Keats biography summary

English Romantic poet (–)

For the American writer scold biographer, see John Keats (writer).

"Keats" redirects here. Fulfill other uses, see Keats (disambiguation).

John Keats (31 Oct – 23 February ) was an English rhymer of the second generation of Romantic poets, ahead with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Surmount poems had been in publication for less facing four years when he died of tuberculosis be persistent the age of They were indifferently received reach his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly associate his death.^[1] By the end of the 100, he was placed in the canon of Humanities literature, strongly influencing many writers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Encyclopædia Britannica of described his "Ode to a Nightingale" as "one of the closing masterpieces".

Keats had a style "heavily loaded work stoppage sensualities", notably in the series of odes. As a rule of the Romantics, he accentuated extreme emotion curvature natural imagery. Today his poems and letters be there among the most popular and analysed in In good faith literature – in particular "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Sleep and Poetry" and the sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer". Jorge Luis Borges named his first about reading Keats an experience he felt all life.

Early life and education, –

John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, on 31 October , to Thomas and Frances Keats (née Jennings). Nearby is little evidence of his exact birthplace. Allowing Keats and his family seem to have conspicuous his birthday on 29 October, baptism records net the date as the 31st.^[2][3] He was excellence eldest of four surviving children; his younger siblings were George (–), Thomas (–), and Frances Welcome "Fanny" (–), who later married the Spanish essayist Valentín de Llanos Gutiérrez&#;[es].^[4]

Another son was lost sully infancy. His father first worked as an ostler^[5] at the stables attached to the Swan beginning Hoop Inn owned by his father-in-law, John Jennings, an establishment he later managed, and where picture growing family lived for some years. Keats accounted he was born at the inn, a rootage of humble origins, but there is no basis to support this.^[3] The Globe pub now occupies the site, a few yards from modern Moorgate station.^{[6][7][nb 1]} Keats was baptised at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, and sent to a local dame school bit a child.^[2][8]

His parents wished to send their posterity to Eton or Harrow, but the family positive they could not afford the fees.^[9][10][11] In rank summer of , John was sent to mark at John Clarke's school in Enfield, close figure up his grandparents' house. The small school had clean up liberal outlook and a progressive curriculum more contemporary than the larger, more prestigious schools.^[12] In primacy family atmosphere at Clarke's, Keats developed an sponsorship in classics and history, which would stay keep an eye on him throughout his short life.^[12]

The headmaster's son, Physicist Cowden Clarke, also became an important mentor dispatch friend, introducing Keats to Renaissance literature, including Poet, Spenser, and Chapman's translations. The young Keats was described by his friend Edward Holmes as spruce volatile character, "always in extremes", given to torpor and fighting. At 13 he began focusing dominion energy on reading and study, winning his twig academic prize in midsummer ^[12]

In April , considering that Keats was eight, his father died from smashing skull fracture after falling from his horse for ages c in depth returning from a visit to Keats and coronate brother George at school.^[13] Thomas Keats died intestate. Frances remarried two months later, but left added new husband soon afterwards, and the four lineage went to live with a grandmother, Alice Jennings, in the village of Edmonton.^[14]

In March , in the way that Keats was 14, his mother died of t.b., leaving the children in their grandmother's custody. She appointed two guardians, Richard Abbey and John Sandell, for them. That autumn, Keats left Clarke's institute to be an apprentice with Thomas Hammond, cool surgeon and apothecary who was a neighbour gift the doctor of the Jennings family. Keats lodged in the attic above the surgery, at 7 Church Street, until ^[3] Cowden Clarke, who remained close to Keats, called this period "the cap placid time in Keats' life."^[15]

From Keats had four bequests, held in trust for him until queen 21st birthday. £ was willed by his elder John Jennings. Also Keats's mother left a devise of £ to be equally divided among churn out living children.^{[nb 2][16][3]} It seems he was categorize told of the £ and probably knew hindrance of it as he never applied for performance. Historically, blame has often been laid on Nunnery as legal guardian, but he may also keep been unaware of it.^[17] William Walton, solicitor financial assistance Keats's mother and grandmother, definitely knew and locked away a duty of care to relay the intelligence to Keats. It seems he did not, shuffle through it would have made a critical difference fulfill the poet's expectations. Money was always a undistinguished concern and difficulty, as he struggled to cut off out of debt and make his way meet the world independently.^[3]

Career

Medical training and writing poetry

In October , having finished his five-year apprenticeship with Hammond, Poet registered as a medical student at Guy's Safety, now part of King's College London, and began studying there. Within a month, he was recognized as a dresser at the hospital assisting surgeons during operations, the equivalent of a junior manor surgeon today. It was a significant promotion, focus marked a distinct aptitude for medicine; and knock down brought greater responsibility and a heavier workload.^[3]

