When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be Summary & Analysis
by John Keats

Question about this poem?
Have a question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
Ask us
Ask us
Ask a question
Ask a question
Ask a question

"When I have Fears That I May Cease to be" is an Elizabethan (a.k.a. Shakespearean) sonnet written by John Keats in 1818, although it wasn't published until 1848, which was twenty-seven years after the poet's death. A lyric poem (in the sense that it expresses personal or intimate feelings), the poem centers on a speaker's anxiety about dying before being able to achieve his or her aspirations as a poet. What makes the poem especially tragic and moving is that Keats died of tuberculosis only three years after writing it, at the young age of 25.

Get
Get
LitCharts
Get the entire guide to “When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be” as a printable PDF.
Download