Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse

... her examination of Keats’ poetry is highly personal. As a person of Iranian descent coming of age in the United States she felt as much an outsider as Keats must have in his society. It’s through this lens that she looks at his work; bringing a perspective to her critiques both unique and intriguing ... While Nersessian is an academic, and she does delve deeply beneath the surface of Keats’ odes to give us a better understanding of his work, the book and her ideas are surprisingly accessible. Each of the six [ods]...examined in the text, are given an in-depth and loving treatment ... The book is not just unstinting praise as she takes a very much warts and all approach to her subject. While some might find that odd for what is supposedly a love letter to the poet, this ability to be objective but retain her affection for Keats gives more credence to her opinions ... a deep and accessible delve into the poetry of one of the great Romantic poets. It is the perfect antidote to the way most of us had his poetry foisted on us in school as it's a wonderful combination of reverence for Keats’ sublime writing and reality based analysis.

Keats’s Odes: A Lover’s Discourse...models a kind of criticism for the future ... This Keats is fully human. The book is a lover’s discourse in part because that is what love so often means: to love through the flaws and faults of the lover ... this short book is expansive, perhaps grounded in six poems but sprawling out to contain reflections on contemporary writers, sexual misconduct, death, and more ... Each chapter tries something different, and the book feels essayistic in the truest sense: as attempts at new ways to relate to these poems ... This is a book about Keats but it is for his admirers. It is an ode to a poet and his poems that have touched generations. Stylistically, A Lover’s Discourse appears freed by the sensuousness of Keats’s own verse, standing on the verge of becoming something more than literary criticism. While not an imitation of Keatsian style, Nersessian shares his willingness for vulnerability and for writing that enfleshes the experience of being subject to the world because you are a subject in it ... Nersessian illustrates the vitality of certain kinds of thinking: thinking about the best aspects of art, about love and harm, about the connections we forge to others and the environment.

... a ham-fisted application of literary theory, a traditional work of literary exegesis on six sophisticated odes, and a personal narrative that alternately does and doesn’t directly relate to the poems ... Too often this study comes off like an acrimonious couple’s counseling session ... Nersessian weaponizes Keats’s delicate odes and turns them into blunt instruments to smash the bourgeoisie ... There’s no question that Nersessian has some ingenious, and often apt, applications of Marxist theory. Other times, however, the heavy-handed ideology drags down her prose ... Ironically, Nersessian is gifted at exactly the kind of formalist literary criticism Marxist critics of the ’70s and ’80s fought so hard to discredit. This analysis is seldom central to her argument, but she makes a great many perceptive observations ... Nersessian has a fine ear as well, and she often finds meaningful rhetorical justifications for Keats’s sibilants, open vowel sounds, and alliterations. But she isn’t hypnotized by Keats’s technique, either. She will call it out when it is overcooked or strained ... She isn’t afraid of bringing her educated, loving, and damaged self (or at least the persona of one) into the discussion ... At times, these moments are powerful and revealing. But I must confess I sometimes struggled to see (or was reluctant to participate in) how these confessions were supposed to help me understand Keats’s odes ... but it’s a start on an exciting new approach to criticism.