“A poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence, because he has no identity—he is continually in for—and filling some other Body”. This profound statement by John Keats, a romantic poet and author of “Isabella, or the Pot of Basil”, sets before the reader a conflict and a truth: the conflict of the statement lies inside individual perspectives, while the truth falls inside ones own experience. This statement tests black, white and grey areas and unlocks a great philosophical debate of its own. The statement is also the opening sentence for E. Douka Kabitoglou’s analasis article Adapting Philosophy to Literature: the Case of John Keats, in which Kabitoglou does exactly that. His article covers a number of related topics, such as the understanding of poetical identity, a philosophy that follows the same line of thought as Keats’s infamous statement. Kabitoglou drives the reader to delve into the significance of identity, its great exception to poem authors, and whether the losing of oneself in one’s poetry is a cost-benefit analysis for the ages: lose one’s identity in return for the “understanding” and “knowledge” that comes with taking on the identity of pure beauty? If this isn’t already a Philosophical-fest Kabitoglou pursues the relation of beauty and truth through conflicted greats like Plato, Aristole, Milton and Coleridge. “what is systematic beauty?” “Can what is ugly be true?” and “what are we supposed to learn from beauty?” are just are a few of the questions the dissections of the former poets imposed on Keats yield. In some ways, it all is greatly relatable to this blog, and Isabella in particular. Keats’s intentions of making the tragedy of Isabella out to be a teachable, beautiful tale, as well as the identity of a poet are two examples. The Headless Boyfriend is about Isabella, but the Keats’s “truth” is more worthwhile than the more obvious tragedy.
One of the interesting points that came to me during my reading of Adapting Philosophy to Literature: the Case of John Keats struck me when I came across the poet’s arguments on Beauty, its relationship to truth, and the understanding that comes with beauty and truth combined. In particular it made me think about the tragedy of Isabella and what Keats really intended for the poem to be. In the article, Kobitoglou follows the poets’ musings. Its agonizing. Kobitoglou makes his analysis by examining multiple poets’ perspectives on this subject, from multiple different angles. To sum up the section, John Keats himself makes a crucial point in the form of prose:
“ ‘where the doth nightingale doth sing/ not a senseless, traced thing, / but divine melodious truth; / philosophic numbers smooth.’”
My interpretation of it is that the singing of the bird, even though it is not scripted or a direct attempt of the bird to make joyous noise, is beautiful. The beauty of the singing might be unintentional, but that does not make it senseless. This spontaneous, beautiful song from a seemingly unimportant piece of nature is evidence enough to Keats that there is real Beauty, and that beauty is truth, and therefore by listening to the song of the bird, we can speculate and maybe understand. What’s more, Keats (much like Plato and Aristole) comes to the conclusion that systems and machinations of man are insufficient to explain truth. Rather, Keats, Kibotoglou, Plato, and Shaftsburry explain beauty as the “voice” of the universe:
“ ‘ the truth of the universe speaks, as it were, through the phenomenon of beauty; it is no longer inaccessible, but requires a means of ecpression, a language in which the meaning of this truth, its real logos, is first completely revealed’”.
This ultimum, of course, leads to questions of the beauty of intellectual power, the reason for beauty in systematic phenomenon, and the learning points of purity, which you can all read for yourselves in the article which you can read here. However, we have reached the point that so strikes me in regards to Isabella. In a way, it strikes me that all this(explanations of beauty, truth, and learning) reverses the entire story of Isabella, or the Pot of Basil. The story of a young maiden and lad in love, separated by social distinction, cleaved from each other by jealous cruelty, only to find that their love is strong enough to bloom as a shrine to that one love from beyond the grave, leaving one dead girl to waste away from absence of a pure, innocent love, cannot be, by the poets understanding of love, be a tragedy! In complete opposite the poem can be beauty, and therefore truth, and therefore it provides an understanding to us through understanding the meanings and symbolism of the poem.
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