On the Sea
This poem owes a lot to Shakespeare, whose imaginative visions of the sea in King Lear and The Tempest were
much on Keats's mind during this period. And many of Keats's English Romantic-era contemporaries also
used the sea as a symbol of the imagination and the unknown, from Coleridge (in "The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner") to Shelley (in his elegy for Keats, "Adonais").
Context
Written on Isle of Wight in April 1817, escaping to the sea is drawn to some very Romantic ideas about the
restorative power of nature. The early 19th century was marked by a dramatic shift in old ways of life: the
Industrial Revolution was getting into gear, and the British economy shifted from farming to factories, the
countryside to the city. Keats was one of many artists and thinkers at this time who sought relief from the
growing noise, smoke, and bustle of the cities in the beauty of the natural world. To the Romantics, nature
wasn't just a nice place to have a picnic: it was a source of wisdom, spiritual beauty, and imaginative
inspiration. To get lost in the loveliness of a flower or a bird's song, in their eyes, was a way to remember that
there's more to the world than the mechanical and the scientific. In this way, Romanticism rebelled against both
earlier Enlightenment ideas of reason and order, and coming Victorian ideas about progress and propriety.
Romanticism argued that the natural world wasn't there either to be dissected or mastered, but experienced. “
A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence; because he has no Identity—he is continually in for and
filling some other Body—The Sun, The Moon The Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are
poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute—the poet has none; no identity…(October 1818)
Themes
The mystery and beauty of the ocean
- The ocean’s grandeur is an antidote to the meaningless noise and nonsense of everyday life. With its
strange rhythms, its vastness, and its myths, the ocean offers an alternative to the tiresome, petty
“uproar” that people live in most of the time. Paying quiet attention to something so big and mysterious,
the speaker suggests, offers people a strange kind of healing.
- The ocean helps people put life into perspective, helping them escape the constant noise of their own
thoughts and troubles, the ocean offers people a point of contact with eternity, mystery, and magic. Its
“eternal whisperings” touch the shores of faraway lands that people have never visited, its vastness can
fill “twice ten thousand caverns,” and its endless soft sounds suggest the singing of nymphs.
- “mighty” and “gentle,” the ocean is one great big mystery: a place that encourages people to open their
minds both to the wide unknown and to tiny things they might often overlook, like the “very smallest
shell” that lands at their feet.
- the speaker encourages people to go so deep into their reveries that they “start” (or jump) as they come
back to themselves. Merely coming near the mysteries of the ocean, the speaker suggests, is enough
to expand, calm, and quiet the human mind—and to give people a little respite from the noise of their
own thoughts.
Symbols
The sea = This poem is about the sea both literally and symbolically. its symbolic role, the sea represents the
mysterious depths of the imagination. Encouraging people to get lost in thought beside the ocean, the speaker
is also encouraging them to look beyond the chatter of their everyday minds and into the unknown. The
vastness, strangeness, and magic of the sea here are all images of the scope and beauty of the irrational,
dreaming parts of the mind. Sitting by this kind of "sea" is not only enchanting, but inspiring: an encounter with
the imagination like the one the speaker describes here must have produced this poem. The sea is a constant
natural force, an idea established with the adjective ‘eternal’ in line one
This poem owes a lot to Shakespeare, whose imaginative visions of the sea in King Lear and The Tempest were
much on Keats's mind during this period. And many of Keats's English Romantic-era contemporaries also
used the sea as a symbol of the imagination and the unknown, from Coleridge (in "The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner") to Shelley (in his elegy for Keats, "Adonais").
Context
Written on Isle of Wight in April 1817, escaping to the sea is drawn to some very Romantic ideas about the
restorative power of nature. The early 19th century was marked by a dramatic shift in old ways of life: the
Industrial Revolution was getting into gear, and the British economy shifted from farming to factories, the
countryside to the city. Keats was one of many artists and thinkers at this time who sought relief from the
growing noise, smoke, and bustle of the cities in the beauty of the natural world. To the Romantics, nature
wasn't just a nice place to have a picnic: it was a source of wisdom, spiritual beauty, and imaginative
inspiration. To get lost in the loveliness of a flower or a bird's song, in their eyes, was a way to remember that
there's more to the world than the mechanical and the scientific. In this way, Romanticism rebelled against both
earlier Enlightenment ideas of reason and order, and coming Victorian ideas about progress and propriety.
Romanticism argued that the natural world wasn't there either to be dissected or mastered, but experienced. “
A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence; because he has no Identity—he is continually in for and
filling some other Body—The Sun, The Moon The Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are
poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute—the poet has none; no identity…(October 1818)
Themes
The mystery and beauty of the ocean
- The ocean’s grandeur is an antidote to the meaningless noise and nonsense of everyday life. With its
strange rhythms, its vastness, and its myths, the ocean offers an alternative to the tiresome, petty
“uproar” that people live in most of the time. Paying quiet attention to something so big and mysterious,
the speaker suggests, offers people a strange kind of healing.
- The ocean helps people put life into perspective, helping them escape the constant noise of their own
thoughts and troubles, the ocean offers people a point of contact with eternity, mystery, and magic. Its
“eternal whisperings” touch the shores of faraway lands that people have never visited, its vastness can
fill “twice ten thousand caverns,” and its endless soft sounds suggest the singing of nymphs.
- “mighty” and “gentle,” the ocean is one great big mystery: a place that encourages people to open their
minds both to the wide unknown and to tiny things they might often overlook, like the “very smallest
shell” that lands at their feet.
- the speaker encourages people to go so deep into their reveries that they “start” (or jump) as they come
back to themselves. Merely coming near the mysteries of the ocean, the speaker suggests, is enough
to expand, calm, and quiet the human mind—and to give people a little respite from the noise of their
own thoughts.
Symbols
The sea = This poem is about the sea both literally and symbolically. its symbolic role, the sea represents the
mysterious depths of the imagination. Encouraging people to get lost in thought beside the ocean, the speaker
is also encouraging them to look beyond the chatter of their everyday minds and into the unknown. The
vastness, strangeness, and magic of the sea here are all images of the scope and beauty of the irrational,
dreaming parts of the mind. Sitting by this kind of "sea" is not only enchanting, but inspiring: an encounter with
the imagination like the one the speaker describes here must have produced this poem. The sea is a constant
natural force, an idea established with the adjective ‘eternal’ in line one
