Bright Star! Would I Were as Steadfast as Thou Art Study Questions & Topics for Discussion

Bright Star! Would I Were as Steadfast as Thou Art Topics for Further Study

In this poem, the speaker says that the star has qualities—steadfastness, watchfulness, fidelity—that he would like to have himself. Write a poem about an object of your choosing, in which you give that object qualities you admire.

Do you think a star is a powerful way for an author to imagine his relationship with his lover? Point out the strengths and weaknesses of this image.

Keats was criticized during his lifetime for being a "Cockney Poet," by which his detractors meant that he wrote like a lower-class person, a worker rather than a refined poet. Pick specific details about this poem that might have led them to this conclusion, and explain your choices.

John Keats was only 26 when he died. Read about someone who was famous and died young and draw a chart that points out other aspects that their life had in common with Keats's.