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Article: Keats's TO AUTUMN.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- The Explicator
- Article date:
- September 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Spenser's poetry inspired John Keats throughout his life. One calls to mind Keats's description of himself as a "jealous honorer" of Spenser, a "forester deep in thy midmost trees." [1] "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" betray the obvious influence of Spenser, and the Mutability Cantos have been cited as a source for Keats's personifications in the second stanza of "To Autumn." [2] However, Spenser's Despair from book 1 of The Faerie Queene also lurks behind this stanza. [3]
In the first stanza of "To Autumn" Keats gives us autumn as a generalized concept before personifying the season:
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
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