This is not the first time I have read “Isabella.” However, this is the first time I have read it in an even vaguely scientific context, and so I decided to focus on the question that we ended class with the last time: “Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance?” (Keats 385). While I am still not sure I can answer that question, it did provide an interesting lens for reading the poem.
Until the “wormy circumstance” stanza, “Isabella” functions as a fairly typical romance of star-crossed lovers. Isabella and Lorenzo are passionately in love, but he is below her in social rank (Turns out there is a Chain of Being in social relationships as well). Her brothers decide to take care of the problem by murdering Lorenzo (This reminded me of The Spanish Tragedy, but variations on this plotline appear in a host of other Renaissance dramas). Isabella, of course, falls into a deep state of mourning at the loss of her true love.
However, in Stanza XLIX, things become more complicated. The speaker warns us: “Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,/For here, in truth, it doth not well belong” (Keats 389-90). After this stanza, “Isabella” is anything but typical. Even on a second reading, the lines, “She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose/A garden pot” (Keats 413-4) strike me as deeply unsettling. Which begs the question: is the beginning of the poem as simple as I originally thought? Perhaps the poem is taking some of the elements of more typical romances and using them for its own end, much like a worm absorbs nutrients from the soil. In this case, the lingering on the “wormy circumstance” turns the poem into a critique or reflection on romance that stretches the genre to its logical, if extreme ends.
I agree that this is not your typical romance poem, in part because of the blatant social protest that applies not only to the social class of the characters, but also to how Isabella's family made their money. Perhaps I've taken too many classes about imperialism and the English empire, but I could not help but read a criticism of English imperialism in this poem. Beginning in stanza XIV Keats indicts Isabella's family for exploiting people abroad, particularly in India (though since Isabella's family is Italian he is displacing some of the blame from his own country) and throughout the poem Keats makes reference to "Indian clove" (l. 101) and "Araby" (l.410) In his book Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said argues that these kinds of linguistic clues illustrate how the English were accultured to an attitude of imperialism. Keats's cultural education was one that incorporated the idea of empire, and of scientific advances too. Perhaps when Keats says "Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,/For here, in truth, it doth not well belong/To speak..." (l.389-391) he is saying that the old forms of poetry are no longer valid given the knew English empire and the new scientific knowledge that is widely accessible. So when Keats asks "Wherefore all this wormy circumstance?" is he referring to the beginning of the poem and the point of love poetry? Is he telling the reader to form a new way of analysing poetry based on modern standards? Or is he asking a completely different question all together?
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