This study of four of Keats's greatest poems explores a dynamic pattern in the poet's imagination: a relationship between the oral/fusional imagery and the romantic/oedipal themes. The poet's imagination seems to have been propelled backward from oedipal conflict to earlier narcissistic/oral unrest and pleasure. There is a layering of special psychic capabilities evident in Keats's imagination: an element of oedipal romance which stabilizes the process of sublimation, a sense of magical play and danger in the maternal/oral imagery, and powerful narcissistic longings organized through the desire to communicate and the gift for expression.