Reconciliation of the active and contemplative lives in poems by Byron and Keats

Abstract

One of the few characteristics which critics acknowledge as shared by the Romantic poets is the recurrent theme of the "reconciliation of opposites." This propensity for attempting to resolve ostensible conflicts extends to the ancient philosophical issue of the active life versus the contemplative life. Although both Keats and Byron are usually ignored in considerations of how Romantics address philosophical or critical questions, both poets can be perceived as having more in common artistically and philosophically than has previously been assumed by critics. Byron and Keats seem to project their focus in different directions. Byron is the frustrated "man of action" who claims not to take his writing seriously and who satirizes every fact of society. Keats is the frustrated idealist who tries repeatedly to escape the confines of his corporeal self through the immortality of art. Yet ironically each poet is concerned with the same basic questions: how to reconcile apparent polarities (such as the active and contemplative lives) and to resolve the dilemma that is presented by this traditional, dualistic view. As a result, both Byron and Keats often present characters who pursue one extreme of either action or contemplation. Those who do not learn to integrate the two by coming to terms with both their physical and spiritual selves suffer great loss or are completely annihilated. And the recognition of this illusory dichotomy for what it is leads the poets to serious consideration of the nature of action and contemplation. For example, action can be misleading, for whereas Byron's characters (Harold, the Giaour) often seek escape from thought through aimless motion, without a sense of purpose they are really no different from Keat's characters (Hyperion, the narrator of On Indolence) who attempt to escape through stasis. Moreover, in light of this reconciliation of action and contemplation, Byron and Keats reveal a significant element not normally associated with them as poets: namely, an ambitious aim that their poetry will serve to improve man morally and socially.