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

The Writer's Death and Reader's Life

John Keats once wrote:

“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.