LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:4 April 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Lamia: An Expression of Commerce, Ambiguous Character and Tragic Romance

Dr. Muna Shrestha

Lamia
Courtesy: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Keats+lamia&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

Abstract

Lamia is John Keats’s last narrative poem and during its composition, his anxiety over money vibrates throughout the poem. His representations of money in the poems relate to the larger debate about the effects of trade and commerce on the social, economic and political condition of England. In this longer poem, Keats portrays Lamia as an ambiguous figure of innocence with the power to attack other people’s dreams. He takes the image of the serpent-woman who devours men and gives her a face and a voice. She is associated both with the demon and the innocent maiden. Lamia is also centred on female experience and based on a woman’s feelings about love. Keats’s cultured characterization of Lamia indicates his shifting feelings about love. She gives up her physical existence and hides her true identity, but her beloved sees her mere an object to fulfill his desires. His romantic love is egotistical with selfish desires which show they have the different feeling. If love is silliness, then one should dismiss love. But one is suffering by it instead and faces the tragic ending.

Keywords: John Keats, Lamia, ambiguous, sympathy, commerce, romance, tragedy.

1. Introduction

John Keats, a Romantic poet, was known for his emphasis on nature as an imaginative knowledge of external objects. He believed that imagination was the coincidence and fusion of the expressed and unspeakable. He had a unique perspective of the imagination in comparison to his fellow Romantics. His power to apply imagination to every aspect of life played the vital role behind his poetry. His poetry exposes the unreal fantasies which create our reality that lingers in uncertainty beyond its aesthetic potential. Through his works such as Lamia, Endymion, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion, and the Odes of 1819, Keats immersed himself into an imaginative dream world. His theory of imagination is defined by his expression of the connection between the conscious and unconscious creative mind through his representation of conflict between thought and feeling and reason and consciousness.

In Lamia, Keats shows a very much greater sense of proportion and power of selection than in his earlier work. There is more light and shade. He expresses the conflict between the challenge presented by the incorporation of the feminine in poetic practice and the pressure exerted by the patriarchal community to reject the feminine as anything but a mirror of masculine desire. Keats's poetry reveals the limits patriarchal discourse imposes on the masculine, something unappreciated by twentieth-century Keats critics. Lamia exposes the misconception about the patriarchal discourse which is based upon the concept that the feminine is able to be controlled and chosen. She is innocent and needs and desires of masculine authority and dominance. She is setting herself up to be rescued and seduced, even as she is described as a saint. If the female is not the mirror of masculine desire, if she is not obedient, she is designated negative Other, or "disturbing power" (Zhang, 40).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. Muna Shrestha
Asst. Professor
Tribhuvan University, Nepal
Mahendra Multiple Campus, Nepalgunj
muna.shrestha123@gmail.com
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