1. Please cite this Article as : , :
Indian Streams Research Journal (Sept. ; 2012)
Khalil Abdul Hameed and Mohammed Saif Alquraidhy Keats Search for Organic Form
Volume 2, Issue. 8, Sept 2012
Indian Streams Research Journal
The Romantic Movement created a new approach to Language. This explains the fact that there
was no singular, fixed pattern of Language to be followed by the poets. Each according to his inspiration
was the basic principle in the use of Language. Behind this basic principle was the belief common to all
romantic poets because shared by all of them, in the origin of Language as used by the poets. The language
was supposed to be the direct product of the content of the poem. The relationship between the two is
organic, a term which can be explained only in terms of biology. The poem as a whole is an organic whole.
The poet is not a craftsman who has already discerned the content and then arranges it in mechanistic terms.
The language, rather, evolves out of the content; it is not something arranged and rearranged in a
mechanical way. The evolution of language from content is natural; it is the natural growth of the parts of
the structure.The innermost most sincere feeling of the poet evolves out of itself, a shape or form of its own.
This form contains, within itself, the true voice of feeling.This is the organic relationship of the content and
form. Poetry is apprehension of reality. This apprehension is done by the consciousness of the poet. Then it
tries to express itself or its apprehension effortlessly in a natural way or form. Thus expression becomes a
part of consciousness itself. It is not worn as a fancy dress. It is felt that it will then serve to disguise our
feeling. The ideal is now, both in clothes and poetry, to dress as inconspicuously as possible. TheAugustan
idea of literary expression assigns two tasks to the poet – to have an emotion and, then, to find a suitable
form to dress it properly and decently.The Romantic Philosophy turns these two different activities into one
organic activity – emotion spontaneously evolving a form for itself. It is like the baby evolving itself in the
womb of the mother. Coleridge explains this process in this way – "as every passion has its proper pulse, so
will it likewise have its characteristic modes of expression". (Biographia Literaria, Chapter XVIII). The
Abstract:
On theninthofOctober,1818 KeatswrotetoJ.A.Hessey aboutthedefectsofthe
poem" Endymion". He wrote - "That which is creative must create itself". (Letters 1.242-
3). This is the concept of the Organic Form as different form. The Rhetorical form in the
latter is the imposition of form on thought from outside. The former is the creation of form
from within; every feeling has its own form of expression; the form comes with the
thoughtitself;itgrows anddevelopswiththefeeling.This is theorganicbeautyofpoetry.
Keats understood it after so many continuous failures. He failed because, in
this own words, he "moved into the Go-cart from the leading strings". ( Letters, 1, 116 -7
). Thoughts were his own but the forms he borrowed from Spenser, Milton or
Shakespeare. His thoughts should have their own forms. He achieved this organic unity
ofthoughtand form, for thefirsttime,inhis Odes.
ISSN:-2230-7850
Keats Search for Organic Form
Khalil Abdul-Hameed Mohammed Saif Alquraidhy
Ph. D. Research Scholar, English Department,
Bangalore University
Available online at www.isrj.net
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

2. pulse knows how to record the best of the passion. Shakespeare's versification is the best example of the
pulse spontaneously recording its beat. That is why Shakespeare involved his own blank verse; it became a
vehicle of his peculiar manner of thinking. Full, free, poetic language expresses the truth of life. This
famousspeechof Macbethcanbecitedasanexample–
Macbeth:ifitweredonewhen 'tis done,then'twerewell.
Itweredonequickly:If theassassination
Couldtrammeluptheconsequence,andcatch,
Withhissurceasesuccess;thatbutthisblow
Mightbethebe-allandtheend-allhere
Buthere,uponthisbankandshoaloftime
We'djumpthelifetocome….
(Macbeth,Act1.Sc.II lines1-7)
It is the free rhythm that Macbeth's passion demands. Here, passion, rhythm and language move
alltogetherandthusthepoetislefttowork for therevelationof thetruthof life.
