Romantic Images of the Sea in Poetry Essay

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Metaphor of the Sea in Keats' and Longfellow's Poetry

One of the most potent metaphors in literature is that of the ocean. The ocean has a timeless, rhythmic quality that has inspired authors of all genres, nations, and eras. For the early 19th century Romantic poet John Keats, observing the sea motivated him to reflect upon pagan mythology and the moon's inconstant temperament. In his poem simply titled "On the Sea," Keats writes that sometimes the sea "with its mighty swell / Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell / Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound." Keats notes how the sea can sometimes be harsh and threatening while other times be mild and even tender. Although it may fill some caverns up with its threatening presence, at other times "tis in such gentle temper found / that scarcely will the very smallest shell / Be moved for days from where it sometime fell."

While Keats does mention "the winds of heaven" in one line, he primarily invokes Hecate, the pagan goddess of witches and the moon to explain the sea's personality and meanderings versus Christian images. The sea is a reminder of the wildness of nature and the purer and unspoiled quality of ancient civilization.

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The poem ends with Keats urging the reader who is tired and fed up with the "cloying melody" of the modern world to "Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth and brood, / Until ye start, as if the sea nymphs quired!" The natural world may be terrifying, but it is necessary to embrace it to truly feel alive.

"The Sound of the Sea" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was written in 1920, more than a hundred years after Keats' 1817 poem. For Longfellow as well, the sea is an irresistible force, although Longfellow engages in more direct personification of the sea, versus invoking age-old goddesses or nymphs. The first line of the poem reads how "The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep," as if the sea were a human being. Longfellow's poem lacks the use of frequent classical allusions unlike Keats' work. As the title suggests, Longfellow focuses more on the immediate sounds of the sea rather than the visual behaviors of the sea in its imagery. The sea is said to speak with: "A voice out of the silence of the deep" and its echoes are "mysteriously multiplied / As….....

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