Synaesthesia in Keats� Poetry:

Synaesthetic imagery or sensuousness is the paramount quality in Keats� poetry. Keats� synaesthetic powers are unrivalled: nothing in the world is abstract to him, abstractions weary him. Keats admits, �My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.� And that aesthetic dream-life which is separated so sharply from the reality is more desireable.

Keats has crowned every line of his poetry with beautiful colouring of synaesthetic imagery. Richard H. Fogle calls his synaesthesia as the product of his �unrivalled ability to absorb, sympathise, and humanise natural objects�. Synaesthesia in Keats, according to him, is a �natural concomitant of other qualities of his poetry�.

Sensuousness is that quality of poetry that appeals to our five senses of taste, touch, smell, vision and hearing. Keats� sensuousness was unbounded: the song of a bird, the changing pattern of wind, the rustling of an animal, the smile on the child�s face�nothing escaped from her watchful eyes. G.K Chesterton rightly remarks:

�The record of taste, touch and smell crown every line of his poetry.�

The following lines from �The Eve of St. Agnes� appeal directly to our five senses.

�Of all her wreathed pearls her hair she frees

 Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one

 Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees

 Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees

 Half-hidden like a mermaid in sea-weed.�

In the sonnet, �Bright Star�, Keats spreads fantastic colours of synaesthetic imagery.

�Pillowed upon my fair love�s ripening breast

  To feel for ever its soft fall and swell

  Awake forever in a state of sweet unrest

  Still, still to hear tender taken breath

  And so live ever�or else swoon to death.�

The quality of sensuousness is so deeply infused in Keats� poetry that Louis McNiece calls him �a sensuous mystic�. Keats is mystic of senses and not of thoughts as he sought to apprehend the ultimate truth of the universe through his aesthetic sensations and not through intellectual or philosophical ideas.

Regarding Keats� sensuousness Mathew Arnold very aptly remarks:

�No one can question the eminency in Keats� poetry of the quality of sensuousness. Keats as a poet is eminently and enchantingly sensuous.�

Keats� sensuousness is seen at his very best in his odes. Keats is primarily and pre-eminently is a poet of sensations and not of intellect. In �Ode on a Grecian Urn�, for example, Keats produces a series of sensuous pictures by his powerful imagination.

�Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard

 Are sweeter; therefore ye soft pipes play on

  Not to the sensual ear but more endeared

  Pipes to the spirit ditties of no tone.�

In �Ode to Autumn�, Keats produces a feast of colourful images.

�Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

 Close bosom-friend of maturing sun

 Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run

To bend with apples moss�d cottage-trees.�

Perhaps the best illustration of Keats� synaesthetic imagery is in his �Ode to a Nightingale�. Here Keats� imaginative powers are seen at the very best.

�O for a draught of vintage! That hath been

  Cooled a long in deep delved earth

  Tasting of flora and country green

Dance, Provencal song and sunburnt mirth.�

Owing to dense foliage of beach trees the poet cannot see the flowers but still can differentiate them from their fragrance:

�I cannot see what flowers are at my feet

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs

But in embalmed darkness guess each sweet.�

In Keats� late poetry we see that it underwent a change. There is increasing concern of human problems and longing for death. Nevertheless sensuousness is still wearing its fairy pattern though colouring is different: it is touched with �still sad music of humanity�:

�Then in a wailful choir small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows born aloft

  Or sinking as light wind lives or dies.�

In the final stanza of �Ode to Autumn�, Keats enthusiastically presents universal and all-embracing sensuous images which enthrall and enchant us:

�Hedge-cricket sings and now with treble soft

  The red-breast whistle from a garden croft

 And gathering swallows twittering in the skies.�

The above lines are so beautiful in rhythm and composition that Compton Rickett finds a �symphony of sounds� in these lines.

Summing up, we can say that poetry comes to Keats as a �joy wrought in sensations� and he accordingly advised Shelley to �load every rift with ore�. Be it ode or sonnet or narrative poetry, Keats is richly sensuous. Keats� sensuousness is not only delicate and delicious but also aesthetic and delightful.