This truth of life contains the essence of life. It is not a truth working at the surface of the common
society and the ordinary world. The surface can be reflected by a mere surface language that the poet
handles and manipulates. The language must be capable of fathoming the experience and expressing its
truth. So it should be different. Here the poet allows the very act of poetic composition to imply the unusual
state of excitement and to produce it in a corresponding different language. It is proverbially said that the
wheels take fire from the mere rapidity of their motion.The language takes its shape in the very formulation
of the sensation, emotion and passion. The oft-repeated example of this quality of language is the
comparison between two poems on Daffodil flowers. One isTo Daffodils by Robert Herrick and the other is
Daffodils byWordsworth. In the former a very common experience undergone by the poet has been literally
transcribedinaverycommonLanguage.Thesurfacecontentis matchedbythesurfacelanguage
FairDaffodils,we weeptosee
youHasteawayso soon;
As yettheearly-risingsun
Has notattain'dhis noone.(1-4)
But, in the latter, a new experience involving an intense emotion and imagination, has been
transcribedinalanguagethatmatchestheintensityoftheemotionandimagination–
Iwanderedlonelyasacloud
Thatfloatson higho'er valesandhills,
WhenallatonceIsaw acrowd,
Ahostofgoldendaffodils;
Besidethelake,Beneaththetrees,
Flutteringanddancinginthebreeze.(1-6)
The congruence between the experience and the expression is important with Romantic idea of
language. The authentic language, in its own form, can give such an authenticity to the poet's experience
that it becomes easy for the reader to recognize it as such. The Language takes it to the level at which the
expression of it touches the reader and arouses his sensibility to respond to it spontaneously.The expression
and the experience are congruent in Wordsworth that it is difficult to point out which precedes whom. The
language, the words, phrases and images are all around him waiting to help him in his expression; the
experience, on its way, chooses the one most capable of expressing it. The greatness of the poem and the
poetdependsupon thischoiceandcombinationofexperienceandexpression.
It is said that Coleridge has been the exponent of the principle of organic unity in poetry. Nothing
that is “superadded”, merely stuck on to give an optional extra pleasure, can really please in a poem. Every
one of its characteristics must grow out of its whole nature and be an integral part of it. This is related to
Coleridge's distinction between imagination and fancy. Imagination achieves the true unity of expression.
InhisBiographiaLiteraria,Coleridgesays –
The poet, described in ideal perfection brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the
subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone
and spirit of unity, that blends, and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power, to
which we have exclusively appropriated the name of imagination. This power, first put in action by the will
2Keats Search for Organic Form
Indian Streams Research Journal • Volume 2 Issue 8 • Sept 2012

3. and understanding, and retained under their irremissive, though gentle and unnoticed, control reveals itself
in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the
general, with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the individual, with the representative the sense of
novelty and freshness, with old and familiar objects; a more than usual order; judgement ever awake and
steady self-possession, with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement; and while if blends and
harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature; the manner to the matter; and our
admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry. “Doubtless”, as Sir John Davies observes of the soul
(and his words may with slight alteration be applied, and even more appropriately, to the poetic
Imagination).
“…………………………………………...
Thusdoes she, when fromindividualstates
Shedothabstracttheuniversalkinds;
Whichthenre-clothedindiversnamesandfates
Stealaccessthroughour senses toourminds.”
Finally, Good Sense is the Body of poetic genius, Fancy its Drapery, Motion its Life, and
ImaginationtheSoulthatis everywhere,andineach;andforms allintoonegracefulandintelligentwhole.
(ChapterXIV)
Poetry, according to Coleridge, brings “the whole soul of man” into activity, with each faculty
playing its proper art according to its “relative worth and dignity". This takes place whenever the
“secondary imagination” comes into operation. We can only understand what poetry in this larger sense
really is, if we appreciate the way in which the human faculties are employed together in its production.
Thus Coleridge defines poetry through an account of how the poet works: the poet works, through the
exercise of his imagination. Whenever the synthesizing, the integrating, powers of what Coleridge calls the
secondary imagination are at work, bringing all aspects of a subject into a complex unity, then poetry in this
larger sense results. It is distinguished from works of literature that are not poems “by proposing to itself
such delight from the whole, as is compatible with a destined gratification from each component part.” But
though a poem is to be distinguished from Science, from the non-literary arts, and from other kinds of
literature, and its uniqueness can be seen only when we have made these distinctions, it is a product of the
secondary imagination, of the “esemplastic power”, the unifying power which enables all the faculties to be
brought into play simultaneously, each playing its proper part, to produce a complex synthesis of
comprehension.And thatisasignificantpartofitsfunction.
The notion of organic unity is common to Coleridge's view of poetry. “Nothing can permanently
please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so, and not otherwise”, he remarked in discussing
the place of rhyme and meter in a poem. Nothing that is “superadded”, merely stuck on for ornament or
decoration, can really please in a poem: every one of its characteristics must grow out of its whole nature
and be an integral part of it.All this is related to Coleridge's distinction between imagination and fancy. The
former is more fitted to achieve true unity or expression: “it dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-
create…. It is essentially vital"…. But "fancy” has no other counters to play with but fixities and definites”.
Fancy constructs surface decorations out of new combinations of memories and perceptions, while the
imagination “generates and produces a form of its own”.The operation of the imagination can be compared
to organic or biological growth and the forms it produces are organic forms, developing under its "shaping
and modifying power” which is contrasted with “the aggregative and associate power” of the fancy. The
imagination enables the poet to achieve design which is described not in mechanistic but in biological
terms,notafittingtogetherofanumberofseparablepartsbutafloweringforthof centralunity.
