Love Unit- Bright Star

Bright Star

By: John Keats

In the poem, Bright Star, by John Keats, the narrator uses an apostrophe to address the imagery of a star. Through the star, Keats creates symbolism by comparing a star to love. In the end, this symbolism is what illustrates the narrator's true feelings and ideas of love.

The star addressed within the poem characterizes love and acts as a metaphor. Through the star, love's quality of being steadfast is illustrated as stars are fairly constant, taking millions of years to change. Additionally, love is presented as eternal, something that always fills one's heart just as the stars fill the sky. In expanding upon the idea of love as eternal, the star is used to illustrate that the light it puts forth always shines until the end of the world just as love is felt until one's own world dies. Finally, the quality for which the narrator separates love from the symbol of the star is that stars only watch as the earth passes by. In contrast to this characteristic, the narrator suggests that love should not simply be watching from a distance, but action . Action in the sense of giving of one's self and both feeling and expressing emotions. 

By comparing love to a star and addressing the star directly, the narrator presents their belief of love. The narrator states, "And so live ever-or else swoon to death (Page 792)." Thus, the narrator states that one must live their love by loving steadfastly and eternally to avoid death of simply watching as love passes by.