By John Keats

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On the Grasshopper the Cricket
By John Keats
By John Keats
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• John Keats (1795-1821) the last of the English
  Romantic poets. Is considered as one of the Big
  Six of romantic poets.
• Influences of Keats' poetry
• -Romanticism a counter reaction against the Age
  of Enlightenment movement around the 18th Century
  (rational ideals and scientific discoveries), it
  instead believed in the power of the human
  imagination and the way of feeling. Wordsworth,
  another prominent Romantic poet, defined good
  poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful
  feelings, which resonates with the idea of
  Romanticism being able to convey ideas and images
  through imagination and sensual imagery. Also
  worthy of note is that Romanticist literature and
  poetry usually involved nature as a prominent
  theme.

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• -Keats' short life and also his family's during
  1820, Keats displayed increasingly serious
  symptoms of tuberculosis (and died at 25), the
  disease which had killed his mother and brother
  also. Knowing he was dying he wrote to Fanny
  Brawne (his girlfriend whom he betrothed)
  expressing his feelings over his life I have
  left no immortal work behind me nothing to make
  my friends proud of my memory but I have lov'd
  the principle of beauty in all things, and if I
  had had time I would have made myself
  remember'd. His last request was to be buried
  under an unnamed tombstone which contained only
  the words, Here lies one whose name was writ in
  water.
• Thus it is significant to consider this as an
  influence on his poetry. Many of Keats' greatest
  works were odes (typically a lyrical verse
  written in praise of, or dedicated to someone of
  something which captures the poet's interest or
  serves as inspiration for the ode), therefore it
  is important to consider Keats' hardships and how
  it may reflect in his writing for example,
  consider Keats' use of the word 'faint' to
  describe the birds.

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Overview

• -written relatively early in Keats' career (30
  December 1816 - aged 21)
• -The poem was written as a response to a sort of
  competition between himself and his great friend,
  Leigh Hunt, as to who could write the best verse,
  in a short time, on a specified topic. Keats won
  on this occasion, although he generously avowed
  that he preferred the other poets attempt. (One
  may therefore draw the link to spontaneity and
  intuition in poetry.)
• -It is in the Petrarchan or Italian form of the
  sonnet with an octave and a sestet, without a
  rhyming couplet at the end.
• -It parallels Aesop's fable The Ant and the
  Grasshopper in which the grasshopper
  light-heartedly plays during the summer,
• while the ant toils. When winter comes, the
  grasshopper, unlike the ant is ill prepared for
  its severity. One may also consider that the
  grasshopper does not achieve anything with its
  short life (12 months) linking to Keats' personal
  opinion of his life.

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Thematic Links

• Descriptions of nature The Voice, Time, Amends,
  Full Moon and Little Frieda, Lament, The
  Flower-Fed Buffaloes, Report to Wordsworth, First
  Love, Sonnet 29. (1,2,4,5,8,9,10,14)
• Time The Voice, Time, Dover Beach, So, Well Go
  No More A-Roving, Sonnet 29. (1,2,3,12,14)
• The Metaphysical Time, Dover Beach, Amends, Full
  Moon and Little Frieda. (2,3,4,5)
• Sonnets Report to Wordsworth, Sonnet 43, Sonnet
  29.
• (9,13,14)

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• The poem clearly emphasises the cyclical nature
  of nature. The poetry of earth is a metaphor
  for what Keats interprets as the pure nature of
  the earth this links with Keats' belief in
  Romanticism the ability to convey imagery and
  feeling via the senses and imagination, something
  which will never die, just as nature will never
  die and is a cycle.
• The point is then continued in the transition
  from the octave to the sestet . Although the
  poetry of earth is ceasing never, it is implied
  to be diminishing via this transition to the
  sestet, emphasised especially through the use of
  echoes The poetry of earth is ceasing never
  is deliberately worded such to rhyme with ever
  three lines later and also is a reflection of the
  aforementioned never done three lines
  beforehand the cricket then metaphorically
  represents the echo of summer by echoing The
  grasshopper's song (The cricket's song/...seems
  to one in drowsiness half lost,/ The
  grasshopper's among some grassy hills). In this
  certain imagery of weariness and tiredness
  (however not necessarily bitter) as shown by
  drowsiness half lost On a lone winter
  evening, the echo of summer is emphasised even
  more especially with the previous summer imagery
  being of luxury, delights, pleasantness
  and fun (which reflects the human symbolisation
  of summer hence being symbolised by the
  grasshopper) and the description of the
  cricket's song (in warmth increasing ever).
  This also reiterates the contrast of the cycle
  of summer and winter and the cycle between day
  and night which resonates with the contrast of
  the grasshopper being diurnal and the cricket a
  nocturnal creature. The implication of the echo
  imagery expresses the never-ending cycle of
  nature its persistence reminds the reader of
  this, bringing the reader hope, optimism and even
  nostalgia of better times. Then there is also the
  paralleling of Aesop's fable its contrast of
  fun summer times with the harder winter times
  with that of the grasshopper and the cricket and
  ultimately therefore the respect needed for this
  cycle of nature, something the grasshopper took
  for granted and did lead to its untimely death.

