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interest in poetic inspiration , as the poet grows and matures ( frequently expressed by the riverbank setting ). All these critically appear to be missing in ‘ To Autumn ’, but on closer examination this starts to appear mistaken .
Winchester is for Keats an ecclesiastical city : he called it “ Abbotine ”. “ This Winchester is a place tolerably well suited to me ”, he told George and Georgiana Keats in September 1819 ,“ there is a fine Cathedral , a College , a Roman-Catholic Chapel , a Methodist ditto , an independent ditto … There are a number of rich Catholics in the place . It is a respectable , ancient aristocratical place – and moreover it contains a nunnery .” Keats ’ s aesthetic views were likewise distinctive . Two chief principles emerge from the letters . The first is Negative Capability , Keats told George and Tom Keats in December 1817 ,“ that is , when a man is capable of being in uncertainties , mysteries , doubts , without any irritable reaching after fact and reason ”. Second was an opposition to blatant messaging : “ We hate poetry that has palpable designs upon us ”, Keats wrote to Reynolds on 3 February the following year . “ The only means of strengthening one ’ s intellect is to make up one ’ s mind about nothing ”, he told George and Georgiana Keats in the ‘ Journal ’ letter of 17-27 September 1819 ,“ to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts ”.
These principles have in common a propensity to hide the obvious , thus challenging the critic to identify the hidden . This challenge , perhaps unsurprisingly , results in the discovery of the distinctive Wartonian trilogy of topography , poetic persona , and aesthetics .
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Bowles ’ s sonnets were topographical : they featured a particular place , or a particular river . ‘ To Autumn ’, though written in a significant place , lacks specificity of location . The Wartons gave us rivers ; Bowles , Coleridge and Wordsworth gave us ruins . ‘ Tintern Abbey ’ was a poem Keats knew and greatly admired , but its influence on ‘ To Autumn ’ has generally escaped recognition . As Jonathan Bate has recently explained , Wordsworth ’ s poem avoids Tintern Abbey ’ s riverside setting and ruins ; these were the clichés of earlier texts inspired by this locus classicus of a poetic site . ‘ To Autumn ’ is a poem conceived on a walk along a river towards an ecclesiastical edifice of historic distinction , yet it mentions neither . This river walk is almost exclusively concerned with land . The need is not for the songs of spring but the irrigations of winter . What a field day Vivaldi would have had . It is as though there is no irrigation , only fruitfulness , a fruitfulness that can only self-destruct . A gleaner crosses a brook , but the emphasis is on carrying a load , not crossing a river . Save for three mentions (“ steady thy laden head across a brook ”,“ hilly bourn ” and the “ river sallows ”) what we are conscious of is the fruitfulness of the land and the maturation of the sun . The river is noticeably absent . |
Warton and Bowles stressed the development of the narrating poetic persona . In Keats , the narrator and his development have disappeared . The classic romantic recipe ( nature inspires poet , who produces poem ) is also discarded . Teasingly there is a personification only in stanza two . The figure appears only to disappear . There is no poetic persona . There is , indeed , almost not even a poet .
The tripartite time structure derives from Warton and Bowles , but Keats is significantly more sophisticated . Time becomes as teasing as place : simultaneously fluent and static . There is progress , yet no progress . Every stanza is about autumn , but autumn is three seasons in one : early autumn , mid-autumn , and the heralding of winter . This is comparable to the progression through a day : morning , afternoon , and dusk ; and a comparable shift from tactile , visual , and aural .
‘ To Autumn ’ is full of uncertainties . It lacks any palpable design . Its title suggests it is about autumn ,
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but in the poem , time is poised and does not move , unlike any river , or unlike any crumbling ecclesiastical edifice . Keats portrays no specific riparian path , rather he creates a “ thoroughfare for all thoughts ”. The poem is an achievement of Keats ’ s ideals , and heralds a change of occupation as well as of mood . Summer , with its Nightingale and Grecian Urn , was behind him . This was the end of poetry as far as Keats was concerned . A path involves a progress , especially in Bowles or Warton . Yet this poem envisages none . Keats must reconcile himself not only to leaving a poetic career , but to leaving life altogether .
As Keats walked , two hundred years ago today , beside a river towards St Cross , he knew that his path was blocked by two enormous elephants . The path of the Wartons and of Bowles had reached a terminus . Keats ’ s capability was negative .
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The City from St Giles Hill at Sunset , by George Shepherd . |
Views along the River Itchen . Photos credit : Chris Andrews . |