Arnold & Keats: Roles in Society

As opposed to other Romantic poets, such as Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley, Keats never took a specifically serious interest in political idea "beyond the general openness to radical and libertarian thought" that was the prevailing mode between intellectuals at the time (Ward, "Persistence" 16). This had essential implications for his poetry, that is certainly nearly totally unconcerned on the region of humanity in political or social terms. Keats' idealism, instead of treating the external world, centered on "the globe with the senses, and also the degree to which experience may or may possibly not empathize or give itself more than to what is outside itself, and with what consequences" (Ward, "Persistence" 16). Keats did not lay out the terms of his understanding in the nature of poetry in systematic descriptions of his art or criticism on the art of others. The primary discussion in the art of poetry derives in the letters exactly where he produced ideas rather spontaneously--or, at least, gave them expression inside a extremely immediate manner. One this kind of discussion, in a letter to his brother and sister-in-law, addressed the critical question of the poet's emphasis on own expression. In this 1819 letter he remarked on Wordsworth's tendency t

 

In Keats' fleeting discussions of his practice, however, the element that is featured least is his audience. Even though his was not totally an art-for-art's-sake approach the contemplation with the poet's role receives a extremely low priority from Keats and is largely implied rather than stated. This types a striking contrast to its value to Arnold for whom consideration from the audience, and also the poet's role, became almost inseparable from his contemplation on the art of poetry. Indeed, as Reist notes, Arnold's discussions of the theory of poetry and its criticism were largely limited to his call for "disinterestedness" on a component on the critic "rather than the principles with the work, the unity on the poem, the power from the imitation, or the totality from the parts of the whole" (21). Instead he was concerned--oddly, it may seem, for a critic--with remaining "aloof from practice" and, as he said, allowing the free play in the critic's mind to "know one of the most which is known and idea from the world, and by its turn, generating this known, to generate a modern day of actual and fresh ideas" (quoted in Reist 21). His project was, as Armstrong puts it, "to recentre English poetry in a moral tradition" and also the genuine creation of poetry, for which he favored a plain and severe style, became subordinate towards message to a big degree (208). In his critical appraisals and discussion of poetic course of action it became the case that "the needs of poetry and prose" have been extremely close simply because "prose could be the right medium on the crucial power" and Arnold conceived of poetry like a techniques of discussing the moral requirements and failures of contemporary society (Roper 33).

It is, on the other hand far from Keats' aim to convey a mere moral within the tragic love of Lorenzo and Isabella. It is, instead, the nature of tragic adore itself that he explores and this subject, although interesting in itself, can hardly be said to lend itself towards the high moral purposes for which Arnold thought poetry.

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