The Odes of John Keats

After five years since I first studied this work on Keats' Odes (and after continual feasting on her "Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets"), I have returned to Vendler's volume to renewed appreciation of her respectful insight into Keats' creations and processes. The same respectfulness and confident humility that graces her Shakespeare criticism flourishes here - and warrants at least a brief expression of consensus with earlier laudatory reviews. Most significantly for the lover of Keats, Vendler integrates the life and creativity of the seven or so months during which he produced odes that "belong to that group of works in whch the English language finds an ultimate embodiment." She makes explicit the implicit signs of connection among and growth through the Odes (and a key portion of Fall of Hyperion). Connections with Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton are interwoven skillfully -- as integral parts of Keats' context as were the works of nature and art that are explicitly addressed in the poems.Vendler's work extends much deeper than I can fully follow, and some of it will leave all but English majors in the dust. Let's not let that discourage the rest of us amateur Keats enjoyers - the Introduction alone plus the initial discussion of each of the Odes contain indispensable caresses for the heart of mere mortals.

Helen Vendler has created a scholarly, insightful look at the odes of John Keats. The odes comprise about a dozen pages; Vendler's analysis is nearly 300 pages. She analyzes in thoughtful detail six classic odes of Keats, not in isolation, but by emphasizing their complex interrelationships. She argues that each poem reflects the odes preceding it and shaped the subsequent odes. As she states, "For the poet, the completion of one poem is the stimulus for the next; this is particularly true for poems of the same genre." Not surprisingly, Vendler assumes that the reader is reasonably familiar with Keats' better known poetry (Hyperion, Endymion, and, of course, the Odes). As Spenser, Milton, and Wordsworth significantly influenced Keats, some familiarity with these poets is helpful. I found that Vendler requires attention and thought, but in return she provides insightful commentary that leads to a deeper appreciation of Keats' poetic genius. On occasion Vendler's style becomes unnecessarily convoluted. But these instances are rare lapses; her writing is characterized by a clarity that is often absent in modern criticism. She scrupulously credits ideas originating with others, explicitly identifies points of disagreement and differences in interpretation and in the process introduces the reader to a wide range of Keatsian studies. I gained a greater appreciation for modern literary criticism. I even enjoyed reading Vendler's detailed footnotes.

Helen Vendler" The Odes of John Keats' gives the reader an opportunity to see how the six great odes written in 1819 came to be. She shows how the poems are linked together through words, images, and ideas, starting with the 'Ode to Psyche" and ending with the great ode"To Autumn." Through a close reading of each poem, an examination of each image, and a view of the rhetorical trope, from reduplication to enumeration, which underlies each poem, Vendler provides the reader with a deep understanding of Keats's artistic concerns and meanings.. She demonstrates why Keats' achievement is so extraordinary and provides the critical reader with a method by which s/he may enter into the mind of the poet. For any lover of Keats' poetry, and for any lover of belles lettres, this is a book which belongs in your library.