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POEM
O Solitude!
If i must
with thee
dwell

GENERAL NOTES
-Sonnet
-Poem is an
antidote to working
in a hospital
-He is yearning for
a better life as an
escape to his
miserable
traumatic life
-Written (1814) at
a time when Keats
was surrounded by
death in his family
and in hospital
(work)
-Key themes:
nature, escapism,
inspiration of
nature and need to
restore himself,
conflict and a
search for
happiness
...
“O SOLITUDE!”
2
...
“its flowery slopes, its
river’s crystal swell”
4
...
“fox-glove bell”
6
...
”Is my soul’s pleasure; and
it sure must be/ almost the
highest bliss of human-kind”
8
...
Direct address- personifying solitude
...
Exclamatory shows a
deep yearning and desperation
...
“Murky buildings”- dark and dirty, perhaps rejecting the
industrial revolution
...

3
...
Listing the idyllic
calming nature that he desires
...
“let me thy vigils keep”= idiom for keeping a watch over
nature
...

5
...

6
...
He is finding joy in his own poetry
...
He wants a relationship of stability- deep and intense
...

8
...
Arguable that he does not want
solitude as the poem first suggests
...

-Sonnet- about the
power of poetry
...

-Homer wrote epic
long narrative
poetry, typically
about travelling
...

-Like the explorers
mentioned, Keats
discovered
Chapman’s
interpretation
which inspired him
...


1
...
”Round many western
islands have i been/ which
bards in fealty to Apollo hold”
3
...
“…never breathe its pure
serene till i heard Chapman
speak out loud and bold”
5
...
“like stout Cortez”
7
...
“Silent, upon a peak in
Darien
...
On a literal level he is travelling, on a poetry level he is
engaging in philosophical exploration
...

2
...
“bards in
fealty”- Elizabethan language not common for 1820s
...

3
...
“deep brow’d” portrays him as
intelligent and thoughtful
...

4
...
Volta- turning point of the poem: sudden
tension as he read’s Chapman’s version- reading it has a
rejuvenating affect on him
...

5
...
“watcher of the
skies” is a metaphysical image
...
Cortez was a spanish explorer who discovered the
pacific in 1851
7
...
“surmise”- deep in a thought
...
Silent in awe, overwhelmed by natures beauty like
Keats is overwhelmed by literary beauty
...

-Sea is never
ending: eternity,
unknown,
timelessness
...

-A hopeful poem
-Keats tries to find
meaning in a
godless world and
found this meaning
in nature
...
“It keeps eternal
whispering around desolate
shores, and with its mighty
swell”
2
...
“such gentle temper
found”
4
...
“Oh, ye! who have your
eyeballs vexed and tired”
6
...
“Until ye start, as if the
sea nymphs, quired!”

1
...
‘whisperings’ is onomatopoeicholds mysterious secrets
...
Sibilance conveys the sound of the sea throughout
poem- calming
...
Keats uses numbers to rationalise nature
...
“hecate”
represents destructive power of the seas- Greek goddess
of the sea- caused destruction via sea, goddess of
natural destructive power of the sea
...
Oxymoronic- the sea is a dichotomy; it has a soothing
sense to placate people yet can also destroy people
...

4
...

5
...
The sea is an antidote for anxiety/exhaustion
...
Harsh sounds- unpleasant oxymoronic, negative and
plosive- shows dichotomy of powers of the sea
...

7
...


In drear
nighted
December

-About the torment
of remembering
happy times in
misery
...

-Written in Dec
1817 when his
brother is dying of
TB
...

-Tells us that
poetry is all about
memory
-Overall argument
of the poem is that
if you cannot heal
good memories
during bad times, it
is better to not
remember them at
all
...


1
...
“The north cannot undo
them/ with a sleety whistle
through them/ nor frozen
thawings glue them”
3
...
“Apollo’s summer look; but
with a sweet forgetting”
5
...
“Ah! would ‘twere so with
many a gentle girl and boy-“
7
...
“When there is none one
to heal it/ Nor numbered
sense to steel it”
9
...
”

1
...
“too” infers Keats’s jealousy
...
The tree cannot remember the
spring- can’t remember the happy times- unlike human
capacity
...
List of description to show the power of nature- nothing
is able to destroy it as nature is indestructible and the
natural change is irreversible
...
PARADOX: nature is a
cycle but the cycle cannot be changed by anything
...
Brook (small river/stream) is personified- cannot
remember warmer times
...
The Apollo is a metaphor for warmth and good times
...
Illusion to Greek mythology
...

5
...
Frozen can be
reversed- natures superiority is that it can be frozen yet
bounce back, although humans cannot
...
“Ah!” shows emphatic distress- opening line is different
to indicate a change in argument
...
He
wishes humans could be the same as nature
...
Envy of nature: humans can remember because of
their mental capacity, yet memories are painful
...
He
asks if anybody was ever not upset when thinking about
past joys- a universal problem of the human condition: a
metaphysical existential question
...
He envys numbness
...
‘heal it’ brings references of
atheism- living in a godless world
...

9
...

-King Lear is a
play about betrayal
and deathexposes the flaws
of humanity
...

-Sestet develops
ideas about his
fear of death,
mortality and
transience
...

