Temporal Anxiety and Romantic Immortality Reading John Donne and John Keats with Dialogue

Dr. Afroza Banu & Dr. Md. Shahidul Islam

Oct-Nov-Dec

Abstract
This study examined the relationship between the temporal anxiety and the quest of immortality in the metaphysical poetry of John Donne with the Romantic poetry of John Keats. The aim was to explore the two poets wrestling with the fears of time, death and transcendence and how each poet portrays differing but complementary opinions of the mortality of humanity and the immortality of poetry. This study was based on some chosen poems of Donne, like Death Be Not Proud and A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, and Keats, especially on Ode to a Nightingale and When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be. This study gathered data on the existing primary poetic works and rely on critical secondary material such as scholarly articles, volumes of books and literary commentaries. To follow the inter-textual and thematic dialogues between the poets, a brief textual analysis was carried out based on the theory by Mikhail Bakhtin of the dialogism. The results indicate that Donne is engaging temporal anxiety as spiritual assurance and metaphysical argument and Keats views in permanence in the aesthetic experiencing and imaginative transcendence. Such comparative reading demonstrates a dialogical continuum in which metaphysical faith and Romantic sensibility are united and participates in the comprehending of poetic responses to mortality and eternity in terms of literature and philosophical seeing.

Keyword: Temporal Anxiety, Romantic Immortality, Dialogism, Metaphysical Poetry, Intersexuality

Research Area: English Literature

Country: Bangladesh

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