Imagery in Poetry

John Keats: This Living Hand

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calm'd—see here it is—

I hold it towards you.

Images:

· “This living hand”

· “Warm and capable”

· Cold

· Icy silence

· Tomb

· Haunt the days

· Nights

· Heart

· Blood

· Veins

· Calmed conscience

· “Hold it towards you”àit=hand

Cold/tomb/icy silenceàdeath (of author)

Haunt the days/calmed conscienceàrevenge

Living hand/warm and capableàhis love for her, offering comfort when he is dead

“This Living Hand” by John Keats proved to be quite a challenge when trying to analyze it. It is full of imagery, and I had no problem listing all of the images I saw when reading it. But then I reread it, and reread it again, trying to figure out just how to depict this poem.

The obvious group of images to choose was the ones about death: cold, tomb, icy silence, haunting days, and nights. Now I was left with how to interpret the poem based on these images. A few major ideas came to my mind. A hand is obviously a focus of this work, most likely the hand Keats is writing with. It is possible that he is trying to tell his readers that although his death is approaching, he wants his work to stay alive, otherwise known as “this living hand.”

As I continued to read this poem, there were images of revenge that kept jumping out at me. The phrases “haunt the days” and “conscience-calm'd” were ones I could not look past. It is possible that Keats knows his death is nearing and he is trying to let someone know that he will come back from the “icy silence” of his tomb. The rest of the poem goes on to say, essentially, that Keats will make this person do whatever it is he wants of them, so they can both then have a calmed conscience.

Lastly, I could not help but think this could be about love. The images of a living hand, and the descriptions of that hand being warm and capable could possibly represent his love for a woman, nonetheless a woman who will be so sad when he dies that she will want to die herself. I took this set of images to mean that his living hand will offer her comfort when he is dead.