Abstract

John Keats loved the out-of-doors - flowers, birds, water, fresh air, the sun, the moon, and the seasons. The sight, sound, or touch of nature could send him into emphatic responses. Keats never stopped responding to the sensations of nature. But his letters and poems record a movement from thinking of nature as scenery providing sensations to seeing nature as a source of truths about how and why men live. In Keats and Nature, Lillie Jugurtha analyzes this philosophical evolution which climaxed in a metaphysical view of nature (organicism). Jugurtha shows how this conception of nature allows one to read Endymion, Hyperion, and The Fall of Hyperion with new understanding and pleasure - how it augments readings of minor poems, The Eve of St. Agnes, Lamia, and the great odes.