by girl » Mon Jun 06, 2005 9:06 pm
I think that Keats, like all of us, had different concerns at different points of his life. He did write about escaping into the imagination, however his concern with the imagination was its lack of sensuality.
"I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet"
It is true that he cannot see, however he is still concerned with sight, i.e. the lack of it. He guesses each sweet by means of the imagination however the word "sweet" would suggest some kind of sense be it sweet looking, smelling, taste and so he is imagining not being able to see/smell/taste something and so is still concerned with the senses, just again the lack of them!
I think he is very sensual in other poems and his use of synasthyesia in "On The Sea" describing the water making a "...shadowy sound..." shows how the senses define our World. How else can we describe something even in the imagination without describing how it looks, sounds, feels, tastes, smells? So as far as poetry is concerned that is all he has...