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'The poetry of earth is never dead': Meteorology and Myth in Keats's Grasshopper Sonnet.

  • Published In: Romanticism, 2024, v. 30, n. 2. P. 140 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Comet, Noah 3 of 3

Abstract

Keats's 1816 competition sonnet 'On the Grasshopper and Cricket' is easily dismissed as juvenilia, but when read with an eye to his interest in Greek mythology, the poem rewards further attention. In particular, the myth of Tithonus, who gained eternal life without eternal youth and was transformed into either a grasshopper or cricket, situates Keats's immortal 'poetry of earth' in an ambivalent context that, in turn, makes sense of otherwise curiously neutral language. This ambivalent framing also encourages a new reading of the poem as a product of 1816, 'the year without a summer', building a case for the sonnet as an example of what Nikki Hessell has called Keats's 'botany of absence' in the 1817 Poems volume more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:Romanticism. 2024/07, Vol. 30, Issue 2, p140
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Publication Date:2024
  • ISSN:1354-991X
  • DOI:10.3366/rom.2024.0642
  • Accession Number:178021593
  • Copyright Statement:Copyright of Romanticism is the property of Edinburgh University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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