Tuesday Jan 12th Assignment

List

-hand

-warm

-cold

-tomb

-silence

-days

-chill

-nights

-heart

-blood

-veins

-life

-conscience





Even after listing items that appear in John Keats's poem, "The Living Hand"

I still have a few problems figuring out what it is supposed to beabout. 

The two words that I believe really play off each other and work together in

this poem are temperaturedescriptors- warm, icy, and chill, and blood.  I

believe that these all work together in way that shape the true sense of the poem.

Keats’s is writing about life and the vitality of blood.  I think that by

incorporating multiple temperature descriptors, he is illustrating the different

phases of life.  



 While I understand the temperature does not make an inherent connection with life

and fatality, it is through the incorporation and mention of blood that we see how

the two are pieced together.  While I am still uncertain of the exact message that

the poem is trying to send, I can deduce that life and death interweaved throughout

the entire piece. 



I liked Keats’s small, but potent incorporation of blood and temperature because

I think that his discretion allowed him to introduce ideas in a way that are

subconscious to the reader.  Incorporating yet one more noun, heart, Keats’s

solidifies the ideas introduced by the temperature references and the mention

of blood.



I also liked the ideas put forward by Keats’s because like the heart his poem is

rhythmic.  The beats provided in the poem seem to match the life that he put into

the poem when he was writing it.  I am of the opinion that he kept this poem short

to mimic the length of a heartbeat both short and powerful, and necessary for life.

I also believe that this parallel can be carried onto the greater scheme of life;

most people will agree that life is short as is the poem. I think by using a handful

of powerful words Keats’s creates a poem that mimics the larger structure and

interpretations of life.