REVISITING IMAGERY IN KEATS: AN APPRAISAL

Abstract

“Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard/ Are sweeter...” These lines are only an instance of the magical power of words that John Keats, the youngest and perhaps the greatest of the great Romantic poets, comes to evoke so spontaneously. In creating wonderful word pictures, in arousing sensuousness, there is hardly any parallel to Keats. The present paper is an endeavour to revisit and reassess the imagery-the vivid mental pictures wrought so spontaneously-in Keats’ famous Odes, thus highlight his uniqueness in the entire range of British poetry.