John Keats’s poetic understanding of reality should be considered the eighth wonder of the world. Ironically, his pursuit of beauty reinforces this idea. Though deceased young, Keats truly shows in his poetry how he perceived the world’s beauties and the poetry in the things around him to be what inspired fulfilled living. As readers of Keats’s work, we are taken all over the spectrum of emotions, natural elements, human relationships, self-reflection, and more, while always looking through the same lens: admiration for the beauty found in each of these things.

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The poem “To Autumn” starts with the line “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” (line 1). Here we are presented with the uttermost springing of life, setting the tone for the rest of the lines that are about to follow. High expectations develop by reading this first line, and there is something so unique about the declaration of fulness of living. The transition of seasons, welcoming a brand-new Autumn, is described with imagery that points to overwhelming existence. Hazel shells, sweet kernels, flowers, blessings, peaceful sleep, clouds over the “soft-dying day,” light wind, lambs, choirs of crickets, birds twittering in the skies. The narrator finds himself in my ideal world. Perfect weather, nature is unified, welcoming life, transition, and change. The beauty we see here is of resurrection. And Keats knows that full well.

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Perhaps, coming from a different perspective increases our understanding of beauty as well. Moving away from the passionate and peaceful characteristics of beauty, “Ode to Melancholy” portrays the undying nature of beauty even in suffering. Here we really get a feel for how disconnected the concept of beauty can be from our understanding of it. A beautiful thing isn’t only found in positive circumstances, and that is clear for the narrator as well. Keats writes that “the melancholy fit shall fall” (line 11), one which is compared to a weeping cloud, droop-headed flowers, present in heaven and green hills, all elements of nature that at first will be associated with peace and light. The presence of melancholy doesn’t make the beauty of the things just cited, absent. On the contrary, it falls on top of it and it happens in such a way that this underlying beauty sustains the poetry inside the sadness. The narrator proceeds to explain that this melancholy “dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die” (line 21), and that along with these we find Joy, who is simply waiting to poison its carrier. The conclusion of this poem is that beauty is deadly, but nonetheless, it is beauty. Beauty is deadly to melancholy because it threatens its very natural state of depression.

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Keats’s work is highly reliant on human emotional states, and it is impossible to talk deeply about those without using vulnerability and the pursuit of the beautiful as the main tools and weapons. The reason why it is our responsibility as readers and writers to defend his artistic reputation is simply that he is right. While beauty might sound like an abstract concept, and there have been centuries of philosophical debates around its nature, at a very young age, John Keats managed to profoundly understand and encapsulate in writing the omnipresence of beauty. This vision of beauty honors God because through it we recognize that nothing in all creation is exempt from its share of beauty and reflection, understanding in more depth, that our Creator is the most creative artist we could ever know. If Keats had the chance to write a poem about his death, I am sure there would be at least a million different ways in which he could have faithfully found and expressed the meaning of beauty in that experience.

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44478/ode-on-melancholy