Keats- the drama queen

Extremely sorry for my lack of enthusiasm, but I'm not this biggest fan of "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art".  I see its genius and how well it is written, yet I just was not the fondest of it.  Sorry.

Still, I did try to understand the poem as a whole.  I did find it quite strange, and maybe a bit interesting that Keats, or the narrator of the poem (if not Keats), wishes to be a star.  Out of anything, you choose a star?  Romanticism.  Keats obsesses over the star, watching it with "eternal lids apart," and brings in a religious aspect to the poem by saying he looks at the stars like "nature's patient, sleepless eremite," (lines 3-4).  Honestly I found it strange that Keats goes from religious to sexual, but I'll address that later.  After Keats gives this religious remark, he also talks about waters at "priestlike task of pure ablution," (line 5).  I found that this was Keats saying that if he was an unmoving star he would have to watch all of nature with patience, and really appreciate its beauty.  He would have to look at the religious waters and the fallen snow on mountains with unchanging, open eyes.

This is where the poem switches from religious to sexual, where he speaks of mountains, and then his mind switches over to the notion that if he was a star, he would not change and could stay forever "pillow'd upon (his) fair love's ripening breast," (line 10).  He would have to concentrate on the rise and fall of her breasts and her breathing, unmoving.  It seems he would be content here, and feels like just as the star is always shining and still, he would be happy and awake forever on her breast.

I did enjoy the end line just because it was almost over-dramatic to me and made me laugh.  Keats says that if he stayed on his love's breast, he would "live ever- or else swoon to death," (line 14).  Basically he is saying he will live on forever just lying in content on his love, or he will die from watching her so intently.  Drama queen Keats.

I did find a connection between the excerpt we read in class, "Keats on Imagination and Poetry" and the poem itself.  He says he is "certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination," which definitely comes out in both the imagery of the poem, and the love interest.  Keats also explains that we are "in a Mist-- We are now in that state," between good and evil, and this comes out in the in between of religion and passion, which could possibly be seen as good and evil at this time.

To me this poem as a whole is a bit corny, but sometimes I think we see writings like these as corny because fairy tale-like writing has become so common in this day and age, but the things we read from long ago were firsts of their kind and would not have been considered corny or over-used.

Like i said, Keats' mixing of the sexual and the religious seem pretty risque for this time period, but then again everything in poetry can have sexual connotation, it just may not always be as blunt as Keats' poetry.