On one of Keats's finest sonnets – analysed by Dr Oliver Tearle

'Bright Star', or 'Bright star! Would I were steadfast equally g art' as it is sometimes known, is probably the well-nigh famous sonnet written by the Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821). He wrote information technology in 1819 originally, although he revised information technology a year later. When he wrote 'Brilliant Star', Keats knew that he was dying from consumption or tuberculosis, and the poem is in part about this awareness that he will dice young.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thousand art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the dark
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature'southward patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's man shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my off-white dear's ripening breast,
To experience for ever its soft fall and nifty,
Awake for always in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And then live ever—or else swoon to decease.

To try a paraphrase of 'Bright Star': Keats, addressing a bright star in the night sky, says, 'I wish I were as durable and fixed as you are. Not because you're alone up there in the heaven, and constantly watching the seas wash around the shores of the globe, or the annual cycle of the snow falling on the world, with your eyes constantly open up, like a religious hermit with indisposition. No, I don't want to exist unchanging and immortal like you and be upwardly there on my ain: I desire to be as unchanging as you are, but down here, my head resting upon my young beloved's chest. And so I could feel the rise and autumn of her chest and she breathes, forever; I could exist always awake and it would be sweet. I could always hear her animate, and live forever – or, if all this isn't possible, then let me die, because it's non worth living if I can't practise that.'

Foreshadowing the lyrics to a million pop songs, not least Aerosmith'south opening line 'I could stay awake just to hear yous animate', Keats's 'Bright Star' is based around a cardinal conceit: the idea that the poet envies the stars because they outlive him, just that he doesn't green-eyed their isolation and lack of human warmth.

No—notwithstanding still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair dear'south ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for always in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken jiff,
And then live ever—or else swoon to death.

Initially, when nosotros think well-nigh the sonnet'southward closing sestet, we're mindful that it teeters on the brink of absurdity: what'due south the indicate of living forever to hear Fanny Brawne (the probable inspiration for the sonnet) breathing if Keats's love is still going to dice? But to a human being in his early twenties aware that he is unlikely to make it into his belatedly twenties, that would doubtless be the least of his worries. Living to the usual threescore and ten would be tantamount to living forever in Keats's listen, perhaps.

Technically, 'Vivid Star' is an English language or Shakespearean sonnet, rhymed ababcdcdefefgg. But there are arguably ii voltas or 'turns': one at the beginning of the ninth line, when Keats turns from a consideration of the star'south distance from earth, to a longing for durability; and and then again, one in that final line, marked past the caesura and the dash, when Keats decides that if his wish to possess the star's steadfastness cannot be granted, he may as well dice at present.

Despite its opening line and common brusque championship of 'Brilliant Star' – which was used as the title for the contempo biopic almost John Keats – 'Bright star! Would I were steadfast equally thou art' is really a verse form about human intimacy and a longing for human being relationships. Even when because the star's distance from us, he sees this in incomparably homo terms: the Earth has 'man shores', while the snowfall on the mountains and moors (foreshadowing the 'ripening breast' of the beloved, perhaps?) forms a 'mask', i.e. something that resembles a homo face.

As with and then much of Keats'south poetry, this is a poem about the physicality of being with someone or desiring to be with them: Keats'south poetry is obsessed with bodies, blushing, the sensuous and the sensual. Sadly, his own body would plummet in 1821, just one year after he completed 'Bright Star'.

The author of this commodity, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He is the author of, among others, The Hush-hush Library: A Volume-Lovers' Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Groovy State of war, The Waste material Land and the Modernist Long Poem.