Respond to all three of the following prompts.
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- In “Ode to Psyche,” the speaker pledges himself to the goddess Psyche: “Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane / In some untrodden region of my mind” (50-51). What makes Psyche the ideal goddess for the Keatsian speaker?
- In his letters Keats distinguishes between the the poet who subscribes to the “wordsworthian or egotistical sublime” and himself, characterized as a “chameleon poet” (BABL B 1147). In this letter from 1818, Keats associates the “chameleon poet” with Shakespeare, who he earlier had identified as possessing “Negative Capability” (BABL B 1141). In what ways is the “chameleon poet” the ideal practitioner of “Negative Capability”?
- In a footnote to “Ode on the Grecian Urn,” the editors note that line 49 was transcribed differently in the Annals of the Fine Arts, published the same year as the volume publication of the poem. What difference does it make if there are no quotation marks around the words “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”? How does it change the meaning of the poem?