Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"A Trenta-Sei of the Pleasure We Take in the Early Death of Keats" by John Ciardi is a provocative and introspective meditation on the complex interplay between death, artistic legacy, and the human condition. Through the lens of John Keats's premature demise, Ciardi explores the unsettling yet pervasive notion that there is a certain pleasure or fascination derived from the untimely deaths of great artists. The poem challenges readers to confront their own feelings about mortality, legacy, and the paradoxical nature of human empathy and selfishness.

Ciardi begins by acknowledging an "old school custom" of expressing sadness over Keats's early death, only to reveal a deeper, more unsettling "species-truth": a collective gladness or relief at being spared from the poet's fate. This admission is both jarring and candid, exposing a layer of human psychology often left unexamined—the ability to find a morbid sort of satisfaction or security in the misfortune of others, particularly when such misfortune cements a legacy of beauty and genius that continues to nourish the living.

The poet describes Keats's work as a "candy store of bitter-sweets," suggesting that there is a certain indulgence in consuming the fruits of another's suffering, a guilty pleasure in feasting upon the beauty born from pain. This metaphor extends to a broader critique of how society romanticizes the suffering of artists, transforming their pain into consumable and enjoyable artifacts, without fully grappling with the human cost of such beauty.

Ciardi's use of the term "psilanthropic" (denoting a belief in the mere humanity of Christ, thus denying his divine nature) among "exegetes" (scholars who interpret texts, particularly scripture) positions himself as skeptical of the sanctification of artists and their suffering. He suggests that there is a form of idolatry in venerating the prematurely deceased artist, an idolatry that serves to elevate the observer by vicariously partaking in the tragedy without enduring the actual loss.

The poem also touches on the theme of mortality and the illusion of immortality through art. Ciardi reflects on his own brush with death during wartime, revealing a deep ambivalence about the value of life and the act of mourning. This personal anecdote serves to underscore the poem's central thesis: the complex and often contradictory emotions that death, especially that of individuals who leave behind a significant artistic legacy, evokes in the living.

The hypothetical musing that Keats might have become "as dull as Tennyson" had he lived longer is a stark, controversial assertion that challenges the reader to consider the impact of timing on an artist's legacy. Ciardi suggests that there is a perverse perfection in dying at the peak of one's poetic powers, leaving behind a body of work that is forever preserved in its youthful brilliance.

In concluding, Ciardi returns to the motif of the "beautiful, pale, dying poet," whose death is both a source of sadness and a perverse kind of gift to posterity. The final lines of the poem—"O beautiful, pale, dying poet, fading as soft as rhyme, the saddest music keeps the sweetest time"—capture the essence of the poem's exploration of the bittersweet intersection of death, art, and human desire for immortality through legacy.

Through "A Trenta-Sei of the Pleasure We Take in the Early Death of Keats," John Ciardi offers a deeply reflective, if unsettling, meditation on the human condition, challenging readers to confront their own complicity in the romanticization of artist's suffering and the complex emotions surrounding death and legacy.

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