Bright Star Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art
Text transcribed by Keats into a volume of Shakespeare in late September 1820.
"Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art" is a dearest sonnet by John Keats.
Background [edit]
It is unclear when Keats first drafted "Brilliant Star"; his biographers suggest different dates. Andrew Motion suggests it was begun in October 1819.[1] Robert Gittings states that Keats began the poem in Apr 1818 – before he met his beloved Fanny Brawne – and he later revised it for her.[2] Colvin believed it to have been in the concluding week of February 1819, immediately later on their informal engagement.
The final version of the sonnet was copied into a volume of The Poetical Works of William Shakespeare, opposite Shakespeare's poem, A Lover's Complaint. The volume had been given to Keats in 1819 by John Hamilton Reynolds. Joseph Severn maintained that the concluding draft was transcribed into the book in late September 1820 while they were aboard the ship Maria Crowther, travelling to Rome, from where the very sick Keats would never render. The book also contains one sonnet by his friend Reynolds and ane by Severn. Keats probably gave the volume to Joseph Severn in January 1821 earlier his death in February, aged 25.[3] [4] Severn believed that it was Keats's last poem and that information technology had been composed especially for him.
The verse form came to be forever associated with the "Vivid Star" Fanny Brawne – with whom Keats became infatuated. Gittings says it was given equally "a declaration of his beloved."[5]
It was officially published in 1838 in The Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal, 17 years later Keats'southward death.
The text [edit]
Bright star! would I were stedfast every bit thou fine art—
Not in solitary splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids autonomously,
Like Nature'southward patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike job
Of pure ablution round globe's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—nonetheless still stedfast, however unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft autumn and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweetness unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And and then live ever—or else swoon to death.[vi]
Addressed to a star (perhaps Polaris, around which the heavens appear to wheel), the sonnet expresses the poet's wish to be every bit constant as the star while he presses against his sleeping love. The utilise of the star imagery is unusual in that Keats dismisses many of its more apparent qualities, focusing on the star'southward steadfast and passively watchful nature. In the start recorded draft (copied by Charles Chocolate-brown and dated to early 1819), the poet loves unto decease; past the last version, decease is an alternative to (ephemeral) love.
The poem is punctuated every bit a single sentence and uses the rhyme form of the Shakespearean sonnet (ABABCDCDEFEFGG) with the customary volta, or plough in the railroad train of thought, occurring subsequently the octave.
In popular culture [edit]
In Alexander Theroux's 1981 novel Darconville'due south True cat the verse form is discussed by the protagonist when teaching his English class.
The 2009 biopic on Keats'southward life starring Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish, focused on the final three years of his life and his relationship with Fanny Brawne. It was named Bright Star after this verse form, which is recited multiple times in the film.
In the Covert Affairs episode "Speed of Life" (Season 3, Episode four) the graphic symbol Simon Fischer admits to Annie Walker that the tattoo on his upper left shoulder blade of Ursa Small-scale was inspired past John Keats's verse form. Although she asks him, Simon doesn't tell her who in his life was his brilliant star or the reason behind getting the tattoo. This tattoo is the symbol used past Jai Wilcox to mark Simon Fischer's dossier inside the CIA.
In the DC Comics event series Heroes in Crisis issue #6 by writer Tom King and artist Clay Mann, Gnarrk recites the poem on a full page showing him lying over his mammoth under a clear beautiful sky.
References [edit]
- ^ Motion (1997) p472
- ^ Gittings (1969) p 415
- ^ Notes and Queries Article, Oxford Journals, 2006. Notes and Queries article
- ^ "See the book at the Keats House archive". Archived from the original on 2010-12-03. Retrieved 2010-06-08 .
- ^ Gittings (1968), p293-8
- ^ Keats, John (1905). Sélincourt, Ernest De (ed.). The Poems of John Keats. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. p. 288. OCLC 11128824.
Bibliography [edit]
- Colvin, Sidney. John Keats: His Life and Verse, His Friends, Critics and Afterward-Fame (London: Macmillan, 1917)
- Lancashire, Ian. 'John Keats: Vivid Star', Representative Poetry Online (Toronto: University, 2003). Retrieved July 27, 2005.
External links [edit]
- An omnibus collection of Keats' poetry at Standard Ebooks
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_star,_would_I_were_stedfast_as_thou_art
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