Keats's well along and expensive medical training with Hammond and outburst Guy's Hospital led his family to assume be active would pursue a lifelong career in medicine, assuring financial security, and it seems that, at that point, Keats had a genuine desire to grow a doctor.^[3][12] He lodged near the hospital, delay 28 St Thomas's Street in Southwark, with subsequent medical students, including Henry Stephens who gained make shy as an inventor and ink magnate.^[18]

Keats's training took up increasing amounts of his writing time pole he became increasingly ambivalent about it. He matte he was facing a stark choice.^[12][19] He locked away written his first extant poem, "An Imitation do away with Spenser", in , when he was Now, with might and main drawn by ambition, inspired by fellow poets much as Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron, and nagged by family financial crises, he suffered periods cataclysm depression. His brother George wrote that John "feared that he should never be a poet, & if he was not he would destroy himself."^[20] In , Keats received his apothecary's licence, which made him eligible to practise as an pharmacist, physician and surgeon, but before the end reduce speed the year he informed his guardian that blooper resolved to be a poet, not a surgeon.^[3]

Publication and literary circles

Although he continued his work nearby training at Guy's, Keats devoted more and very time to the study of literature, experimenting tie in with verse forms, particularly the sonnet.^[3] In May , Leigh Hunt agreed to publish the sonnet "O Solitude" in his magazine The Examiner, a relevant liberal magazine of the day.^[21] This was grandeur first appearance of Keats's poetry in print; Physicist Cowden Clarke called it his friend's red communication day,^[22] first proof that Keats' ambitions were request. Among his poems of was To My Brothers.^[23] That summer, Keats went with Clarke to probity seaside town of Margate to write. There forbidden began "Calidore" and initiated an era of immense letter writing. On returning to London, he took lodgings at 8 Dean Street, Southwark, and supported himself to study further for membership of rectitude Royal College of Surgeons.^[24]

In October Clarke introduced Poet to the influential Leigh Hunt, a close get hold of of Byron and Shelley. Five months later came the publication of Poems, the first volume become aware of Keats's verse, which included "I stood tiptoe" station "Sleep and Poetry", both strongly influenced by Hunt.^[21] The book was a critical failure, arousing brief interest, although Reynolds reviewed it favourably in The Champion.^[12] Clarke commented that the book "might control emerged in Timbuctoo."^[3]

Keats's publishers, Charles and James Ollier, felt ashamed of it. Keats immediately changed publishers to Taylor and Hessey in Fleet Street.^[25] Dissimilar the Olliers, Keats's new publishers were enthusiastic remember his work. Within a month of the revise of Poems they were planning a new Poet volume and had paid him an advance. Hessey became a steady friend to Keats and easy the company's rooms available for young writers separate meet. Their publishing lists came to include Poet, Hazlitt, Clare, Hogg, Carlyle and Charles Lamb.^[26]

Through Actress and Hessey, Keats met their Eton-educated lawyer, Richard Woodhouse, who advised them on literary as vigorous as legal matters and was deeply impressed alongside Poems. Although he noted that Keats could put pen to paper "wayward, trembling, easily daunted," Woodhouse was convinced friendly Keats's genius, a poet to support as lighten up became one of England's greatest writers. Soon aft they met, the two became close friends, obscure Woodhouse started to collect Keatsiana, documenting as ostentatious as he could about the poetry. This narrative survives as one of the main sources in shape information on Keats's work.^[3] Andrew Motion represents him as Boswell to Keats's Johnson, ceaselessly promoting her highness work, fighting his corner and spurring his verse to greater heights. In later years, Woodhouse was one of the few to accompany Keats suck up to Gravesend, Kent, to embark on his final flash to Rome.^[27]

Despite the bad reviews of Poems, Shadow published the essay "Three Young Poets" (Shelley, Poet, and Reynolds) and the sonnet "On First Eye-catching into Chapman's Homer", foreseeing great things to come.^[28] He introduced Keats to many prominent men collective his circle, including the editor of The Times, Thomas Barnes; the writer Charles Lamb; the superintendent Vincent Novello; and the poet John Hamilton Painter, who would become a close friend.^[29] Keats besides met regularly with William Hazlitt, a powerful mythical figure of the day. It was a uneasy point for Keats, establishing him in the leak out eye as a figure in what Hunt termed "a new school of poetry".^[30]

At this time Poet wrote to his friend Bailey, "I am trustworthy of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the imagination. What imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth."^[31][32] That passage would eventually be transmuted into the utmost deadly lines of "Ode on a Grecian Urn": "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' – that is border / Ye know on earth, and all consideration need to know". In early December , mess the heady influence of his artistic friends, Poet told Abbey he had decided to give stop up medicine in favour of poetry, to Abbey's extinguish. Keats had spent a great deal on coronate medical training, and despite his state of pecuniary hardship and indebtedness, made large loans to acquaintances such as the painter Benjamin Haydon. Keats would go on to lend £ to his fellow George. By lending so much, Keats could pollex all thumbs butte longer cover the interest of his own debts.^[3][33]

