Keats, John - John A. Minahan (essay date 1992)
John A. Minahan (essay date 1992)
SOURCE: "The Varieties of Musical Experience," in Word Like a Bell: John Keats, Music and the Romantic Poet, The Kent State University Press, 1992, pp. 29-44.
[In the following essay, Minahan investigates the various functions of music in Keats's poetry, noting that music serves as an enjoyable escape, as a magical, "special" experience, and as an imaginative experience which offers insight into the ordinary. Minahan also observes the connection between music and one of Keats's most lauded ideals, truth.]
Allusion as articulation: Keats's use of music as an idea, although it tells us a great deal about the poet's attitude toward music, also tells us much more. We might re-collect—bring to attention again and differently—the passage from the verse epistle "To Charles Cowden Clarke" that we examined in the preface.
… my heart
Was warm'd luxuriously by divine Mozart,
By Arne...
[The entire page is 7573 words long]
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