 12? - What might be the effect of the juxtaposition in the final line? - Comment on the use of caesura and enjambment at different points of the poem. Task 3: Make detailed notes on the possible effects of the following language features in the poem: • The natural imagery in the octave • The consonance of the ‘l’ and ‘s’ sounds in the opening lines, and again in lines 9-12 • The personification of the star and the adjectives used to describe it • The simile in line 4 • The religious imagery in lines 4-6 and the personification of the waters and the earth • The sibilance and alliteration in lines 7 and 8 • The metaphor in line 10 • The oxymoron of ‘sweet unrest’ I In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, In drear-nighted December Thy branches ne’er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them II With a sleety whistle through them, In drear-nighted December, Nor frozen thawing glue them Too happy, happy brook, From budding at the prime. Thy bubblings ne’er remember Apollo’s summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, III They stay their crystal fretting, Ah! would ‘twere so with many Never, never petting A gentle girl and boy! About the frozen time. But were there ever any Writhed not of passed joy? The feel of not to feel it, When there is none to heal it Nor numbed sense to steal it, Was never said in rhyme. Context - Written December 1817 - Written after spending an evening at the theatre, reviewing a play called Riches, which contained the line ‘Feel indeed? What right has he to feel?’ which reminded Keats of the final scene of King Lear where King Lear realises that even wretches can feel - The poem was written around the same time of his letter to his brothers expressing his thoughts on negative capability - This is a short lyric poem – which Keats more commonly wrote in his early years as a poet (Note: This poem and The Eve of St Agnes are the only two poems that you have to study for the exam that are not either a sonnet or an ode) - Some critics conjecture that Keats in the poem is reflecting on the grief that he possibly felt more keenly in winter, due to nursing his dying mother in December 1809. Keats himself had been very ill in the autumn, and his brother Tom had started showing signs of TB two months before the poem was written Task 3: Make detailed notes on the possible effects of the following form and structure features in the poem:
▪ The poem is written in three octets. Summarise what you think is being said in each of the stanzas and the key ideas being explored. ▪ The poem has a regular rhyme scheme (ABABCCCD) and regular rhythm (with 6 or 7 syllables per line). What might be the possible effect(s) of this? • How does Keats use juxtaposition in the first stanza to comment on nature? • What might be the different effects of the repetition used at different points of the poem – ‘happy’, ‘never’ and ‘feel’? • Why might Keats have used syntactic parallelism at the start of stanza 2? • What do the exclamations at the start of stanza 3 suggest? • What might be the meaning of the rhetorical question in lines 19/20? Task 4: Make detailed notes on the possible effects of the following language features in the poem:
▪ The alliteration in line 1 ▪ The adverb ‘Too’ in line 2 ▪ The use of personification of the tree, branches and wind in stanza 1 ▪ The use of onomatopoeia in ‘whistles’ and ‘bubblings’ ▪ Apollo is the Greek god of the sun and light. What might the allusion mean? ▪ What might be the effects of the oxymoron in stanza 2 – ‘sweet forgetting’ and ‘frozen time’? ▪ The paradox of line 21 – this line is ambiguous: what might be the different meanings? ▪ Why is the final line ironic? Further Reading on JSTOR (username: isaacnewton / password: library) Below is some suggested further reading:
A good analysis (just 4 pages) of the imagery in the poem: Nature’s Eremite: Keats and the Liturgy of Passion
On the debate around when ‘Bright Star’ was actually written: The Date of Keats’s “Bright Star” Sonnet
Comparing ‘Bright Star’ (here referred to as ‘Last Sonnet’) with ‘When I have fears’: Clouds, Sensation and the Infinite in the Poetry of John Keats (just pages 6-8 of 8) YouTube Videos
The following short video on ‘Bright Star’ provides a useful discussion about the poem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSAiYNQflXM (6 mins)
And a link to the trailer for the film called ‘Bright Star’ which you might like to watch – about the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0nx5Iu6KQo