Evading A Topic…John Keats Anyone?
Sunday, February 5th, 2012I just spent the larger part of the morning writing about anger. It ended up being much longer than I had hoped, and opened up things that I had not anticipated. Great! Now I have to process anger. Well…My track record has been good with processing emotions so I will cling to the recent positive experiences that have transpired by tackling them head on. BUT anger is very hard for me — it is tied into a multiple of other emotions. I have never learned how to handle or express my anger properly. I also do not know how to handle someone else’s anger. That is a whole topic on its own.
Instead of exposing myself when I do not feel quite ready I will talk about John Keats.
Has anyone ever thought John Keats was an Aspie? I was just curious. I did not see it when I searched, but I did find that he suffered from depression. However, as I read some of his personal writings I thought it was interesting and felt very familiar. I read several things about John Keats last night. Then, ABC Local Conversation with Richard Filder “Tony Attwood” was on fb this morning that of course, I got sucked into because they used quotes from Mr. Darcy in the 1995 TV mini-series version of Pride and Prejudice. Which happened to be the first thing I saw with Colin Firth, and since I do adore Mr. Darcy ever so I got a little fixated with Colin. Don’t try to figure it out, I don’t know either.
Dr. Tony describes an Aspie mother and I said:”YES!”
He basically described many things in my life, and I am sure many others out there who need some confirmation today would find comfort listening to this. He is focusing more on women and girls later in the talk. He mentioned how AS girls can escape into imaginary worlds, and have imaginary friends. It made me laugh because yesterday I was talking out loud as an owl and a raven. They were my friends telling me the story that I am working on. I know that they were not real. It is just how my mind works. It is so funny how this talk is confirming so much of what I wrote out about dealing with anger. I am making more connections. It was confirming about what I am currently doing to try to find new coping mechanisms. It is confirming about me being a whistle-blower, my sensory intuition, my spy like qualities
, and many other things. It is a great talk. I recommend listening to it.
Ok, back to John Keats.
This site Keats’ Kingdom had interesting facts like “Keats when he became a published poet collected every scrap of paper containing his earlier poems and burnt them as he considered them to be awful.” Um…no comment. Here are some excerpts that I found interesting as well. I am going to add my comments and indicate them by beginning with *.
Sent to Fanny Brawne February 1820
“For some reason or other your last night’s note was not so treasurable as former ones. I would fain that you call me Love still. To see you happy and in high spirits is a great consolation to me – still let me believe that you are not half as happy as my restoration would make you”
- Shows how Keats could be very selfish and inwards-thinking. Jealous and demanding
* The author here claims that Keats is being “Jealous and demanding” I question that after reading about his life. From my Aspie perspective (which really means nothing I am just stimming) I would say he is confused by her seeming happiness without him. He does not want her to feel unhappy, he treasures her joy, but he needs to know that she is missing him as much as he is missing her. He is feeling intense emotions that he felt she was feeling as well. However, by her note he is unsure which causes him to doubt her feelings. This confusion my life has often been labeled as jealousy and being demanding. He was consumed by her. In past writings he made it clear that he was uncomfortable around woman. I will share more of that later.
I wonder how many Aspies have been accused of being jealous or demanding when the reality is, we do not understand the social dynamics going on. I also wonder how often we act out in this because like Tony said in the above talk we prefer one-on-one instead of multiple people. The addition of another person can cause confusion about the relationship, and the relationship with the additional person. Relationships are so difficult. Is it that when we decide to give someone our affections we expect the same amount in return? If we see them being happy with others it could make us feel inadequate to the relationship? I don’t know these are the thoughts popping in my head at the moment. I am writing this on the fly.
“My sweet creature”
“I wander at the Beauty which has kept up the spell so fervently”- It is strange that Keats should refer to his muse as a creature rather than a woman. Later on, he suggests that she has bewitched him, and can’t understand why she’s captivated him so much.
Fanny must have been somewhat confused by this, as Keats paints a picture of himself as being in love with Fanny, but for no particular reason except that she’s bewitched him.
* I do not find this strange at all. I express my love through animals, nature, colors, or numbers in my poetry or stories. I am able to confess my real emotions through the way I see creatures, or the world. I am not sure he was expressing that he was bewitched, but possibly he was able to express his affections in that way because it felt safer. He had never been in love before, it could have been too overwhelming to say: “Fanny, I love you”. He could have been terrified of the words — only able to express them through poems that indirectly, but cryptically revealed his true passions.
It is far easier to express your love imagining a creature as your desire of affection rather than the actual person. The creature will not reject you, and possibly he was purposely being cryptic because it was his cherished love that he did not want tainted by anyone else. Possibly she was the only one who understood what he was saying. I do have a kind of tragic love story brewing from the owl and the raven so my imagination could be taking flight here, but I will not expose anything. This is too fun.