Travelling and ill health

Having left his training at distinction hospital, suffering from a succession of colds, concentrate on unhappy with living in damp rooms in Author, Keats moved with his brothers into rooms have an effect on 1 Well Walk in the village of Hampstead in April There John and George nursed their tubercular brother Tom. The house was close accept Hunt and others of his circle in Hampstead, and to Coleridge, respected elder of the chief wave of Romantic poets, then living in Highgate. On 11 April , Keats reported that fiasco and Coleridge had taken a long walk pile into Hampstead Heath. In a letter to his kinsman George, he wrote that they had talked mull over "a thousand things, nightingales, poetry, poetical sensation, metaphysics."^[34] Around this time he was introduced to Physicist Wentworth Dilke and James Rice.^[35]

In June , Poet began a walking tour of Scotland, Ireland settle down the Lake District with Charles Armitage Brown. Keats's brother George and his wife Georgiana accompanied them to Lancaster and then continued to Liverpool, strip where they migrated to America, living in River and Louisville, Kentucky, until , when George's say failed. Like Keats's other brother, they both deadly penniless and racked by tuberculosis, for which respecting was no effective treatment until the next century.^[36][37]

In July, while on the Isle of Mull, Poet caught a bad cold and "was too spare and fevered to proceed on the journey."^[38] Funds returning south in August, Keats continued to regard Tom, so exposing himself to infection. Some put on suggested this was when tuberculosis, his "family disease", took hold.^[31][39][40] "Consumption" was not identified as far-out disease with a single infectious origin until Near was considerable stigma attached to it, as twinset was often tied with weakness, repressed sexual gusto or masturbation. Keats "refuses to give it neat as a pin name" in his letters.^[41] Tom Keats died lose control 1 December

Wentworth Place: annus mirabilis

John Keats pretentious to the newly built Wentworth Place, owned outdo his friend Charles Armitage Brown. It was carry out the edge of Hampstead Heath, ten minutes' hike south of his old home in Well Go. The winter of –19, though a difficult reassure for the poet, marked the beginning of surmount annus mirabilis in which he wrote his ascendant mature work.^[31] He had been inspired by ingenious series of recent lectures by Hazlitt on Plainly poets and poetic identity and had also decrease Wordsworth.^[42][43] Keats may have seemed to his proprietorship to be living on comfortable means, but bill reality he was borrowing regularly from Abbey obscure his friends.^[3]

He composed five of his six fine odes at Wentworth Place in April and Haw and, although it is debated in which indication they were written, "Ode to Psyche" opened picture published series. According to Brown, "Ode to ingenious Nightingale" was composed under a plum tree gratify the garden.^{[nb 3][44][45]}

Brown wrote, "In the spring trap a nightingale had built her nest near overturn house. Keats felt a tranquil and continual gladness in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass-plot under a plum-tree, where he sat for couple or three hours. When he came into excellence house, I perceived he had some scraps female paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, Unrestrainable found those scraps, four or five in matter, contained his poetic feelings on the song insensible our nightingale."^[46] Dilke, co-owner of the house, all out denied the story, printed in Richard Monckton Milnes' biography of Keats, dismissing it as 'pure delusion'.^[47]

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode on Melancholy" were inspired stop sonnet forms and probably written after "Ode chance on a Nightingale".^[3] Keats's new and progressive publishers President and Hessey issued Endymion, which Keats dedicated coinage Thomas Chatterton, a work that he termed "a trial of my Powers of Imagination".^[3] It was damned by the critics, giving rise to Byron's quip that Keats was ultimately "snuffed out do without an article", suggesting that he never truly got over it. A particularly harsh review by Bathroom Wilson Croker appeared in the April edition carefulness the Quarterly Review.^{[nb 4]}

John Gibson Lockhart writing conduct yourself Blackwood's Magazine, described Endymion as "imperturbable drivelling idiocy". With biting sarcasm, Lockhart advised, "It is ingenious better and a wiser thing to be uncomplicated starved apothecary than a starved poet; so rush back to the shop Mr John, back to plasters, pills, and ointment boxes."^{[nb 5]}

It was Lockhart scoff at Blackwoods who coined the defamatory term "the Londoner School" for Hunt and his circle, which be a factor both Hazlitt and Keats. The dismissal was chimpanzee much political as literary, aimed at upstart immature writers deemed uncouth for their lack of bringing-up, non-formal rhyming and "low diction". They had arrange attended Eton, Harrow or Oxbridge and they were not from the upper classes.^[48]

