John Keats’ poetry and Jane Campion’s Bright Star Essay Guide

Today, we’ll be looking at John Keats’ poetry and Jane Campion’s film Bright Star (2009) in the updated HSC Syllabus. Below is an unpacking of the new syllabus description for HSC Module A and how we can compare the two texts.

Students explore the ways in which the comparative study of texts can reveal resonances and dissonances within and between texts. Students identify, interpret, analyse and evaluate the textual features, conventions, contexts, values and purposes of TWO prescribed texts. By comparing TWO texts, students understand how authors are influenced by other texts, contexts and values, and how these shape meaning. Through their comparative study, they explore common or disparate issues, values, assumptions or perspectives, and the ways these are depicted. By responding imaginatively, interpretively and critically to the comparative study, students explore and evaluate individual and common textual features, concepts, ideas and values.

Important things to note:

• comparative study of texts can reveal resonances and dissonances between and within texts 
• analyse and evaluate the textual features, conventions, contexts, values and purposes of texts
• common or disparate issues, values, assumptions or perspectives
•  individual and common textual features, concepts, ideas and values

Let’s explore how main ideas are explored in the two texts and their resonances and differences:

Female identity: 

In Keats’ poem, La Belle Dame sans Merci, females are presented as a distractor of male imagination and in Bright Star, the female is merely a muse to his poetic imagination. This reflects the Romantic ideal of solitary male genius who individualistically pursued creative imagination and excluded women from the process. Meanwhile, Jane Campion’s film privileges Fanny’s perspectives, outlining her learning of poetry, her romance with Keats, and her grief from losing him to tuberculosis and her reinterpreting and immortalising his poetic legacy. Furthermore, she rejects gender prescriptions of marrying well, adopting a more egalitarian stance by choosing to marry Keats even when he cannot provide, reflecting Campion’s feminist lens.

Mortality: 

While Keats’ poems such as Ode to Grecian Urn immortalise human existence (albeit in a piece of artwork), Bright Star reflects its secular context but tracing Keats’ gradual decline from tuberculosis without romanticising it. Unlike the poem Bright Star which continues to exalt nature’s immortality despite the persona’s illness, the symbol of the dying butterflies in Bright Star as a mirror of Keats’ illness reflects the realism that postmodern composers adopted. Campion reimagines Keats’ musings of mortality and transcendence and instead focalises on the power of human connections and the material world to enhance the artistic impulse and alleviate fears of mortality. 

Using the power of the imagination to immortalise passion: 

In Bright Star, When I have fears that I may cease to be and Ode to Grecian Urn, Keats presents how creativity is immortalised through art. In Campion’s film, Keats’ tuberculosis hinders his union with Fanny due to his awareness of his inevitable immortality. Yet, through the power of imagination in his works and letters, he attempts to immortalise their love. While in Ode to Grecian Urn, artistic legacy is statically presented within the urn, Campion instead reflects post modernist beliefs that one’s artistic legacy can continually be reshaped by differing critical interpretations. 

Depiction of nature: 

In Ode to Nightingale and Ode on Melancholy, nature is depicts as a sublime force that reinvigorates the spirit and allows for transcendence. In the film, nature also reflects the lovers’ emotions yet reflecting a secular context, Campion doesn’t depict how it allows for spiritual transcendence.

Curious to learn more? At JP English, we provide Year 12 students with detailed notes on the prescribed text’s main ideas, context, links to the rubric and form, sample exam questions along with sample essay paragraphs written by state rankers. Additionally, Year 12 lessons are strictly text based and range between 3-6 students so that each student gets detailed support for their school assessments. School assessment help is provided both during class time and outside of class time through our free online marking service. We regularly update our materials so you get the latest exam tips based on our years of experience helping HSC students excel.