After both reading and enjoying Keats’ “Isabella, or the Pot of Basil,” I decided to scan through some more of his poetry in our Norton text so that I could see how my interpretations of the readings have either gotten better, worse, or stayed about the same. Here goes my understanding of “Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell.”
Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell:
No god, no demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once—
Heart! thou and I are here, sad and alone;
Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O darkness! darkness! ever must I moan,
To question heaven and hell and heart in vain!
Why did I laugh? I know this being's lease—
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads:
Yet could I on this very midnight cease,
And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds.
Verse, fame and beauty are intense indeed,
But death intenser—death is life's high meed.
Instantly, Keats presents the reader with a question that proves unanswerable by gods and demons, two polarities. Realizing that these two external forces are unable to provide an explanation for Keats’ laughter, the poet suddenly believes he has found the source for this plaguing question: the heart. Feeling both excited and assured, this realization marks an important turning point in the poet’s quest for answers; he pleads for an answer from within. However, as the poet searches within, he discovers only darkness that once again leaves Keats answerless. The source for the answer is neither wholly external nor wholly internal.
Keats poses his question for the third and final time, though this time he comes across as more composed as he begins to discover the reason for his laughter. While he recognizes the fact that happiness can be found through different outlets in life—particularly through “verse, fame, and beauty”—he nonetheless would leave it all behind, life ended. The image of the “word’s gaudy ensigns” all shredded up paints a particularly apocalyptic scene.
In the final line, Keats acknowledges the fact that while there may be sources of intense joy throughout life, death nonetheless overshadows the things most important to all of us; death is life’s greatest reward. At first I had trouble understanding this line because never had I heard death described as such. Most often, death is viewed negatively as it reminds us of our mortality, ultimately all of the limitations that bound us to some degree. However, Keats takes another approach. By describing death at “life’s high meed,” the poet portrays death as a reminder that in this moment we are alive.
Throughout the poetry we have been reading in class, man’s ability to reflect has come across as a nuisance, a burden to our existence; however, in this poem, Keats seems to celebrate this ability. We can recognize that death represents an end, and because of this, people can live. People can laugh.
In one of the tweets there was the question if the Romantics were happy. I was wondering about this, too. Everything they wrote seems to be so well-thought-out and earnest. Their poetry is beautiful, no question, and they wrote about beautiful things as well, e.g. the incomprehensible, mighty power of Mont Blanc or the love that never dies ("Isabella" by Keats). However, there is almost always a melancholic or sad undertone or even a lament because of a loss. All these things really let me think about the world, nature, man's connection to it and man's position in it, but it is always a very serious thinking. I somehow miss the joy and happiness in it - sometimes.The overwhelming joy to live, the ability to enjoy life.
ReplyDeleteBecause of this I was very surprised to read about laugh in a romantic poem - but by questioning the laugh the poet discovers darkness and death...I really like your explanation of Keats' approach.
However, the question is still there: were Romantics happy? Or isn't this a legitimate question, does it matter at all?
Oh, and I forgot something: yes, the ability to reflect is often described as a burden as it destroys the innocent way of seeing the world. But I also got the impression that they saw this ability as a gift as well as it helps to 'experience' the world(cf. "A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong", Wordsworth: Intimations of Immortality).
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent post. In this brief response, I am choosing to focus on the last question of the poem, the question of the relationship between life and death and of how death is viewed by human beings. About a week ago, I had conversation with my friend Dylan about the existence of God and the meaning of life. Dylan told me that he thought the fact of human existence which singlehandedly gives life meaning is the fact that we will die. We have only a handful of decades to live, to decide our life's work, to craft relationships with others and to find meaning and beauty in the world. We can't live forever. We can only hope that we die having lived well. I am a Catholic and I hold dearly belief in an afterlife, but I really wouldn't want to live forever on this earth. I agree with my friend when he says that to live forever would be a condemnation. It would negate any ultimate meaning to life. All of our sorrows and triumphs would endlessly repeat themselves. We would eventually lose every good thing in our lives, but this lose would have no meaning as we might just as easily gain it all back. Just random thoughts ...
ReplyDeleteDeath seems to have more power over us and our history than we consciously give it credit for. Because we will one day die, and we know this at some point, we cease to search for a meaning in our lives and try to make one instead. Death gives us reason to eat and drink, laugh and cry, and fear. While we do fear death from time to time, I wonder what would we be if we did not have it?
ReplyDelete