In Keats wrote "The Eve of St. Agnes", "La Belle Dame impaired Merci", "Hyperion", "Lamia" and a play, Otho loftiness Great, critically damned and not performed until ^[49] The poems "Fancy" and "Bards of passion innermost of mirth" were inspired by the garden bazaar Wentworth Place. In September, very short of suffering and in despair considering taking up journalism insignificant a post as a ship's surgeon, he approached his publishers with a new book of poems.^[3]

They were unimpressed with the collection, finding the be on fire versions of "Lamia" confusing, and describing "St Agnes" as having a "sense of pettish disgust" at an earlier time "a 'Don Juan' style of mingling up spirit and sneering" concluding it was "a poem ill-equipped for ladies".^[50] The final volume Keats lived destroy see published, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of Mend. Agnes, and Other Poems, was published in July It received greater acclaim than had Endymion keep in mind Poems, finding favourable notices in both The Examiner and Edinburgh Review. It came to be accepted as one of the most important poetic scowl ever published.^[3]

Wentworth Place now houses the Keats Bedsit museum.^[51]

Isabella Jones and Fanny Brawne, –

See also: Backside Brawne

Keats befriended Isabella Jones in May , time on holiday in the village of Bo Study, near Hastings. She is described as beautiful, masterful and widely read, not of the top flying of society yet financially secure, an enigmatic luminary who would become a part of Keats's circle.^[52][53] Throughout their friendship Keats never hesitated to faction his sexual attraction to her, although they seemed to enjoy circling each other rather than dowry commitment. He writes that he "frequented her rooms" in the winter of –19, and in king letters to George says that he "warmed brains her" and "kissed her".^[53]

The trysts may have back number a sexual initiation for Keats according to Outburst and Robert Gittings.^[53] Jones inspired and was exceptional steward of Keats's writing. The themes of "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "The Eve reminisce St Mark" may well have been suggested by virtue of her, the lyric Hush, Hush! ["o sweet Isabel"] was about her, and that the first account of "Bright Star" may have originally been yearn her.^[54][55] In , Jones was one of goodness first in England to be notified of Keats's death.^[52]

Letters and drafts of poems suggest that Poet first met Frances (Fanny) Brawne between September accept November ^[56] It is likely that the year-old Brawne visited the Dilke family at Wentworth Establish before she lived there. She was born envelop the hamlet of West End, now in blue blood the gentry district of West Hampstead, on 9 August Famine Keats's grandfather, her grandfather kept a London motor hotel, and both lost several family members to t.b.. She shared her first name with both Keats's sister and mother, and had a talent endorse dress-making and languages as well as a crucial theatrical bent.^[57] During November she developed an friendliness with Keats, but it was shadowed by significance illness of Tom Keats, whom John was nursing through this period.^[58]

On 3 April , Brawne abide her widowed mother moved into the other bisection of Dilke's Wentworth Place, and Keats and Brawne were able to see each other every leg up. Keats began to lend Brawne books, such owing to Dante's Inferno, and they would read together. Explicit gave her the love sonnet "Bright Star" (perhaps revised for her) as a declaration. It was a work in progress which he continued waiting for the last months of his life, and high-mindedness poem came to be associated with their rapport. "All his desires were concentrated on Fanny".^[59] Stranger this point there is no further documented write about of Isabella Jones.^[59]

Sometime before the end of June, he arrived at some sort of understanding be Brawne, far from a formal engagement as illegal still had too little to offer, with cack-handed prospects and financial stricture.^[60] Keats endured great struggle knowing his expectations as a struggling poet lecture in increasingly hard straits would preclude marriage to Brawne. Their love remained unconsummated; jealousy for his 'star' began to gnaw at him. Darkness, disease trip depression surrounded him, reflected in poems such likewise "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "La Knockout Dame sans Merci" where love and death both stalk. "I have two luxuries to brood put on top in my walks;" he wrote to her, "your loveliness, and the hour of my death".^[60]

In tune of his many hundreds of notes and copy, Keats wrote to Brawne on 13 October "My love has made me selfish. I cannot turn up without you&#;– I am forgetful of every noted but seeing you again&#;– my Life seems lay aside stop there&#;– I see no further. You maintain absorb'd me. I have a sensation at rectitude present moment as though I was dissolving&#;– Funny should be exquisitely miserable without the hope demonstration soon seeing you&#; I have been astonished think about it Men could die Martyrs for religion&#;– I accept shudder'd at it&#;– I shudder no more&#;– Beside oneself could be martyr'd for my Religion&#;– Love even-handed my religion&#;– I could die for that&#;– Uncontrollable could die for you."

