When I have fears - discussion and questions

     This poem falls into two major thought groups:

• Keats expresses his fear of dying young in the first thought unit, lines 1-12. He fears that he will not fulfill himself as a writer (lines 1-8) and that he will lose his beloved (lines 9-12).
• Keats resolves his fears by asserting the unimportance of love and fame in the concluding two and a half lines of this sonnet.

The poet's concern with time (not enough time to fulfill his poetic gift and love) is supported by the repetition of "when" at the beginning of each quatrain and by the shortening of the third quatrain. Keats attributes two qualities to love: (1) it has the ability to transform the world for the lovers ("faery power"), but of course fairies are not real, and their enchantments are an illusion and (2) love involves us with emotion rather than thought ("I feel" and "unreflecting love").

When I have Fears

Questions

1.1              Which type of sonnet is this?

1.2              Name ONE characteristic unique to this type of sonnet.

2.         Critically discuss the extend metaphor found in the first quatrain. Consider the following aspects in your answer: what two things are being compared; why this is an effective comparison and what the choice of words imply.

3.         What does Keats fear the most?

4.         Refer to the last two lines. What does Keats come to realize and accept at last?

Suggested answers

1.1              Shakespearean / Elizabethan

1.2              3 quatrains /  a rhyming end couplet / abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme

2.         Keats is comparing the process of writing to the harvest of grain. It is appropriate because in the same way that you glean in the grain he wants to write every last bit of poetry in his mind. Also, the words are stored in books similar to the granaries used for the harvest grain. Words like ‘rich’ and high-piled imply the abundance of his ideas.

3.         Keats is afraid of dying before he could write down the ‘harvest’ of his poems.

4.         In the end we all die and it is something we have to do alone. You cannot take fame with you when you die.