Again the classical examples cited for fancy and imagination are To Daffodils of Herrick and
Daffodils of Wordsworth respectively. In Coleridge, we have a different, almost a distinct strand of
romanticism. It is apparent in his fondness for the strange beauty. It is a beauty that flies away from the
familiar, daylight realities of our common existence into the region remote, exotic and mysteriously
unfamiliar.ItisthesamemysteriousbeautythathasbeendescribedinColeridge'spoemKublaKhan –
Asavageplace!As holyandenchanted
As e'erbeneathawaningmoonwas haunted
Bywomanwailingfor herdemonlover!(14-16)
Again–
….To such adeepdelight'twouldwinme,
Thatwithmusicloudandlong,
Iwould buildthatdomeinair,
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Keats Search for Organic Form

4. Thatsunny dome!thoseCavesof ice!(44-47)
The Subject is mysterious and it evolves a language that projects and creates new harmonies of
meaning. It becomes highly suggestive. It creates an aura of dim but alluring association which clings to
words and images. That is the content of the poem – not conveying anything particular, anything real, but
only an aura of dim but alluring associations. The words and images create these associations, almost re-
create them as imagination does. It is an example of the content of the poem generating and producing a
language and a form of its own. The language comes to his poem naturally and spontaneously with its
simplicityandpellucidpurityofdiction.
Among the second generation of poets, Byron was a poet in a very different mode. But in his case
also the content and the language are organically connected. In the mould of a poet he was really a
revolutionary who proved a fruitful source of inspiration to the political revolutionaries all over Europe.
His poems ring with a stentorian voice; it had sent a new life coursing through the feeble hearts of Europe.
Naturally that voice created for itself the language of an orator; it came out to be a rhetorical language. Don
Juan contains one of the spirited and tear-compelling patriotic songs on the object degradation of the brave
Greeceinpoliticaldamage–
'Tissomething,inthedearthof fame,
Thoughlink'damongafetteredrace,
To fellatleastapatriot`sshame,
Evenas Ising, suffuse myface;
For whatisleftthepoethere?
For Greeks ablush–for Greeceatear…(25-30)
The language is bold, severe admitting a few ornaments which have been immediately and closely
suggested by the glowing imagination of the poet. The language rises and sinks with the tones of his
enthusiasm. Sometimes it roughens into an argument; none has hurled defiance and mockery at Napoleon
withgreaterfiercenessthanByron–
ConquerorandCaptiveof theearthartthou!
she tremblesatthestill,andthywildname
was ne'ermorefruitedinmen's mindsthannow?
Thatthouarenothing,savethejestof fame.
Sometimes it softens into the melody of feeling and sentiment. In his best lyrics, his longing for the
ideal love and union of hearts has been expressed by him in a language which has the hall-mark of
authenticity and unaffected sincerity of feeling. It appears as if the language for either was at the command
of the poet. The numbers only came uncalled. They arranged themselves with little care on his part into the
variedmodulationswhichthesubjectrequires.
The poems of Shelley are an excellent example of the poet's imagination giving a shape to both
content and form. They evolve one from another, like the baby evolving itself in the womb of the mother.
Shelley is more famous for his lyrics. A genuine lyric is a strain of pure song. It gushes out spontaneously
from the core of a deeply moved heart. Its pre-requisites are (a) a sensitive, passionate and inflammable
heart, and (b) a command over the musical resources of the language. Epithets and images are in perfect
accord with the sentiment and the rhythm. The result is that its form and content appear to be born together
in their blended might. Like his own skylark, hidden in “the golden lightning of the sunken sun”, his poems
poured down “profuse strains of unpremeditated art”. The impulse of mood, and emotion merges with the
rhythm and movement of lines in his poetry. In the poem Ode to the West Wind the impetuosity of the wild
west wind ishappilyreproducedby therush andsustainedtempoof thelines–
….Yellow, andblack,andpale,andhecticred
Pestilence-strickenmultitudes.O thou,
Whochariotesttotheirdarkwintrybed,
Thewingedseeds, wheretheyliecoldandlow
Eachlikeacorpsewithinitsgraveuntil
Thineazuresisterof thespring shallblow
Her clariono'er thedreamingearth,andfill
(Drivingsweetbuds likeflockstofeedinair)
Withlivinghues andodors plainandhill:(4-12)
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Keats Search for Organic Form

5. In Ode to a Skylark, the stanza of four short and panting lines, represents the floating and running
of the bird and the quick ecstatic upward flight and the easy floating movement. Cazamian , in his book A
HistoryofEnglishLiterature(1943) says –
The flowing ease with which the words merge into one another at the same time as the ideas they
call forth join up together, goes to prove that for Shelley, the most poetical of poets, the psychogical melody
andthecadenceofsyllables,theoneas spontaneousas theother, naturallyformedbutonemusic.(P.303)
The poems of Keats are supposed to be the best examples of the spontaneous, luxurious and
organic growth of content and language. This is so specially in his Odes where form and content are
inseparable like body and soul. The imaginative richness of the Ode to a Nightingale is the result of the
fusion of diverse, even opposite elements, into a harmonious whole. The elements of three worlds – the
classical (in the first stanza); the Biblical (home-sick Ruth amid alien corn) and the mediaeval (charmed
magic casements): the world of ideal happiness which is the world of ideal happiness which is the
nightingale and the real life of humanity on the earth – "where men sit and hear each other groan" – the
desire "to fade far away and dissolve" and the sad conviction that "fancy can not cheat" permanently into the
complete oblivion of the aches and heartbreaks of life-all these and many other elements are blended
together. The richness of the momentary experience in the world of the nightingale melts into the richness
ofdeathwhichalonecanprovideacompletereleasefromthe"anguish of theflesh" and"acheofthespirit".
