“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words” (Robert Frost). The quote is especially true for the Shakespearean sonnets which are traditionally about love. People can express the thought of love through words on a page. In the Shakespearean sonnet, “Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art”, the author, John Keats, expresses his love towards a woman named Isabella Jones. At the time, they were just friends, but Keats wanted their relationship to go further. To express Keats’s love towards Jones, he uses comparison of a star’s qualities to explain their love.
The personification of a star expresses the main theme of eternity. In the first lines Keats writes, “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou …show more content…
Keats writes, “No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable” to convey the theme of eternity (9). In the line, still rimes with stedfast. Still connotes unmoving, motionless going on with the idea of eternity while stedfast means “resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering”. Keats connects the two ideas with alliteration conveying that his love is eternally loyal. To convey the sensation of being with Jones, Keats writes, “To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, / Awake for ever in a sweet unrest” (11-12). There is alliteration existing in the form of soft, swell, and sweet to express the positives of being together in unrest. The idea of unrest means they are forever awake, eternally awake. People need sleep, but for Keats, it does not matter if he is awake or sleeping as long as he is together with his beloved Jones. In the last lines, Keats writes, “Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath” (13). The strong alliteration of Still, still and hear, her and tender, taken shows that Keats wants to do this forever. The repeats still in these lines and throughout the poem make it seem like he is still doing it today. He is repeating words to give a sense of eternity. Doing a job repeatedly gives the effect of endless work and makes people think when they will get to the end. The ending line says “And so live ever—or else swoon to death” (14). Keats has given himself …show more content…
“Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque / Of the snow upon the mountains and the moors” (7-8). These two lines are still referring to the star watching over the earth. The star is looking at the mountains and moors, an expanse of open rolling infertile land, connoting a barren, lonely, uninhabitable piece of land. The strong image comparing people to nature strongly suggests Keats is having a bad experience with his lover since he is comparing his beloved to a cold barren place. Keats is losing faith Suddenly he turns it around by saying, “No-yet still stedfast, still unchangeable” conveys that Keats and Jones love will never be changed even through bad times. That they will not loose confidence in their