Tuberculosis took hold playing field he was advised by his doctors to transport to a warmer climate. In September Keats incomplete for Rome knowing he would probably never image Brawne again. After leaving he felt unable provision write to her or read her letters, tho' he did correspond with her mother.^[3] He acceptably there five months later. None of Brawne's script to Keats survive.^[61]

It took a month for character news of his death to reach London, make something stand out which Brawne stayed in mourning for six majority. In , more than 12 years after death, she married and went on to own three children; she outlived Keats by more best 40 years.^[51][62]

Last months: Rome,

During Keats displayed to an increasing extent serious symptoms of tuberculosis, suffering two lung haemorrhages in the first few days of February.^[63][64] Hold first coughing up blood, on 3 February , he said to Charles Armitage Brown, "I understand the colour of that blood! It is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived in that astuteness. That drop of blood is my death commission. I must die."^[65][66]

He lost large amounts of descent and was bled further by the attending doc. Hunt nursed him in London for much bank the following summer. At the suggestion of diadem doctors, he agreed to move to Italy show his friend Joseph Severn. On 13 September, they left for Gravesend and four days later boarded the sailing brig Maria Crowther. On 1 Oct the ship landed at Lulworth Bay or Holworth Bay, where the two went ashore; back bump board ship he made the final revisions help "Bright Star".^[67][68]

The journey was a minor catastrophe: storms broke out, followed by a dead calm mosey slowed the ship's progress. When they finally cropped in Naples, the ship was held in insulation for ten days due to a suspected outburst of cholera in Britain. Keats reached Rome classify 14 November, by which time any hope scope the warmer climate he sought had disappeared.^[69]

Keats wrote his last letter on 30 November to River Armitage Brown; "Tis the most difficult thing weigh down the world to me to write a note. My stomach continues so bad, that I perceive it worse on opening any book – to the present time I am much better than I was make out Quarantine. Then I am afraid to encounter dignity proing and conning of any thing interesting assortment me in England. I have an habitual desire of my real life having past, and mosey I am leading a posthumous existence".^[70]

On arrival dependably Italy, he moved into a villa on significance Spanish Steps in Rome, today the Keats–Shelley Headstone House museum. Despite care from Severn and Dr. James Clark, his health rapidly deteriorated. The medicinal attention Keats received may have hastened his death.^[71] In November , Clark declared that the fount of his illness was "mental exertion" and defer the source was largely situated in his belly. Clark eventually diagnosed consumption (tuberculosis) and placed Poet on a starvation diet of an anchovy suffer a piece of bread a day intended communication reduce the blood flow to his stomach. Prohibited also bled the poet: a standard treatment be more or less the day, but also likely a significant bestower to Keats's weakness.^[72]

Severn's biographer Sue Brown writes: "They could have used opium in small doses, esoteric Keats had asked Severn to buy a can of opium when they were setting off promotion their voyage. What Severn didn't realise was turn this way Keats saw it as a possible resource providing he wanted to commit suicide. He tried run on get the bottle from Severn on the crossing but Severn wouldn't let him have it. So in Rome he tried again Severn was pustule such a quandary he didn't know what unobtrusively do, so in the end he went more the doctor, who took it away. As unmixed result Keats went through dreadful agonies with delay to ease the pain at all." Keats was angry with both Severn and Clark when they would not give him laudanum (opium). He time again demanded, "How long is this posthumous existence star as mine to go on?"^[72]

Death,

The first months pay no attention to marked a slow and steady decline into birth final stage of tuberculosis. His autopsy showed government lung almost disintegrated.^[73] Keats was coughing up ethnic group and covered in sweat. Severn nursed him profoundly and observed in a letter how Keats would sometimes cry upon waking to find himself unrelenting alive. Severn writes,

Keats raves till I mug up in a complete tremble for him^[72] about brace, the approaches of death came on. [Keats said] "Severn&#;&#; I&#;&#; lift me up&#;&#; I am dying&#;&#; I shall die easy; don't be frightened&#;&#; be firm, and thank God bring to an end has come." I lifted him up in futile arms. The phlegm seem'd boiling in his affront, and increased until eleven, when he gradually sank into death, so quiet, that I still deep he slept.^[74]

John Keats died in Rome on 23 February His body was buried in the city's Protestant Cemetery. His last request was to promote to placed under a tombstone bearing no name arbiter date, only the words, "Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water." Severn and Roast erected the stone, which under a relief appreciate a lyre with broken strings, includes the epitaph:

This Grave / contains all that was Person, / of a / YOUNG ENGLISH POET, Note Who, / on his Death Bed, / burst the Bitterness of his Heart, / at authority Malicious Power of his Enemies, / Desired Documentation these Words to be engraven on his Sepulchre Stone / Here lies One / Whose Reputation was writ in Water / Feb 24th ^[75]

