Sonnet to Spenser
Sonnet to Spenser - context Summary
Homage to Edmund Spenser
Composed in 1815 and published 1817, Keats’s "Sonnet to Spenser" is an explicit homage to Edmund Spenser that registers both admiration and artistic humility. Keats thanks and invokes Spenser while admitting he cannot instantly emulate such poetic radiance; he compares poetic growth to a flower that must drink the soil. The sonnet records Keats’s early aspiration and self-awareness about the need for time and labor before poetic maturity.
Read Complete AnalysesSpenser! a jealous honourer of thine, A forester deep in thy midmost trees, Did last eve ask my promise to refine Some English that might strive thine ear to please. But Elfin Poet ’tis impossible For an inhabitant of wintry earth To rise like Phoebus with a golden quill Fire-wing’d and make a morning in his mirth. It is impossible to escape from toil O’ the sudden and receive thy spiriting: The flower must drink the nature of the soil Before it can put forth its blossoming: Be with me in the summer days, and I Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.
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