When I Have Fears...

Many people frequently wonder what happens after death. What will they lose? What will death be like? What will they find? These questions are asked very often, and it almost seems that one time or another, in one’s lifetime, these questions will be asked and tried to be answered. John Keats also asks these questions about deaths, and places his thoughts on death in his poem “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be”.

The poem, “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be” can be better understood by connecting what the speaker says in the poem with John Keats’s personal life history. Keats died at a young age of twenty six years, because of a serious case of tuberculosis, the same disease that killed so many of his family members. This premature death had an important effect on Keats’s writing. Also, Keats had a troubled relationship with a woman named Fanny Brawne. A series of letters between the two show that Keats and Brawne’s relationship caused Keats much pain, not joy, and this was a source of trouble for Keats. Keats did not maintain any strong relationships during his short-lived life. His troubled love life can be seen to have an effect upon “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be”.

The first four lines of the poem show Keats’s fear of not being able to complete his writing and thoughts. The line, ”Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain” shows that Keats feels that his brain is brimming with important thoughts and the only way he can get them out of his head is to use writing. Keats does not want to die without leaving what he feels and thinks unsaid or unwritten. To Keats, his thoughts are like a storage house filled with grain that has not been used yet. Keats does not want to let this grain, or his thoughts, get wasted. Keats’s fear of “unfinished business or writing” is extremely common; many people are afraid of wishing they had done things before death. They regret not saying “I love you,” “I’m sorry,” or not having gone and done certain things before death. Keats knew his death was approaching at a young age, and in his poem he chose to write about his fear about not being able to accomplish all that we wanted to as a poet.

The next eight lines of the poem are a testament of Keats’s regret that he had not been able to experience a true feeling of love before his death. Keats through the line of “When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance” shows that he has and will continue searching for a true “romance” or a true emotional attraction. Keats regrets that his death will not allow him to use the “magic hand of chance” to find the true emotional attraction that could have existed if Keats had not died so early. Keats, near the end of the poem talks about his regret that he put so much time into an “unreflecting” love. This regret can relate to his painful love for Fanny Brawne, a love that was “unreflecting”. Keats’s tone starts to turn from regret to bitterness, which is seen in the last few lines of the poem.

The last lines of the poem end with a sharp tone of bitterness that Keats purposefully creates. The last few lines also show Keats’s fears of death. The lines, “then on the shore. Of the wide world I stand alone, and think. Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.” show that Keats is afraid of being forgotten and unloved when he is dead. Keats, as the speaker, is also afraid of being alone when he is dead, which is one of the biggest fears of humans. The image of being alone on a shore of a huge world is extremely frightening and discomforting. Keats is afraid of what is to come in his approaching death.