The Use of Myth, the Supernatural and the Gothic in John Keats’s Poetry

Abstract

As a result of the changes England experienced at the end of the eighteenth century, Romanticism emerged as a new literary movement. Under the revolutionary influences of the period, the Romantic poets turned to nature and believed in the guidance of instincts rather than reason. Being one of the second generation English Romantics, John Keats particularly deals with the aesthetic aspects of the movement. His chief interest in his works is a constant search for beauty which he equates with truth. As a poet who believes in the authenticity of imaginative faculty, he does not accept the dominance of intellect in the perception of truth. Rather, he builds an alternative world of beauty to highlight the mysterious aspects of reality, the perception of which requires more than reason.