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• The first octave is established with the
  significant line The poetry of earth is never
  dead. The use of the colon further develops the
  metaphor of the first line and its emphasis of
  the poetry of earth's cyclical nature through
  the idea that the colon is in fact used to
  signify the start of a list and does not end the
  sentence at all, rather, it continues it on. It
  is also significant that it rhymes with the
  alliterative phrase new-mown mead to link the
  actual imagery of nature with the idea of
  cyclical nature metaphorized in the opening line.
  Not only does the echo o f summer occur in the
  sestet but there is also complementary imagery of
  winter in summer in the octave the birds hide
  in cooling trees, however this is to a much
  lesser extent. In fact, this is the only instance
  of winter imagery mentioned in this octave the
  implication of such being that it is correlative
  to the predominate relationship of the summer
  imagery echoed in winter, a reminder of this
  eternal cycle and beauty of nature.
• There are explicit allusions and parallels to
  Aesop's fable dotted throughout this poem. The
  grasshopper's time on the earth with the ant (in
  the fable) is paralleled to the grasshopper's
  song with the cricket's (in the poem), however
  the cricket's song brings memories of the
  grasshopper and thus acts as more so a reminder
  of the grasshopper and its symbolism of summer,
  and moreover, its embodiment of mankind thus
  instilling this sense that mankind should
  therefore be aware of this symbolism and respect
  nature unlike its representative grasshopper. The
  grasshopper takes the lead/ in summer luxury,
  indeed confirms the parallel of Aesop's
  representation of mankind via the grasshopper.
  These parallels imply the nature of mankind
  embodied by the grasshopper to be somewhat
  cyclical in that there are good times contrasted
  with the harder times, however in a diminishing
  quality. This is shown via the contrast of the
  stronger summer imagery in the octave with the
  winter imagery of the sestet something emphasised
  even more as Keats' sets the winter context
  immediately within the first line On a lone
  winter evening to make way for this predominate
  theme. As such the nature of mankind, by being
  embodied by the grasshopper, who is implied to
  die an untimely death in both poems (the
  grasshopper does not live throughout the whole
  cycle), suggests that there is a necessity for
  mankind to have an awareness and respect
  (appreciation) for this cyclical nature lest it
  should follow the same path as the grasshopper.

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• Use of language cont.
• It is quite interesting to consider the language
  used to convey the theme of nature as a cycle
  throughout the poem. The theme having immediately
  been established in the opening line of the
  octave, is then continued quite excessively
  through this imagery of summer From hedge to
  hedge repetitively emphasises not only the
  sensual imagery of nature for the reader but also
  connotes the theme of cyclical nature he takes
  the lead and the rhyming of run with hot sun
  links cyclical imagery with nature imagery and
  are both uses of cyclical imagery in movement.
  In summer luxury he has never done, the
  choice of words never done emphasises the
  eternalness of cycles and the metaphor of the
  poetry of earth. He rests at ease beneath some
  pl(ea)sant weed. - The concluding line of the
  octave, another link of nature, weed (in this
  sense it's most likely a neutral plant), with
  lead beforehand to link nature and cyclical
  imagery, and also emphasises the carefreeness of
  the grasshopper by his rest at ease.
• The establishment of the sestet after the initial
  opening line is quite significant especially in
  terms of how the speed the winter imagery is
  brought about. The setting is immediately
  established On a lone winter evening, followed
  by the interesting use of language to describe
  the frost which Has wrought a silence,. The
  word wrought implies that the frost has
  actually forcefully entered being described such
  by forcing a silence with its entry in this
  the winter imagery is thus confirmed as being
  symbolic of harsher times therefore reinforcing
  the link that the imagery of winter is used to
  enhance the imagery of summer further. Through
  these things, and the last line's renewal of the
  cycle by its reminder of the grasshopper's
  song among some grassy hills reemphasise the
  summer imagery and also parallel idea that
  mankind must be aware of, respect and appreciate
  the eternal cycle of nature.

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Fin

• By James Stannard and Daniel Ge