Fame Speaks
Fame Speaks - meaning Summary
Laurels as Immortalization
The poem imagines Fame addressing the dead poet John Keats, claiming responsibility for his posthumous reputation. It contrasts Keats’s earthly anonymity and steadfast devotion to his art with Fame’s immortal, cloud-bound existence that bestows a laurel as symbolic immortality. Fame insists it did not know Keats in life but now lays the wreath on his name, suggesting that lasting recognition can arise after death and through historical memory.
Read Complete AnalysesStand forth,John Keats! On earth thou knew'st me not; Steadfast through all the storms of passion,thou, True to thy muse,and virgin to thy vow; Resigned,if name with ashes were forgot, So thou one arrow in the gold had'st shot! I never placed my laurel on thy brow, But on thy name I come to lay it now, When thy bones wither in the earthly plot. Fame is my name. I dwell among the clouds, Being immortal,and the wreath I bring Itself is Immortality. The sweets Of earth I know not,more the pains,but wing In mine own ether,with the crownéd crowds Born of the centuries.-Stand forth,John Keats!
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