현실세계 극복을 위한 미의 추구 - 키이츠의『소쩍새에게 부치는 노래』를 중심으로 -

The Pursuit of Beauty to overcome the real world: About Keats' Ode to a Nightingale

John Keats was always conscious that "A poet should seek truth and reality and give it an eternal life with a meaningful language." So, during his brief life, he was much concerned with real experience and reality. In particular, he believed that metaphysical thoughts and religions could not settle the pain of the real world. He tried continuously to find something powerful that could endow hope in human life. As the result, he pursued the eternal Beauty that indwells in all things and natural phenomena. Therefore, Beauty was the object of an eternal pursuit and that brought joy to him. And the Beauty that grasps through abundant imagination makes our life positive and humanity harmonious with the real world. Notably, Ode to a Nightingale shows his effort to overcome sorrow from the limitedness of humanity and his progress of inner growth to develop the wisdom to endure the pain and the hardships of the real world. Most of all the significance of Keats as a poet is that he welcomed the pains and the hardships, and tried to find Beauty as a solution to them, not in a fantasy or a dream, but in a real world based on the understanding of humanity, and let humans understand it.