Abstract:
John Keats, as a principal figure in the Romantic
movement in Europe, reacted against the philosophy of the
Enlightenment. His poetry and letters are testament to his
distrust of, and resistance to, an ever increasingly
clinical and "reasonable" society. Keats's poetic thought--imaginative,
speculative, dialectic--is the antithesis of an
Enlightenment philosophy which put its faith in science,
objectivity, and logical deduction.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the letters
and poems of Keats through the lens of Enlightenment
philosophy; it will gauge Keats's theories of the
imagination in terms of that philosophy. As I move through
Keats's literary response to the enlightenment, I am also
examining Keats's professional progression from surgeon's
apprentice--a trade strongly associated with the
Enlightenment--to a primary figure in the movement away from
Enlightenment and toward Romantic philosophy.
This study focuses on the writings of Keats, both his
letters and poetry, contextualizing his poetic thought and
work while answering the critical question: How does Keats's
writing reveal his reaction to Enlightenment philosophy?