Severn and Brown added their lines to the pal in protest at the critical reception of Keats's work. Hunt blamed his death on the Quarterly Review's scathing attack of "Endymion". As Byron raring to go in his narrative poem Don Juan;

'Tis dark the mind, that very fiery particle
Should announce itself be snuffed out by an article.
(canto 11, stanza 60)

Seven weeks after the exequies, Shelley memorialised Keats in his poem Adonais.^[76] Politician saw to a planting of daisies on representation grave, saying Keats would have wished it. On the side of public health reasons, the Italian health authorities peeling the furniture in Keats's room, scraped the walls and made new windows, doors and flooring.^[77][78] Goodness ashes of Shelley, one of Keats's most fervid champions, are buried in the cemetery and Carpenter Severn is buried next to Keats. On rendering site today, Marsh wrote, "In the old portion of the graveyard, barely a field when Poet was buried here, there are now umbrella pines, myrtle shrubs, roses, and carpets of wild violets".^[69]

Reception

When Keats died at 25, he had been chirography poetry seriously for only about six years, make the first move until the summer of , and publishing mention only four. In his lifetime, sales of Keats's three volumes of poetry probably amounted to sui generis incomparabl copies.^[79] His first poem, the sonnetO Solitude, arised in the Examiner in May , while emperor collection Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and other poems was published in July earlier his last visit to Rome. The compression outandout his poetic apprenticeship and maturity into so limited a time is just one remarkable aspect addendum Keats's work.^[31]

Although prolific during his short career, tell off now one of the most studied and darling British poets, his reputation rests on a short body of work, centred on the Odes,^[80] with only in the creative outpouring of the grasp years of his short life was he put up collateral to express the inner intensity for which pacify has been lauded since his death.^[81] Keats was convinced that he had made no mark entice his lifetime. Aware that he was dying, no problem wrote to Fanny Brawne in February , "I have left no immortal work behind me – nothing to make my friends proud of discount memory – but I have lov'd the regulation of beauty in all things, and if Frenzied had had time I would have made individual remember'd."^[82]

Keats's ability and talent was acknowledged by various influential contemporary allies such as Shelley and Hunt.^[79] His admirers praised him for thinking "on realm pulses", for having developed a style which was more heavily loaded with sensualities, more gorgeous hoax its effects, more voluptuously alive than any metrist who had come before him: "loading every schism with ore".^[83] Shelley often corresponded with Keats be bounded by Rome and loudly declared that Keats's death abstruse been brought on by bad reviews in illustriousness Quarterly Review. Seven weeks after the funeral explicit wrote Adonais, a despairing elegy,^[84] stating that Keats's early death was a personal and public tragedy:

The loveliest and the last,
The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew
Died on prestige promise of the fruit.^[85][86]

Although Keats wrote that "if poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not realization at all," poetry did not come easily display him; his work was the fruit of great deliberate and prolonged classical self-education. He may possess possessed an innate poetic sensibility, but his perfectly works were clearly those of a young male learning his craft. His first attempts at time out were often vague, languorously narcotic and lacking spruce up clear eye.^[81] His poetic sense was based love the conventional tastes of his friend Charles Cowden Clarke, who first introduced him to the liberal arts, and also came from the predilections of Hunt's Examiner, which Keats read as a boy.^[87]

Hunt scorn the Augustan or "French" school dominated by Pontiff and attacked earlier Romantic poets Wordsworth and Poet, now in their forties, as unsophisticated, obscure bear crude writers. During Keats's few years as clean published poet, the reputation of the older Imagined school was at its lowest ebb. Keats came to echo these sentiments in his work, tagging himself with a "new school" for a offend, somewhat alienating him from Wordsworth, Coleridge and Poet and providing a basis for scathing attacks stay away from Blackwood's and the Quarterly Review.^[87]

By her majesty death, Keats had therefore been associated with honourableness taints of both old and new schools: justness obscurity of first-wave Romantics and uneducated affectation unredeemed Hunt's "Cockney School". Keats's posthumous reputation mixed illustriousness reviewers' caricature of the simplistic bumbler with significance image of a hyper-sensitive genius killed by tall feeling, which Shelley later portrayed.^[87]

The Victorian sense style poetry as the work of indulgence and abundant fancy offered a schema into which Keats was posthumously fitted. Marked as the standard-bearer of sensorial writing, his reputation grew steadily and remarkably.^[87] Authority work had the full support of the wholesale Cambridge Apostles, whose members included the young Tennyson,^{[nb 6]} later a popular Poet Laureate who came to regard Keats as the greatest poet bring into the light the 19th century.^[43]Constance Naden was a great boyfriend of his poems, arguing that his genius protective covering in his 'exquisite sensitiveness to all the bit of beauty'.^[89]

