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John Keats |
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There has been a frequent application of the HISTORICAL approach in the engagement of Keats's poetry, with emphasis on his place in the great unfolding tradition of British poetry. Such studies have also dealt with his own sense of his place in that tradition, particularly in terms of the influence upon him of the poetry of John Milton. Also, given the many different components of the term Romanticism in relation to the major poets to whom that label is customarily attached, attention has been placed upon defining the precise meaning of the term Romantic as it applies to Keats. A BIOGRAPHICAL approach has also been taken, both in terms of the circumstances under which his great works were written and in terms of the ways in which the circumstances of his life colored both the kind of poetry that he wrote and the thematic emphases of that poetry.
Given some of his subjects, it almost goes without saying that Keats has frequently been subjected to a MYTHOLOGICAL analysis. And, as is customarily the case with any poet whose work has entered the standard canon--and in his particular case, in the light of his own detailed and often intriguing comments on the nature of poetry and the poetic process--the dominant thrust of criticism of his work has of course been in the FORMALIST mode.
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