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Anurag Chauhan
John Keats on the Truth of Imagination in his Letter to Benjamin Bailey, November 22, 1817
What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.
In his classic style of coating nutty wit in the sugary veil of words, in 1836, Charles Dickens articulates,
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
“Fill your glass again, with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one.” He wrote this in his short piece “A Christmas Dinner”, published in the collection “Sketches by Boz” in newspapers and periodicals.
Dickens reflects here the sense of joy of living in the present moment and focusing on the time we have in hand right now rather than being drowned in the troublesome history we may have, which is anyway less valuable than the abundance of the moments of joy today.
John Keats’s Letter to Benjamin Bailey
On November 22, 1817, John Keats wrote a letter to Benjamin Bailey, a close friend of Keats who had recently visited him in Oxford, where Bailey was an undergraduate of theology. It was on this visit that Keats composed the third book of Endymion which reminds me of that classic serene line — “a thing of beauty is a joy forever”.
This letter is often appropriately titled “The Authenticity of the Imagination” primarily because of the concerns that Keats raises on the nature of the depth of human imagination and the relative struggle of truth and man’s musings. He talks about how human character and personality influences the way a certain thing is interpreted in our minds.
In his letter to Bailey, Keats shares his feelings and views about the entanglement of religion, truth and thoughts that he sees when he meditates on the dilemma of falling into the objections of a philosophical argument of the fundamental question of beauty and imagination, where he goes on to quote great works of literature like Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality” and Milton’s “Paradise Lost” to put up insights and refine his ideas.
He even cites bits from his own works and poems to explain to Bailey what he really sees on the murals of his heart as the canvas of “the Truth of Imagination”.
Genius and a Poet's Heart
John Keats begins his letter with a thought that, he says, “has pressed upon me lately and increased my Humility and capability of submission.” Keats says that he wishes that Bailey would know all that he thinks about “Genius and the Heart”, or he could not have known him even that long and still hold Keats worthy to be his dear friend.
But Keats admits that he has been struck by a thought lately which has made him more modest and acquiescent in nature, and that is this truth —
Men of Genius are great as certain ethereal Chemicals operating on the Mass of neutral intellect — by [for but] they have not any individuality, any determined Character. I would call the top and head of those who have a proper self - Men of Power.
Keats explains that the calmness and serenity of the minds of the “Men of Genius” are what makes them be seen by Keats as the “Men of Power”, for they do not have any rigid individuality or any strongly defined personal identity and character, which allows them to be malleable enough for new ideas and progress.
Almost one year later, Keats elaborates more on this idea of his in another letter to Richard Woodhouse on October 27, 1818, where he writes,
… to make some observations on two principle points, which seem to point like indices into the midst of the whole pro and con, about genius, and views and achievements and ambition and et cetera.
…
As to the poetical Character itself, (I mean that sort of which, if I am anything, I am a Member; that sort distinguished from the Wordsworthian or egotistical sublime; which is a thing per se and stands alone) it is not itself — it has no self — it is everything and nothing — It has no character — it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated — It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous Philosopher, delights the chameleon Poet.
Here, Keats talks about the Human Character like a pliable trunk of a tree which is mocked by other trees of rigid and strong trunks but at the time of a windy storm, only the pliable tree is able to survive whilst the others are beheaded, for he is wise enough to bend with the winds of time and respect life without the “egotistical sublime” that Keats saw in the works of Wordsworth.
“A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity” Keats exclaims. He is continually in for filling some other Body — The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute — the poet has none; no identity — he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God’s Creatures.
The Authenticity of the Imagination
After talking about Human Genius and Character, John Keats says that he is now sure of the inception of thoughts about “The Authenticity of the Imagination” in Benjamin Bailey’s mind.
Keats emphasizes that he is now certain of nothing “but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of imagination.” He says that Imagination and Truth are just two entities held together with a fine thread of Beauty.
What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth — whether it existed before or not — for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty.
The last lines of “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by Keats burns with the same sense of clarity, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all… Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
John Keats, to illustrate further, then refers to the previous letter that he sent to Benjamin Bailey some weeks ago where he included some excerpts of the song “O Sorrow” from Endymion IV.
O Sorrow - John Keats, Endymion IV
… Ah me, how I could love! — My soul doth melt For the unhappy youth — Love! I have felt So faint a kindness, such a meek surrender To what my own full thoughts had made too tender, That but for tears my life had fled away! — Ye deaf and senseless minutes of the day, And thou, old forest, hold ye this for true, There is no lightning, no authentic dew But in the eye of love: there's not a sound, Melodious howsoever, can confound The heavens and earth in one to such a death As doth the voice of love: there's not a breath Will mingle kindly with the meadow air, Till it has panted round, and stolen a share Of passion from the heart! …
John Keats elucidates with an analogous example from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost - VIII” that the Imagination may be compared to Adam’s dreams — “he awoke and found it truth.” Here Keats refers to the excerpt of Milton’s work where Adam dreams of Eve and upon waking finds her present before him.
