Hope: The Enforcer and The Saviour

April 5, 2011

Hope: The Enforcer and the Saviour

From the beginning of time, hope has been the source and causation of existence. Throughout even the darkest hours, hope has been the intangible force providing reason for life. John Keats, a classic English poet, clearly demonstrates humanity’s great dependence on this intangible mystic throughout his poem, “To Hope.” It discusses the speaker’s unruly reliance in hope to overcome times of gloom. Through the uses of stylistic devices, Keats successfully manages to invoke a genuine sense of hope, despite the speaker’s state of being under great disparities.

Keats structures his stanzas in such a pattern, which first displays the glooming disparities of life, and then the speaker’s plead for help. This is exemplified when “dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud, sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed” (46, 47). The speaker’s diction generates a shift in the mood of the poem, as hope enlightens a much gloomy, tense tone set prior to it. This movement of moods is further contemplated by the visual imagery of disparities surrounding his soul and hope’s heavenly aura breaking the morbidity. In essence, the structures of the stanzas help boost the overall effectiveness of hope and its criticality to overcome morbidity.

The speaker’s struggles against life’s miseries, such as “Despondency,” (8) “Disappointment,” (13) and “Despair” (13) also help highlight the utter significance of hope. Keats personifies these disparities of life in order to make tangible the forces that counter hope. Furthermore, Keats uses a choice of words that creates a meaningful alliteration with the names of the disparities in order to show hope’s ability to overcome numerous obstacles. The speaker also provides a visual imagery of hope against disparities, for it is able to “fright[en] [them] as the morning frightens night” (18). This display of juxtaposition not only compares and contrasts hope and the disparities, but also highlights hope’s clear prowess over them.

Hope further acts as the speaker’s primary source of healing and soothing throughout the poem. The speaker continually pleads to Hope, “[…] ethereal balm upon me shed” (5). This reoccurring image pattern enforces the idea