JOHN KEATS AND THE THEOLOGY OF BEAUTY

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on Keats’ vision of beauty and attempts to show how this feeling of beauty has its being in the moment of perception. For Keats, the magic of the beautiful is the magic of the moment – undistracted and undiluted. For Keats, all that is vouchsafed to man is the experience of the moment. Continued life is a succession of moments, each moment betokening both the beginning and the end of life. One of the main themes of Keats’ body of work is the relation between the banalities of everyday life and the pleasure of the senses derived from art and beauty. Keatsian aesthetics instead of being a theory in abstract was a deeply felt conviction which was premised on a profound insight in life. Keats’ select poems will be analysed in light of these ideas.

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