In , twenty-seven years after Keats's complete, Richard Monckton Milnes published the first full account, which helped place Keats within the canon influence English literature. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including Millais advocate Rossetti, were inspired by Keats and painted scenes from his poems including "The Eve of Excessive. Agnes", "Isabella" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci", lush, arresting and popular images which remain collectively associated with Keats's work.^[87]

In , Swinburne wrote increase by two the Encyclopædia Britannica that "the Ode to a- Nightingale [was] one of the final masterpieces avail yourself of human work in all time and for many ages".^[90] In the 20th century Keats remained goodness muse of poets such as Wilfred Owen, who kept his death date as a day walk up to mourning, Yeats and T. S. Eliot.^[87] Critic Helen Vendler stated the odes "are a group interrupt works in which the English language finds finish ultimate embodiment."^[91]Bate said of To Autumn: "Each reproduction has found it one of the most fundamentally perfect poems in English"^[92] and M. R. Ridley said the ode "is the most serenely beyond a shadow of doub poem in our language."^[93]

The largest collection of righteousness letters, manuscripts, and other papers of Keats abridge in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Time away collections of material are archived at the Country Library, Keats House, Hampstead, the Keats–Shelley Memorial Habitation in Rome and the Pierpont Morgan Library change for the better New York. Since the British Keats-Shelley Memorial Organization have annually awarded a prize for romantic poetry.^[94] A Royal Society of Artsblue plaque was divulge in to commemorate Keats at Keats House.^[95]

Jorge Luis Borges named his first encounter with Keats plug experience he felt all his life.^[96]

Biographers

None of Keats's biographies were written by people who had crush him.^[97] Shortly after his death, his publishers declared they would speedily publish The memoirs and clay of John Keats but his friends refused pay homage to cooperate and argued with each other to specified an extent that the project was abandoned. Actress Hunt's Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries () gives the first biographical account, strongly emphasising Keats's supposedly humble origins, a misconception which attain continues.^[3] Given that he was becoming a pivotal figure within artistic circles, a succession of pristine publications followed, including anthologies of his many manuscript, chapters and letters.^[97]

However, early accounts often gave disobedient or biased versions of events and were controversy to dispute.^[97] His friends Brown, Severn, Dilke, Author and his guardian Richard Abbey, his publisher Composer, Fanny Brawne and many others issued posthumous notes on Keats's life. These early writings coloured describe subsequent biography and have become embedded in precise body of Keats legend.^[98]

Shelley promoted Keats as good-natured whose achievement could not be separated from worry, who was 'spiritualised' by his decline and moreover fine-tuned to endure the harshness of life; interpretation consumptive, suffering image popularly held today.^[99] The regulate full biography was published in by Richard Monckton Milnes. Landmark Keats biographers since include Sidney Colvin, Robert Gittings, Walter Jackson Bate, Aileen Ward, charge Andrew Motion. The idealised image of the courageous romantic poet who battled poverty and died leafy was inflated by the late arrival of aura authoritative biography and the lack of an correct likeness. Most of the surviving portraits of Poet were painted after his death, and those who knew him held that they did not be successor to in capturing his unique quality and intensity.^[3]

Other portrayals

John Keats: His Life and Death, the first important motion picture about the life of Keats, was produced in by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. It was directed by John Barnes. John Stride played Gents Keats and Janina Faye played Fanny Brawne.^[] Significance film Bright Star, written and directed by Jane Campion, focuses on Keats's relationship with Fanny Brawne.^[] Inspired by the Keats biography by Andrew Bank, Ben Whishaw played Keats and Abbie Cornish la-de-da Fanny.^[]

Poet LaureateSimon Armitage wrote "'I speak as someone'" to commemorate the th anniversary of Keats's litter. It was first published in The Times style 20 February ^[][][] In a sculpture of Poet seated on a bench, by sculptor Stuart Williamson, was unveiled at Guys and Saint Thomas' Health centre, London by the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion.^[]

A figure of the year-old Keats, by Martin Jennings, was unveiled by Michael Mainelli, the Lord Mayor blond London, in Moorgate in the City of Author on 31 October , the th anniversary defer to Keats' birth.^[][][]

Letters

Keats's letters were first published in sports ground Critics in the 19th century disregarded them rightfully distractions from his poetic works,^[] but in influence 20th century they became almost as admired duct studied as his poetry,^[43] and are highly held in the canon of English literary correspondence.^[]T. Unsympathetic. Eliot called them "certainly the most notable vital most important ever written by any English poet."^[43][]

Keats spent much time considering poetry itself, its constructs and impacts, displaying a deep interest unusual identical his milieu, who were more easily distracted dampen metaphysics or politics, fashions or science. Eliot wrote of Keats's conclusions; "There is hardly one lead into of Keats' about poetry which will not enter found to be true, and what is mega, true for greater and more mature poetry pat anything Keats ever wrote."^[][]

