WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY
CEASE TO BE
JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)
MORE ABOUT THE POET
John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 . John was born in
central London.
In the summer of 1803, unable to attend Eton or Harrow because
of expense, he was sent to board at John Clarke's school, close to
his grandparents' house.
The headmaster's son, Charles Cowden Clarke, was to become an
important influence, mentor and friend, and introduced Keats to a
great deal of Renaissance literature.
In April 1804, only nine months after Keats had started at Enfield,
his father died when he fractured his skull after falling from his
horse on a return visit to the school.
Frances remarried two months afterwards, but left her new
husband soon after and, with her four children, went to live with the
children's grandmother, Alice Jennings.
In March 1810, when Keats was 14, his mother died of
TB leaving the children in the custody of their
grandmother.
Jennings appointed two guardians to take care of the
children.
That autumn, Keats was removed from Clarke's school
to apprentice with Thomas Hammond — a surgeon and
apothecary.
Until 1813 he lodged with Hammond and slept in the
attic above the surgery.
In 1815, Keats registered as a medical student.
Within a month of starting, he was accepted for a
dressership position within the hospital — a significant
promotion with increased responsibility and workload,
taking up precious writing time and increasing his
ambivalence to working in medicine.
Strongly drawn by an ambition inspired by fellow poets
but beleaguered by family financial crises that continued
to the end of his life, he suffered periods of deep
depression.
His brother George wrote that John "feared that he
should never be a poet, & if he was not he would
destroy himself".
In 1816, Keats received his apothecary's licence but
before the end of the year he announced to his
guardian that he had resolved to be a poet, not a
surgeon.
In bad health and unhappy with living in London, in April
1817 Keats moved with his brothers into rooms at 1
Well Walk.
Both John and George nursed their brother Tom, who
was suffering from tuberculosis.
In July, while on a walking tour, Keats caught a bad cold
and "was too thin and fevered to proceed on the
journey".
On his return south, Keats continued to nurse Tom,
exposing himself to the highly infectious disease.
His brother, Tom Keats died on 1 December 1818.
Keats went to Italy to recover, but he died in Rome a
few months later in 1821 at the age of 26.
WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY CEASE TO BE
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the fairy power
Of unreflecting love; - then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Form/Structure: Shakespearian Sonnet – 3
Quatrains and a Rhyming Couplet
Abab cdcd efef gg
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; 4
1
2
3
Lines 1-4: The poet is afraid that he may die
(cease to be) before he has turned into literature
the abundance of thoughts and ideas in his
mind, before he has completed a high pile of
books in writing that contain all his rich ideas and
thoughts, just like a granary filled with ripe grain.
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
5
6
7
8
Lines 5-8: When he looks at the romantic figures
formed in the night sky, he fears that he may not
live long enough to include his ideas about them
in his writing.
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
10
Never have relish in the fairy power
11
Of unreflecting love; - then on the shore
12
9
Lines 9-12: He fears that he will never again see
the beautiful woman, whom he has known for
only an hour, to enjoy the fairy-like, spontaneous
love that may grow from the relationship.
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
13
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
14
Lines 13-14: When the poet has these fears, he
feels like standing alone on the brink of death,
and he thinks how insignificant love and fame
will be in the wide expanse of God’s creation.
glean’d (line 2): harvested, gathered
teeming (line 2): alive, bursting with ideas and
thoughts
charactery (line 3): letters, word and symbols
used by the poet when writing
garners (line 4): store-houses for corn
behold (line 50: see
starr’d (line5): stars covering the sky
THEME/INTERPRETATION OF THE
POEM
John Keats wrote this sonnet in 1818, three
years before his death in 1821. When reading
this poem, one realises that Keats must have
had a foreboding that he might die soon and be
unable to fulfil his ideals. He still had many ideas
and thoughts about literary works that he wanted
to write before he died. Still being a young man
(23 when he wrote this poem), he feared that he
also would not have the opportunity to develop a
romantic love relationship with a woman. The
FIGURES OF SPEECH
Euphemism: ‘that I may cease to be” (line 1 ):
euphemism for death
Personification: “Before my pen has glean’d
my teeming brain” – comparing his pen to
gleaners who have cleaned the corn fields of
corn. He wants his pen to write down all the
ideas he has before he dies.
“the night’s starr’d face” – the stars covering the
night sky