Pleasure And Pain

As a characteristic of Romanticism, both sonnets show images of nature and depict the expression of feelings as well. These pieces have represented the dull inner feeling that Keats kept. The fact of enjoiyng himself with nature, comparing has to do with the state that Keats was living in that moment.
Why is it that Keats remains the constant fight between life and death? That makes me wonder and think about how complex he had been as a person; locating himself (his thoughts) in a pinnacle, and then feeling dizzy, weak, not powerful at all.
One of the verses that most called my attention from the sonnet:"On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time" was: "Like a sick eagle looking at the sky". It's hard for me to imagine such a big animal as an eagle, which look so imposing when they are flying and even looking at the ski, weak as a tiny bird.
It's really interesting for me to face a writing style that touches me so much with they way in which feelings, especially the dull ones are depicted, as the case of Keats.

About Keats....and his tombstone.

By reading the article, I was introduced a writter whose this life-work review has made me feel he had been absolutely destroyed by the quality of his writing, not even having read any of his masterpieces before getting to know him more. This rejection was mainly due to the themes of his pieces of work, which all of them were related to dull feelings, states and situations, such as Melancholy, Death, Autumn, Psyche, etc.
However, this opinion that people had against him, has invited us, at least me to read his work and try to find out more about his life in order to understand his writing. As the article says: "To understand why Keats meditated so constantly on death, it is not necessary to look to his biography one need only to listen to his writing"...I don't really know if I should agree with that...
One of Keats' wished was his tombstone to be engraved with the statement: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water”. Why not his name? In my opinion I think it was because since he worked in a hospital, and had to look after and take care of his mother being very little, he always dealt with death. As the article says: "...his life was a long preparation to death". A name writ (ten) in water is a name that will dissapear sooner than later. But surprise!...it's 2008 and we're studying him.

Thoughts on Kubla kahn

According to my interpretation of the poem Kubla Kahn from Coleridge, it makes a lot of sense with its other title, which is "Vision in a Dream", by what I read, I could tell that the extracts belong to the main subject of the poem which is nature and death.

In my opinion, the first extract is attached to parts of the poem, such as: "...By a woman wailing for her demos-lover!. By this verse, I mean that the woman was suffering, was feeling something really strong for someone she loved. She was really showing her affections for a man, but at the same time, the reader is able to realize how affected she was. Another example that I found really interesting and touching was: "...the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea". According to my point of view, this part shows how strongly influential nature can be for Human Beings to show and depict their feelings....How a man may feel if he is immersed into caverns, take by a measureless river to a sunless sea? I could tell that he felt opressed, drawn, and then freed.

About the second extract, this poem might seem simple, because of the situation that the persona is in. Using elements of nature helps a lot to compare oneself to different states of nature. For example, the sorrow of someone can be simmilar to a weeping willow in Autumn, or the sun which has come out after the storm represents relief and quietness after a difficult moment; in the poem Kubla Kahn, it is shown where it says: "Then reached the caverns measureless to man,And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:..."

Finally, the third extract makes reference to Coleridge' s supernatural state in his poetry. The fact that he focuses so much in nature and compares his feelings to elements of nature in their natural state, makes the reader go beyond the normal expectrum of simmiles, situations, and comparisons, it certainly tranports the reader to a broader and deeper imagination.