-Nostalgic
language- bringing
the past into the
presenttimelessness
...
“O golden-tongued
Romance with serene lute!”
2
...
“Leave melodizing on this
wintry day, shut up thine
olden pages, and be mute:”
4
...
“The bitter-sweet, of this
Shakespearian fruit
...
“Begetters of our deep
eternal theme, when through
the old oak forest i am gone”
7
...
”

1
...
He
personifying King Lear as well as his Romantic poetry
...

2
...
Syren is a
sea creature that tempts sailors for their own downfall
...
Tone change- he doesn't want to talk about his usual
stuff anymore
...

4
...
The
lines turn to show his dilemma between writing tragedy or
love
...

Tension within himself throughout “fierce” “burn” imagery
...
Shakespeare is amazing and Keats is upset that he
cannot be like him
...
Exclamatory evidence of enlightenment and
glorification
...
“Albion” is an ancient name for England
...
“Deep eternal theme” shows theme of mortality and
death- he is trying to find a way to live on through his
writing
...

7
...
Fire is supposedly between heaven and hellthey had no certainty of life after death as they had no
religion- created unease and a pronounced fear of death
...
He is asking to be
remembered as he is dying and his is young
...

-Sonnet that
contemplates
permanence
...

-An ODE:
1819-1820
...


1
...
“with eternal lids apart like
Nature’s patient sleepiness
Eremite”
3
...
“gazing on the new soft
fallen mask of snow…”
5
...
“To feel for ever is soft fall
and swell, awake for ever in
a sweet unrest”
7
...
”

1
...
He doesn't want to be alone- wants to be with
Fanny
...
They are always there- Godlike, personifying the stars
as if they had eyes (‘lids’)
...
‘Eremite’ is a Christian hermit alone from the
world
...
Keats had minimal knowledge of space or solar system
so he is pondering the unknown
...
A star has over-sight of
everything- he is imagining what the star sees
...
Range of the star- it has so much power and is
omniscient- implies Keats’ own frailty
...
Dramatic volta- his opinions have changed and he
starts to think about Fanny and how he would rather be
with her
...

6
...
At this time he had just
got engaged- commitment, marriage is forever
...

7
...
Repetition of still- desire for
permanence
...
“breath” and “death” is juxtaposition and
paradoxical- he desires to stay alive even though he
knows he is dying
...

-An ODE: he is
celebrating
Autumn
...

-Arguable that
whole poem is an
extended
metaphor about
life- Autumn is a
conceit for life
...

-Musical imagery
throughout: he
finds art in the
ugliest days of the
year
...


1
...
“To bend with apples the
moss’d cottage-trees, and fill
a fruit with ripeness to the
core”
3
...
“until they think warm
days will never cease, for
Summer has o’er brimm’d
their clammy cells
...
“Who hath not seen thee
oft amid thy store?”
6
...
“by a cyder-press…the
last oozings hours by hours
...
“Where are the songs of
Spring? Ay, where are
they?…thou hast thy music
too”
9
...
“small gnats mourn/
among the river shallows,
borne aloft/ or sinking…”
11
...
“gathering swallows
twitter in the skies
...
Starts with positive imagery
...
‘maturing; denotes end,
ageing and getting darker as the days get shorter
...
Bend as if the tree can't take the burden of the apples
...

3
...
Packed of asyndeton- a exciting process pace
...
The bees are wrong- warmer days will die like they will
in Autumn
...

5
...
This stanza is
personifying nature doing things to turn into Autumn
...

6
...
“hook” is a farming instrument associated
with death and the Grim Reaper
...
Production- image of late Autumn
...

8
...

This stanza has a semantic field of death
...

9
...

10
...
Ironic
rhyme of “mourn” and “borne” (possible pun on ‘born’)
...
“full grown lamb” connotations of slaughter as lamb
never gets to become a sheep, and connotations of a
growing child
...

12
...
‘skies’ is a reference to heaven and
Gods plan of natural order
...

-Translated to ‘the
beautiful woman
without pity/mercy’
...

-Indirectly a nature
poem
...

-Natural world
reflecting the
human state
...


1
...
“and no birds sing
...
“The squirrel’s granary is
full, and the harvest’s done
...
“I see a lily on thy brow/…
fever dew…a fading rose
fast withereth too”
5
...
“and made sweet moan
...
“I set her on my pacing
steed, and nothing else saw
all day long… sing a faery’s
song
...
“She found me roots of
relish sweet, and honey wild,
and manna dew”
9
...
”
10
...
”
11
...
She is speaking to the Knight
...
“palely”- unwell/vulnerable
...

2
...
Discomfort and loneliness
...
Winter has come- completion, what she has done to
the Knight cannot be changed
...

4
...
“fever
dew”-he is physically ill
...
This stanza is still
incomplete- the woman has made him incomplete
...
Change to POV of the Knight
...
Long hair and a light step are
traditional physical images of beauty- dainty and graceful
...
Implicit references to sexual activity and intimacystanza about him doing things aiming to please her
...
Possibly made a fatal error by having sex with her
...
Consummating relationship by spending the day
having sex
...

8
...
She is now giving him natural
gifts (feeding him)
...

9
...

10
...
‘elfin grot’ is her
home- grotto (unhuman), everything about her is
unworldly
...
“i shut her wild wild
eyes”- he is taking back control- repetition from line 16wildness increased and become manipulative
...
She has manipulated hum and put him to sleep- lines

12

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