Sent to Fanny Brawne June 1820
“..as usual I have been occupied with nothing but you: I wish I could say in an agreeable manner. I am tormented day and night”
“You are to me an object intensely desirable- the air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy”- It’s clear that Keats is hopelessly in love with Fanny. But as the letter goes on, the tone changes, almost becoming patronising:
“.. you have a thousand activities- you can be happy without me”
“You do not feel as I do- you do not know what it is to love”
“Ask yourself how many unhappy hours Keats has caused you in Lonliness”- He just assumes Fanny doesn’t care that much for him, or perhaps he’s trying to provoke a response so that he can feel better? (assuming she will be kind in her reply)
* I do not think he is trying to provoke a reply here. Maybe he is I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem to go along with his character. Imagine thinking that you would never find a person that you could have such strong feelings for, add being confused by the social dynamics of that species, to discover one has caught your affections and seems to have the same affections. It would be scary, and if you have been abandoned before, such as he was as a child it would prove to be very challenging to trust your emotions and those of the other person. I think he has found that connection that he had never felt before and he does not know what else to with it. It is confusing to see her happy without him when he is so miserable without her.
It is hard to explain for me with friends, and even family it has been difficult to understand how people are so able to move forward without me. I have felt like it did not matter if I was around or not. Surely they never cared for me as they said they did because they are perfectly fine without me. It is part of the “all or nothing” mindset. I am getting a lot better in this area, though it is hard for me to grasp sometimes. It is not that I want them to be miserable, I just want to know that they miss me, I matter, and that they think of me. Just as I think of them, maybe not as obsessively, but at least fleeting happy thoughts. Lol! (I am not always obsessive…really…ok, about people anyway.
)
It’s hard to understand where I stand in relationships.
I have expressed it before that I need someone to tell me if we are friends I will not figure it out. Well after years maybe. Like my one friend here, it took me two years to finally understand that we are good friends. I didn’t know this until a few months ago. I figured since we had not seen each other in so long that we were done being friends. I just assumed that we were finished with any kind of friendship and let it go since I had not seen her or heard from her in a while. I didn’t have any ill feelings — I just thought well it was a good run for me. Wow, that sounds kind of strange now that I wrote it out. I’ll leave it.
More on Keats…
I found these letters on this site John Keats and Fanny Brawn.
Keats felt uncomfortable with women and contemptuous of them. In July 1818, he wrote:
… I am certain I have not a right feeling towards Women–at this moment I am striving to be just to them but I cannot–Is it because they fall so far beneath my Boyish imagination? When I was a Schoolboy I thought a fair Woman a pure Goddess, my mind was a soft nest in which some one of them slept though she knew it not–I have no right to expect more than their reality.
I thought them etherial above Men–I find them perhaps equal…. I do not like to think insults in a Lady’s Company–I commit a Crime with her which absence would have not known–Is it not extraordinary? When among Men I have no evil thoughts, no malice, no spleen–I feel free to speak or to be silent–I can listen and from every one I can learn–my hands are in my pockets I am free from all suspicion and comfortable. When I am among Women I have evil thoughts, malice spleen–I cannot speak or be silent–I am full of Suspicions and therefore listen to no thing–I am in a hurry to be gone–You must be charitable and put all this perversity to my being disappointed since Boyhood–. . .
I could say a good deal about this but I will leave it in hopes of better and more worthy dispositions–and also content that I am wronging no one, for after all I do think better of Womankind than to suppose they care whether Mister John Keats five feet high likes them or not.
* Hee hee I love it! I feel the same about certain women. Sorry it’s true, and I have felt the same about certain men. Indeed. The next part amused me very much. Not in a sick way, just in a familiar and comfortable way. He was soon to meet the love of his life Fanny Brawne which makes this whole story very tragic, sad, wonderful and glorious at the same time.
It is not surprising that he would rather not marry, preferring solitude, the life of the imagination, and the appreciation of beauty:
…I hope I shall never marry. Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at the end of a Journey or a walk; though the carpet were of Silk, the Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and Sofa stuffed with Cygnet’s down; the food Manna, the Wine beyond Claret, the Window opening on Winandermere, I should not feel–or rather my Happiness would not be so fine, as my Solitude is sublime.
Then instead of what I have described, there is a Sublimity to welcome me home–The roaring of the wind is my wife and the Stars through the windowpane are my Children. The mighty abstract Idea I have of Beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness–an amiable wife and sweet Children I contemplate as a part of that Beauty. but I must have a thousand of those beautiful particles to fill up my heart. I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds–No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit. . .
Letter, Oct 1818He goes on to explain, “the opinion I have of the generallity of women–who appear to me as children to whom I would rather give a Sugar Plum than my time, form a barrier against Matrimony which I rejoice in. “
I had not read all about John Keats until yesterday.
I had read his poetry before, but I had not dabbled into his life. I did not know any of this and ironically the story that is playing around in my head has very similar themes. I am not claiming that John Keats had Aspergers I am just seeing parallels for myself. And playing around to help me not get consumed in loops that I do need to get caught up in. I do find his life, and his love very interesting and I can relate very much to many of the things that I read. Who doesn’t want to consume information about John Keats? Come on! (giggle, giggle)
Here are a few links that I read:
The Grasshopper and The Cricket (Poem)




