KEATS’S CRAFTSMANSHIP1
1814-1817
Spenserian stanza (9 lines: 8 iambic
pentameters + 1 Alexandrine / iambic
heptameter)
Endymion
Heroic couplets (rhyming pairs of lines in iambic
pentameter)
Sonnets of 1816 (“Woman!...”; “Light feet…”; Petrarchan sonnet (an “octave” of 8 lines + a
“Ah, who can ever…”)
“sestet” of 6 lines, for a total of 14 lines in
iambic pentameter)
Imitation of Spenser
1818
Later sonnets (“When
To…[“Time’s sea”])
Fancy
Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil
Hyperion
I
have
fears…”; Shakespearian sonnet (three quatrains of 4
lines each, and a final couplet for a total of 14
lines in iambic pentameter)
Rondeau, rhyming pairs of lines in trochaic
tetrameters
Ottava rima (eight lines in iambic pentameter;
rhyme scheme: a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c)
Blank verse (iambic pentameters, unrhymed)
1819
The Eve of St. Agnes
La Belle Dame sans Merci
Great Odes
Lamia
The Fall of Hyperion
Spenserian stanza (9 lines: 8 iambic
pentameters + 1 Alexandrine / iambic
heptameter)
Ballad, twelve four-line stanzas (quatrains) in
alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter
lines
Loose Pindaric form, stanzas of varying length
and rhyme schemes
Heroic couplets (rhyming pairs of lines in iambic
pentameter), but with occasional triplets and
Alexandrines
Blank verse (iambic pentameters, unrhymed)
1
Cfr. W.J. BATE, The Stylistic Development of Keats, Humanities Press, New York, 1945 e M.R.
RIDLEY, Keats’s Craftsmanship, A Study in Poetic Development, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1933.
1
KEATS’S MATURER STYLE
2