Closed Prompt #2- 9/20/15 My Own Response

“In the two poems below, Keats and Longfellow reflect on similar concerns. Read the poems carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two poems, analyzing the poetic techniques each writer uses to explore his particular situation.”

            In “When I have Fears” and “Mezzo Cammin,” Keats and Longfellow use a variety stylistic techniques to meditate on the fear that they will not accomplish all that they envision for themselves in life. However, each poet addresses what can only be interpreted as a “mid-life crisis” through emphasis on different concerns. While each expresses worry about the future, Keats presents a tone which reflects more positively on what he has done with his life up to the moment that the poem describes, while Longfellow articulates his despairs about his life in general and places particular weight on what went wrong. While each conveys his individual message and style through different structural patterns, the common subject of the poems produces similarities as well.

            One can plainly see upon first reading that each of these poems contain similar messages. In “When I have Fears,” Keats reflects primarily on two fears. The first is that he will not write everything he feels he can before will “cease to be” (2). This is an anxiety commonly felt by artists of any kind, because art attains value through recognition. Keats alludes to the fact that he has great potential referring to his “teeming brain” and the “full ripen’d grain” of his work (2, 4). While these words suggest that he acknowledges his own intrinsic value, his second fear is that he will not enjoy material accomplishment with the line, “Till love and fame to nothingness do I sink” (14).  In general, he sees himself as on the right track to success, but at the moment considers that it is possible he may never realize his aspirations. However, Longfellow takes a different approach. In “Mezzo Cammin,” conveys a much greater sense of hopelessness, specifically mentioning how he frittered away his early years, saying, “…I have let / The years slip from me and have not fulfilled / The aspiration of my youth…” (1-3). Keats focuses only on the future, while Longfellow spends a great deal of the poem describing what lead him to this moment of despair. Interestingly, he claims it was “a care that almost killed” that led him to be midway through life with the feeling that he has accomplished nothing (7). Keats looks ahead and sees the daunting expectations he has set for himself, while Longfellow dwells on the folly of his past.

            In addition to theme, the poets use similar imagery to convey their messages. In each poem, the future is depicted as being above the past, with each speaker standing on a plane in between. In “When I have Fears,” Keats looks up to see “huge cloudy symbols of high romance,” and Longfellow sees “The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights” (14). While each paints a similar picture in the mind of the reader, the implications are strikingly different. Keats sees his hopes and aspirations in the sky, but cloudy and undefined, which makes him anxious for the future. Longfellow’s waterfall, on the other hand, symbolizes the inevitable conclusion to what he fears will be a pointless existence all together. In the case of Keats, his future is ridden with uncertainty which exists only out of the haphazard nature of life itself. Yet, Longfellow looks down from his vantage point and sees “[a] city in the twilight dim and vast,” a terrifyingly insignificant portrait of his “past” (11, 9). As he ponders this, he looks at the waterfall above him and its irreversibility as a reminder of his own grim fate. Both poets metaphorically portray the course of their lives and express despair at the daunting future ahead, but Keats sinks “to nothingness” in the sense that he fears he will amount to nothing while Longfellow considers it the essence of his being.

            Keats and Longfellow offer two evaluations of themselves midway through life. In doing so, the offer the reader two different reasons to fear his/her own obsolescence. “When I Have Fears” is for the reader who has not yet reached his/her goals, still striving for success, but perhaps pondering the possibility that he/she will fall short. In contrast, “Mezzo Cammin” allows no consideration of success, only that worrying about the future is more damaging to it than any type of “indolence…pleasure” or “fret of restless passions” (5, 6). Through their language and imagery, both poems leave the reader questioning the value of his/her life so far, in addition to what is to come.