Paradise Lost: Book VIII - John Milton, 1674
Of sleep, which instantly fell on me, call'd By Nature as in aide, and clos'd mine eyes. Mine eyes he clos'd, but op'n left the Cell Of Fancie my internal sight, by which Abstract as in a transe methought I saw, Though sleeping, where I lay, and saw the shape Still glorious before whom awake I stood;
…
Such as I saw her in my dream, adornd With what all Earth or Heaven could bestow To make her amiable: On she came, Led by her Heav'nly Maker, though unseen, And guided by his voice, nor uninformd Of nuptial Sanctitie and marriage Rites: Grace was in all her steps, Heav'n in her Eye, In every gesture dignitie and love. I overjoyd could not forbear aloud.
O Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts
John Keats writes that he is more passionate about knowing the truth of imagination because “I have never yet been able to perceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning.” And yet it must be — Can it be that even the greatest Philosopher ever arrived at his goal without putting aside numerous objections?
Keats calls Sensations the fundamental of Life and Human experience and not Thoughts, contrary to what James Allen expounded in his well-founded “As a Man Thinketh”. He says it is a “Vision in the form of Youth”, a Shadow of reality to come — that we shall enjoy ourselves here after by having what we call happiness on Earth repeated in a finer tone and so repeated.
And yet such a fate can only befall those, Keats comments, “who delight in sensation rather than hunger as you (Benjamin Bailey) do after Truth — Adam’s dream will do here and seems to be a conviction that Imagination and its empyreal reflection is the same as Human Life and its spiritual repetition.”
John Keats delineates that the simple Imaginative Mind may have its rewards in the repetition of its own silent Working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness — to compare great things with small.
He explains with an example, “have you never by being surprised with an old Melody —in a delicious place—by a delicious voice, felt over again your very speculations and surmises at the time it first operated on your soul—do you not remember forming to yourself the singer's face more beautiful than it was possible and yet with the elevation of the Moment you did not think so— even then you were mounted on the Wings of Imagination so high—that the Prototype must be here after—that delicious face you will see.”
Keats calls Bailey’s mind “Philosophic”, a complex mind — “one that is imaginative and at the same time careful of its fruits — who would exist partly on sensation partly on thought. Therefore, it is necessary to your eternal Happiness, Keats writes that “you not only drink this old Wine of Heaven which I shall call the redigestion of our most ethereal Musings on Earth; but also increase in knowledge and know all things.”
Here Keats refers to an excerpt from William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”, when he writes, “that years should bring the philosophic mind.”
Ode: Intimations of Immortality - William Wordsworth, 1807
… We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind …
Living in the Present Moment
In the final passage of his letter to Benjamin Bailey, Keats says that the world is full of troubles and “I have not much reason to think myself pestered with many — I think Jane or Marianne has a better opinion of me than I deserve — for really and truly I do not think my Brothers illness connected with mine — you know more of the real Cause than they do — nor have I any chance of being rack’d as you have been.”
Jane and Marianne were sisters of Keats’s close friend John Hamilton Reynolds, to whom he addressed many of the letters. Keats’s brother Tom was ill of tuberculosis, from which he died on December 1, 1818. The “real cause” of Keats’s illness was once thought to be a venereal infection, which W. J. Bate, Keats’s most authoritative biographer, rejected. Benjamin Bailey has been “rack’d” by the pains of an unhappy love affair that Keats here puts up.
John Keats says, “you perhaps at one time thought there was such a thing as Worldly Happiness to be arrived at, at certain periods of time marked out — you have of necessity from your disposition been thus led away.”
On this Keats remarks,
I scarcely remember counting upon any Happiness — I look not for it if it be not in the present hour—nothing startles me beyond the Moment. The setting sun will always set me to rights — or if a Sparrow come before my Window, I take part in its existence and pick about the Gravel.
The first thing that strikes Keats on hearing a misfortune having befallen another is, he says, “Well, it cannot be helped. He will have the pleasure of trying the resources of his spirit.”
Keats then apologizes to Bailey for if he sounded any antagonistic to him, “I beg now my dear Bailey that hereafter should you observe anything cold in me not to but [for put] it to the account of heartlessness but abstraction — for I assure you I sometimes feel not the influence of a Passion or Affection during a whole week — and so long this sometimes continues I begin to suspect myself and the genuineness of my feelings at other times — thinking them a few barren Tragedy-tears.”
Lastly Keats informs Bailey of his brother Tom Keats that he “is much improved — he is going to Devonshire — whither I shall follow him — …”
Your affectionate friend,
John Keats
Read and Contemplate on the George Orwell's portrait of the ironical structure of society in the cycle of human nature, and then on Mulk Anand's strike on the colonial mindset and its ironical relationship with its subjects.
Get your own copy of the collection of John Keats's letters from here.
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