Essay is a critical analysis of John Keat's poem "To Sleep," using college-level literary terms.

In John Keats's poem "To Sleep" the construction of the poem works to enhance the reader's interpretation. The poem dwells within a sonnet form, extolling all the virtues of "sleep." Falling within the general bounds of the sonnet, the poem is the obligatory fourteen lines of iambic pentameter coupled with an elaborate rhyme scheme. Although most closely resembling the English sonnet, the deliberate wanderings of the poem from this strict sonnet form merely serve to …

…to "sleep" to guard the "oiled wards" and "seal the hushed Casket of my Soul." Keats's poem uses the English sonnet form with a few variants that truly heighten the interpretive meaning of the poem. "To Sleep" exercises the use of form to augment the meaning of the poem. Within the poem "To Sleep," Keats uses several mechanisms and complex versifications that coalesce with the meaning of the poem to create an astonishingly multi-faceted poem.