2AM Traffic

I've spent the last few nights reading letters written by John Keats along with a great essay on the poet by Edward Hirsch. Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem that has greatly influenced not only my development as an artist, but my life in general.

Keats died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. Most of his great work was written in the span of one year, between 1817 and 1818. He wrote poetry for a total of seven years. Towards the end of his life, his letters get progressively more desperate. It is heartbreaking to see a man so full of the wonder of life trying to hold on to it through suffering. The letters and essay highlight several things fundamental to the way Keats saw the world. Here are some of them:

- Life is a process of soul-making. At birth, the soul has no identity. The soul is only built through life experience.
- Nature and humanity are intrinsically linked. Much about humanity may be observed by observing nature, and this is more often than not ignored by humanity.
- True artists possess "negative capability," that is, the ability to live in doubt, with the knowledge that some questions go without answers.
- He wanted to do "some good in the world." He recognized that others do good through their vocations, and he confirmed his as study and thought.
- He longed for a life of "sensation" rather than a life of thought.
- He held the idea of "disinterestedness" in esteem, or looking at the world not from a philosopher's point of view but from a poet's. The philosopher reasons out morality while the poet observes and records its impact.