Ode toAutumn is a perfect specimen of the Hellenic symmetry of form where each part is at once a
distinct and self-contained unit and the integral part of a larger whole to the unity of which it effectually
contributes. As a matter of fact the Great Odes of Keats are a standing monument to the extraordinary
capacity of the poet for blending together the discipline of classicism which constitutes the hallmark of the
highest art. The centrifugal romantic passions chastened and subdued by an intellectual discipline which
shows itself
(a)inthelong-drawn,slow-movinglinesandtheircombinationincomplexandharmonious stanza-forms;
(b)in the careful distribution of colour, light and shade and the deft manipulation of the vowel and
consonantalsounds;
(c)inthelogicalevolutionofthoughtorsentiment;
(d)and above all, in the choice of the effective and felicitous word and the extreme density of the texture of
thewholepoem.
Keats started with the remark that poetry should surprise us with a fine excess. But he soon
realized that the 'excellence of every art is intensity'.This movement from 'excess' to 'intensity' was twofold
– structural and textural. The loose and amorphous couplets of Endymion were tightened under the
influence of Dryden. He experimented with so many verse-forms before arriving at his original music in the
various stanza forms invented by him in the great Odes where form and content are inseparable like body
and soul. In the verbal texture also the luxuriant and prodigal pomp of the early poems is gradually pruned
of the superfluities of ornament and imagery. Keats arrives at finality of his style in the Odes where the
richness and opulence are by no means totally absent but every detail is precise and exact. Every phrase is
notonlyeffectiveandappropriatebutalsorepletewithsuggestiveandassociationalwealth.
There is one great secret of 'the rounded perfection' of Keats's phrase – namely, the growing use of
'participial' phrases as 'epithets' to indicate the momentary arrest and suspension of energy and movement at
asinglepoint–
'beadedbubbleswinkingatthebrain',
'purplestainedmouth'
'poppiedwarmth'
'icedstream'
Apartfromthesethesingleepithetsandcompoundwords areequallyrichandcondensed–
'drowsy numbness'
'sun burntmirth'
'unravishedbride'
The condensation in imagery is the result of an increasing concentration on the tactile effects as if he were
eagertotouchandgrasp andsolidifyeverythingabstractor concert–
'abeakerfullofthewarmsouth'
'leaden-eyeddespair'
In this way the whole effort of Keats's consummate craftsmanship was guided by the single desire
"to concentrate all the far-reaching resources of the language upon one point so that a single and apparently
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Keats Search for Organic Form

6. effortless expression results when the aesthetic imagination is most expectant and exacting." Keats
commenced his career with Spenserian opulence and diffuseness of diction and imagery but moved
towards thatsolidityandcondensationwhichistrulyShakespeareanandMiltonic.
His narrative poems like St. Agens' Eve and Lamia are remarkable neither for their dramatic
tension nor for vivid characterization and profound human interest. Their significance lies mainly in the
evidence which they provide of the poet's attempt at objectivity, negative capability and organic unity
which was the final goal of John Keats and the steady growth of his poetic and artistic maturity. Keats has
learnt to make even his apparently pictorial and luscious descriptive passages functional and subservient
interest of the story. In Lamia the elaborate depiction of the palace of magical splendor and heaped up
luxuries is necessary to bring home to us its utter hollowness and unsubstantiality in the light of the cold
stare of pitiless rationality. In this way the narrative poems represent the midpoint in the development of
Keats's poetic art and from 'the fine excess' of Endymion to the severe outline and concentrated wealth as
well as the balanced poise of To Autumn, where every stanza rises to the Crest of the movement and then
subsides toapointofrepose,whilethenextwaveis underwayinthestanzawhichfollows.
NOTES
1
BiographiaLiteraria,ChapterXIV
2
LordByron,TheIsles ofGreece.
3
LordByron, ChildeHarold's Pilgrimage,CantotheThird,StanzaNo. XXXVII.
1816.
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Keats Search for Organic Form