When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

• Themes

  • Fear of death
  • Creativity
  • Nature
  • Ambition/ambition
• Structure

  • Shakespearean sonnet
• "Before high piled books, in charact’ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;"

  • The nature of Keats' fears are developed. He continues the Pastoral imagery of the previous line. The ‘full-ripened grain’ represents his poetry, and the Romantic idea of being at one with
  • Nature is reinforced by the alliterative, lush-sounding ‘g’s in 'glean’d’, ‘garners’ & ‘grain’. Keats’s mention of ripeness also suggests the fertility of his imagination.
  • compound adjective ‘full-ripen’d’, a typically concise hyphened device that Keats uses frequently in his poetry.
• "trace their shadows with magic hand of chance"


  • This is open to interpretation. The enjambed phrase ‘trace /Their shadows’ could refer to the elusiveness of stories that are not fully formed in his mind.
  • He will be denied the time to develop them. The ‘magic hand of chance’ is somewhat obscure. Does this mean that Keats' imagination is a random process, where ideas dart into his mind?
  • Another interpretation is that ‘the magic hand of chance’ may refer to the capricious nature of fame through writing.
• "Huge cloudy symbols of high romance"


  • The speaker’s deepest and most ambitious visions come to him in his quiet moments of reflection. He finds a vast amount of inspiration in the cosmos, with the night’s stars and clouds reminding him of the limited time he has left in the world to express all of his burning thoughts.
  • The line mixes the senses, ‘huge cloudy’ symbols used to describe emotional, romantic stories, an example of synaesthesia.
• "then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink." (part 1)


  • Keats’s fear is that he will not be remembered - stands upon the edge of the ‘wide world’, in isolation, on the seashore, or maybe just at the outer edge of his imagination - reference to cosmos that appeared earlier
  • ending represents a new perspective, the volta - conveys peace and acceptance marked by the dash
  • Characteristically of Keats and the Romantic poets, he refers to capitalised, abstract ‘Love’ and ‘Fame’, creating universality for these concepts.
• "Then on the shore of wide world I stand alone, and think till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink"


  • Keats presents as ‘alone’ - poet being on the outside of society is common theme - personal perception — in reality Keats’s was social — though his intelligence and creativity may have made him feel separated
  • ends on a tragic, prophetic note. The negativity, the sense of loss, is tempered by a mood of acceptance
  • interpretation -Death, is a form of freedom in itself; free him from the 'trace’ the ‘shadows’ of life. Death will free him from the urge to create poetry, to seek Love and Fame.