Beauty is truth

Building on what cgurall and jperez discuss about truth and beauty, it is interesting to consider the implications this philosophy has for reality in Keats' poems. As Ford says, "These fair creatures are undoubtedly something of beauty and, are worth including in this work because to Keats, there is truth in this beauty" - which implies that it doesn't really matter whether Cupid and Psyche are "real" or imaginary. The fact that this vision of them is beautiful is all that matters, the fact that they are beautiful makes them true in some sense, whether or not they are literally real, literally "true." This ambiguity therefore explains, perhaps, why Keats keeps from saying flat-out that these figures are dreams or reality (see comment on Keats' Fancy). The importance and prominence of beauty in Keats' poems and his ability to move back and forth from the certainly-real to the probably-imaginary is again a reflection of this.

In the relation to the urn itself, the fact that the urn as an object and as a symbol is beautiful is all that is important. It is telling a truth because it is beautiful, pure and simple, even if it is not true in the literal sense of the word.

Of particular interest to me in the beauty/truth dilemma, resides in the last lines of many of his odes, and the subsequent rhetorical questions, he commonly poses to his audience. For, under Ford’s definition we find the lines between truth and beauty blurred, where “there is truth in this beauty”, yet many times it seems Keats remains unsure of truth nor beauty to make such a definitive claim on either side. In his Ode to a Nightingale, Keats poses the final question of “Do I wake or sleep” (here), similarly Ode on a Grecian Urn ends in “Beauty is truth, truth beauty- that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” (here) and finally Ode to Psyche concludes with a less obvious tension between thought/emotion and beauty/truth, by claiming “And there shall be for thee all soft delight/That shadowy thought can win,/ A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,/ To let the warm Love in!” (here). When seen in context, the open-endedness of each of his odes, marked by their implicit tensions, not only blur the lines between beauty and truth, but I would argue they are almost completely lost. I say this, in the sense not that the two are of equal value or represent the same thing, but simply that both, in their separate contexts are now put in question. It is a fine distinction, but one I feel worthwhile, for Keats does not want the duel nature of his projected reality to be lost, but instead calls for a re-definition of both.

Furthermore, the divinity spoken of as a progressive mortal-lizing of the Gods, throughout his Odes, only occurs out of what would seem a change in Keats’ inspiration and less an active, conscious effort. If Keats’ goal is to display a life ripe with the possibilities of beauty in truth, then he must prove life’s worth, so to speak. Through layered description and audience-addressed questioning, Keats proves an attempt, at least, at carrying the unconscious into the conscious, beauty in truth, and relating a life full of dream.