“I Have Lov’d the Principle of Beauty in All Things”: The Keatsian Idea of Beauty in “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” & Hyperion

Whenever anyone thinks about the poetry of John Keats, the word beauty instantly comes to mind. His most famous poems include themes that encompass the world of beauty and imagination that Keats creates with his words. Keats has been seen as a superficial person who was interested in a superficial beauty that would not last. In this tradition, Keats’s idea of beauty, presented both in his letters and his poetry, is something stagnant and unchanging. Keats, however, had a mind that was always wondering, an eye that was always searching for some bit of truth that he could create both with his senses and with his imagination. Keats perceived beauty as an imaginative journey into his own soul, starting with his senses and ending with his poetry. He spoke of this journey in his poetry and his poems. He felt that beauty was not something that came naturally, but something that was acquired in many ways, including suffering. In a letter to his brother and sister-in-law he reveals his deepest feelings and tells them that he feels that beauty is not as simple as most consider it to be; the best beauty is found in the soul and is “made” through suffering. He explains that the acquisition of beauty, or a beautiful soul, can be seen as a journey through the pains and suffering of this world. Keats saw himself as a pilgrim on the journey to make his own soul, or inner beauty. In this journey, Keats would evolve from a lover of a surface beauty, one that can be considered superficial, to an admirer of a deeper beauty that could be found deep within the soul. “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” and “Hyperion” reveal a journey of the imagination through which Keats illustrated his true idea of beauty, a beauty not on the surface but deep within the soul