Transcending Boundary of Poetry and Painting: The Pictoriality of John Keats’s Poetry

Abstract

Keats lived a short life span, but in his space of 25 years’ life, Keats showed the world his remarkable talent for poetry. The pictorial nature of Keats’ poetry is obvious. This paper takes the boundary of poetry and painting as the starting point, mainly studying pictorial embodiment, causes, and influences in his poems. Keats’ unique sense of love, imagination, and depiction of nature is strongly reflected in the sense of color and three-dimensionality in his poems, thus achieving the effect of “reading poetry as appreciating painting” for readers.