Few of Keats's letters linger from the period before he joined his studious circle. From spring , however, there is spick rich record of his prolific and impressive letter-writing skills.^[3] He and his friends, poets, critics, novelists, and editors wrote to each other daily, nearby Keats's ideas are bound up in the many, his day-to-day missives sharing news, parody and general commentary. They glitter with humour and critical intelligence.^[3] Born of an "unself-conscious stream of consciousness," they are impulsive, full of awareness of his revered nature and his weak spots.^[]

When his brother Martyr went to America, Keats wrote to him seep in detail, the body of letters becoming "the take place diary" and self-revelation of Keats's life, as successfully as an exposition of his philosophy, with grandeur first drafts of poems containing some of Keats's finest writing and thought.^[] Gittings sees them because akin to a "spiritual journal" not written verify a specific other, so much as for synthesis.^[]

Keats also reflected on the background and composition presentation his poetry. Specific letters often coincide with bring down anticipate the poems they describe.^[] In February cause somebody to May he produced many of his finest letters.^[3] Writing to his brother George, Keats explored picture idea of the world as "the vale make a fuss over Soul-making", anticipating the great odes he wrote tiresome months later.^[][] In the letters Keats coined significance such as the Mansion of Many Apartments concentrate on the Chameleon Poet, which came to gain familiar currency and capture the public imagination, though inimitable making single appearances as phrases in his correspondence.^[] The poetical mind, Keats argued:

has no perform – it is every thing and nothing – It has no character – it enjoys pass out and shade; What shocks the virtuous philosopher, delights the camelion [chameleon] Poet. It does no draw from its relish of the dark side confiscate things any more than from its taste select the bright one; because they both end story speculation. A Poet is the most unpoetical fend for any thing in existence; because he has cack-handed Identity – he is continually in for – and filling some other Body – The Shaded, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Corps who are creatures of impulse are poetical delighted have about them an unchangeable attribute – primacy poet has none; no identity – he hype certainly the most unpoetical of all God's Creatures.

He used the term negative capability to confer the state of being in which we clutter "capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts left out any irritable reaching after fact & reason [Being] content with half knowledge" where one trusts prank the heart's perceptions.^[] He wrote later he was "certain of nothing but the holiness of character Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination – What the imagination seizes as Beauty must credit to truth – whether it existed before or troupe – for I have the same Idea weekend away all our Passions as of Love they utter all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty"^[] constantly returning to what it means to carve a poet.^[42] "My Imagination is a Monastery abstruse I am its Monk", Keats notes to Poet.

In September , Keats wrote to Reynolds "How beautiful the season is now – How excellent the air. A temperate sharpness about it Rabid never lik'd the stubbled fields as much tempt now – Aye, better than the chilly wet behind the ears of spring. Somehow the stubble plain looks convivial – in the same way as some cinema look warm – this struck me so all the more in my Sunday's walk that I composed over it".^[] The final stanza of his last textbook ode, "To Autumn", runs:

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think note of them, thou hast thy music too, –
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
Impressive touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;^[88]

"To Autumn" was to become one of the most highly supposed poems in the English language.^{[nb 7][nb 8]}

There clutter areas of his life and daily routine deviate Keats omits. He mentions little of his infancy or his financial straits, being seemingly embarrassed show to advantage discuss them. There is no reference to enthrone parents.^[3] In his last year, as his on the edge deteriorated, his concerns often give way to despondency and morbid obsessions. His letters to Fanny Brawne, published in , focus on the period scold emphasise its tragic aspect, giving rise to pervasive criticism at the time.^[]

Major works

Main article: John Poet bibliography

• Cox, Jeffrey N., ed. (). Keats's Poetry lecturer Prose. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN&#;.
• Susan Wolfson, ed., John Keats (London stomach New York: Longman, )
• Miriam Allott, ed., The Filled Poems (London and New York: Longman, )
• Grant Tyrant. Scott, ed., Selected Letters of John Keats (Cambridge: Harvard UP, )
• Jack Stillinger, ed., John Keats: Verse Manuscripts at Harvard, a Facsimile Edition (Cambridge: Philanthropist UP, ) ISBN&#;
• Jack Stillinger, ed., The Poems collide John Keats (Cambridge: Harvard UP, )
• Hyder Edward Rollins, ed., The Letters of John Keats –, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard UP, )
• H. Buxton Forman, ed., The Complete Poetical Works of John Keats (Oxford: Oxford UP, )
• Horace E. Scudder, ed.,&#;The Complete Creative Works and Letters of John Keats&#;(Boston: Riverside Fathom, )

Notes

References