UNIFICATION OF THOUGHT AND FEELING: TRACING SENSIBILITY IN KEATS’ “ODE ON A GRECIAN URN”

Abstract

Romantic literature, especially poetry, is different from modern literature. In fact, romanticism is contrary to modernism in approach and style. John Keats’ poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1899) is a literary masterpiece and a representative poem of romantic literature whereas T. S. Eliot is a modern poet, writer and critic. Eliot believes in man’s intelligence and sensibility whereas the romantic writers and poets gave importance to the overflow of powerful emotions and feelings. So, it is quite interesting to find Eliot’s concepts in the works of romantic writers. This study explores Eliot’s concept of unified sensibility in John Keats’ poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1899). It finds that Keats’ poem, a leading romantic masterpiece, projects and deals with unified and refined sensibility. In the poem, thought is felt and feeling is thought and meditated well. Emotion and reason are artistically compressed into one to make a new whole. This exploration of unification and thought and feeling is quite significant and relevant to our contemporary civilization which is full of diversity and complexity and calls for such refined sensibility. This study may provoke further research that intends to analyze and explore enriched and fascinating romantic literature with
multiple theoretical yardsticks in order to dig out its true meaning and significance with the express purpose of relating it to contemporary times.