Analyzing John Keats' Poem This Living Hand, Now Warm and Capable

"All I hope is… that the solitary indifference I feel for applause, even from the finest spirits, will not blunt any acuteness of vision I may have. I do not think it will- I feel assured I should write from the mere yearning of and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labours should be burnt every morning and no eye ever shine upon them" (1042).

But Keats doesn't burn his work every morning; he doesn't have to. So, whatever his "solitary indifference" for applause is, he is writing not necessarily for applause, but to connect to the distant reader. The relationship of the writer and reader to endings is a major theme in Keats' "This living hand, now warm and capable." Ends are often viewed as final, like death, but a poetic work is a beginning for a reader; and only that final death for the poet. In John Keats' poem "This living hand, now warm and capable" Keats is contemplating on the integral part of literature, the relation of the writer and reader to a piece of literature and to each other. For a writer, the finishing of a piece is likened to death, death of the piece and the writer writing that particular piece. For the reader, the end of a piece of literature is the beginning, the beginning of their interpretation and thought. And the relationship between the writer and reader is the basis of literatures appeal: the grasping for expression and understanding. After all, what is a piece of literature without the reader, writer, and the dynamic they create? In discussing these connections I try to show how Keats works to defy death, defy the reader, and yet still attempts to make the connection between reader and writer, but fails, and what's more knows it.

To Keats writing was an integral part of his life. "'Poetry was…the zenith of all his [Keats] aspirations: the only thing worthy the attention of superior minds: so he thought: all other pursuits were mean and tame… the greatest men in the world were poets'" (Jack, 105). For any writer, creation is most certainly impending death just as life will most certainly end in death. This death, the most final ending, is real to the writer alone. Keats' poem directly represents this idea. The "living hand" symbolizes life and more literally symbolizes the poet's actual hand. Most importantly, the living hand can also symbolize the poem itself. This link can be made on the level that writing is done through the manual use of the hand. It is a logical jump to associate this hand with writing, and since the hand dies, the death in writing. When the hand is living it is "capable of earnest grasping," (2), which can be viewed as the writing process where a poet grasps for sufficient wording. This is the point when the work is alive in a reader. However, when the work, or on a larger scale, life, is over, that tool (the hand used to write) is turned cold "in the icy silence of the tomb" (3). A writer is that hand "earnestly grasping" as he or she tries to express himself through words, "grasping" for a way to release the ideas and feelings in word form on paper. For most poets only writing can grant the release. Many writers associate not writing with a state like death or not being. Once done with a certain piece writing must halt, at least momentarily, and the pause in writing leads to a feeling of death. No matter how many times the writer reads their own work after it is finished, especially after being published, nothing can be altered; it cannot be relived. That feeling of creation can only come once for once work. Besides, it would only be painful to think of a better ending after the fact. The creative process used from that poem is gone; dead; icy cold, just like the hand. While the writer creates something and has power over the words while writing, when finished "the hand that suspends death also writes a death sentence" (Armstrong, 365). Suspending death is the writing process and the idea of giving the poem to the reader, but in the end, where the poet must let the end be final and let the poem go, the death sentence is the end for the writer. But for Keats specifically he does all he can to NOT end the work. He leaves it as a fragment to try to keep it alive to him. The poem itself touches on this fact. "Would if it [the hand/poem] were cold" (2), this 'if' tells us the work is not finished or dead, and Keats wont let it be, because he becomes dead "in the icy silence of the tomb" (3), if he lets it end, or rather, die. Keats, as a writer, wants eternal life, but only gets death. Keats is scared of ending, of letting go, just as many people are scared of physical death. As many people try to avoid death by playing life safe, Keats tries to avoid death by leaving his work unfinished, perhaps in an effort to leave something he can always come back to and feel alive in. Yet, he cannot succeed in this. Whether finished or not he leaves the work and that particular process dies. He may try to resurrect it, but it is not the same, that one poetic process has died. In his letter to Richard Woodhouse in 1818, Keats states, "A poet… has no identity, he is continually in for- and filling- some other body" (1042). This statement, saying he becomes the speaker of each poem whether the speaker is fictional or not, adds to the death of a writing piece. The end (or leaving of the poem) means he will no longer be this person, and thus cease to be, no longer having even a semblance of an identity to hold on to.

One of the most important things a reader of literature does is lend their own interpretation to an authors work. To the reader, the poem is a living gift. The poem may not "earnestly grasp" with the reader but it is a living entity, capable of change and new birth, capable of avoiding death. While this is possible for the reader, it is an impossibility for the writer who must see the death in their finished work. A reader will read and grow with the work differently at each reading. As Tim Armstrong points out in his article "Final Gestures," the readers have their own power over the poem. "Part of what we attribute to final gestures is thus an effect of the reader" (375). The reader has the power to make symbols and endings be whatever their interpretation deems appropriate. At a young age they could see Keats' "The living hand" as a call from the grave, as they age and perhaps become cynical this interpretation could change to a silly poem about a man hoping to haunt those he leaves behind. Both views are acceptable and have the ability to change because to the reader the poem is not their creation, not their child. To the reader, the poem is malleable to their own lives, their own perceptions of language and form. The emotional attachment for a reader only comes with their own interpretation, their own thoughts and events that have shaped their lives. They can take it, ignore it, or leave it altogether. They can ignore the finality of the end, thus making their own end. However, the reader's thoughts will not be printed and distributed, they are not born to die, as the writer's are. Contrastingly, while the writer seeks life and only finds death, readers seek death only to find life. The reader isn't grasping for life or writing or expression, the reader is grasping for understanding. Most readers want a conclusion, an end. Many seek a clear-cut explanation of what the text is addressing. Keats refuses to give one; he defies the reader's expectations by leaving them a fragment. This fragment of a piece has no real ending or beginning, no clear cut explanation. He uses the fragment to keep himself living, to "haunt [the reader's] days and chill [his or her] dreaming nights (4). Thus attempting to keep the poem alive for him AND the reader. In Edward Hirsch's article "A Hand, A Hook, A Prayer" Hirsch notes that "If he could, Keats would have bridged in advance the gap-the impossible threshold-between the dead and the living" (18); the dead, being the writer, the living being the reader, but Keats cannot do this. Keats is a failure in denying the reader an ending because a reader can mold a meaning out of anything. In a first reading, with no prior knowledge of the piece, a reader can come to any conclusion because there is no background information to add or take away from his or her own perceptions. He or she may even perceive it as a finished piece whether it is or not. A reader can find purpose in nonsense, life in death, and an ending in a fragment. I'm doing it in this very paper. Keats fails, yet as he desires to reach out to his reader, he knows he fails. He gives it to the reader clearly stating his purpose is an attempt to live on, but the reader does not have to give him this. Just as the poem is dead to the writer, the writer is dead to the poem. The poet, Keats, can't dictate meaning. However, the readers can because they are the ones who have, now, brought the poem to life.

Despite the deep chasm between life for the reader and death for the writer, the reader and writer are undeniably linked. The reader is always aware of the "ghostlike presence of the writer that is left in them and the uncontestable right of the reader to enter the process" (Armstrong, 377). And the writer, if planning on publishing at any point, realizes the reader's "uncontestable right" to interpret. It is similar to the way birth and death are linked. With birth must come death; with writers almost always comes readers. This is a link that can't be broken. There is a relationship that can't be denied. Keats mentions it with the line "So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights" (4). His effect on the reader is there: the poem living with, haunting the reader night and day, though dead to the poet. In "The living hand", Keats' gives the poem to the reader because, to him, it is dead and in the "silent tomb" he speaks of. By giving it away he is giving his creation life (with the reader) over death (with the writer). That this aliveness is the "red life [that] might stream again" (6). By giving it to the reader, that life may just stream again, Keats knows keeping it will not accomplish life. As Hirsch states, "He [Keats] brings the future listener into direct focus. He turns that listener, that reader, from a more formal and distant 'thou' to a closer and more intimate 'you'" (17). Keats wants to make the writer-reader relationship more direct, more intimate. He wants to draw the reader in, trick them into trusting him. And in that same vein Keats wants the relationship to go further. As he is denying the readers right to find an end- he wants life through the reader. "So in my veins red life might stream again" (6). In this line, the "my" is both the "my" of the poem itself, and the "my" of Keats as the poet/speaker. Then, with that intimate you, after drawing the reader in more directly, it is harder for the reader to deny him. Not necessarily deny him of the poem itself, but deny him of the eternal life he wants through the poem. Keats wants not only to give this living thing away to life, but also to live in the reader through it. Keats is hoping not just for this poem to die as he completes it, but to bring himself, the poet, back to life each time the poem is read. Then, the reader won't have to fear the new life of the poem for the poet will guide them. Keats makes the connection when he bridges the gap between writer and reader, handing it to them. He brought this work to life, but by ending it, or rather leaving it, even fragmented, gave it to the reader. The poem is the hand and Keats "hold[s] it towards you" (8), the reader. His intentions are not pure, but it is a gift, a connection, nonetheless, and where he fails at keeping the poem alive for himself, where he fails at dictating the life of the poem to the reader, he succeeds in a reader-writer connection. By holding the hand, the poem, to the reader he hopes for his life to be spared, but he must leave the poet with the choice. The act of giving is this choice; the gift is the possibility of the reader to say and interpret something else.

Keats' "This living hand, now warm and capable" is not only dissecting the relationship between reader and writer, but is also attempting, on Keats' part, to thwart the death in the writing process. Trying to create a writing that lives in everyone, but most importantly within himself as the writer. Unfortunately, he cannot meet this goal. Like life and death, writing has undeniable facts that can be tweaked, but not changed. Life will come to an end to the person dying, though he may always live on in memory in those around him. The same is true with a poem and a poet. The poet will always die in the work, but he may live on in the reader, a basic connection that will never be broken.