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John Keatsborn October 31,LondonEngland—died February 23,RomePapal States [Italy]English Romantic lyric poet who devoted his short life to the perfection of a poetry marked by vivid imagery, great sensuous appeal, and an attempt to express a philosophy through classical legend. The Great Poets: John Keats Keats was an English Romantic lyric poet whose verse is known for its vivid imagery and great sensuous appeal. Throughout his life, Keats was close to his The Great Poets: John Keats, Fanny, and his two brothers, George and Tom. John Keats was apprenticed to a surgeon in His literary interests had crystallized by this time, and after he devoted himself entirely to poetry. John Keats wrote The Great Poets: John Keatsodesand epics. John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome in at the age of The son of a livery-stable manager, John Keats received relatively little formal education. His father died inand his mother remarried almost immediately. Throughout his life Keats had close emotional ties to his sister, Fanny, and his two brothers, George and Tom. From then until his early death, the story of his life is largely the story of the poetry he wrote. Charles Cowden Clarke had introduced the young Keats to the poetry of Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethansand these were his earliest models. In Keats left London briefly for a trip to the Isle of Wight and Canterbury and began work on Endymionhis first long poem. On his return to London he moved into lodgings in Hampstead with his brothers. Endymion appeared in This work is divided The Great Poets: John Keats four 1,line sections, and its verse is composed in loose rhymed couplets. Keats transformed the tale to express the widespread Romantic theme of the attempt to find in actuality an ideal love that has been glimpsed heretofore only in imaginative longings. This theme is realized through fantastic The Great Poets: John Keats discursive adventures and through sensuous and luxuriant description. In his wanderings, Endymion is guilty of an apparent infidelity to his visionary moon goddess and falls in love with an earthly maiden to whom he is attracted by human sympathy. But in the end the goddess and the earthly maiden turn out to be one and the same. Keats, however, was dissatisfied with the poem as soon as it was finished. In the summer of Keats went on a walking tour in the Lake District of northern England and Scotland with his friend Charles Brown, and his exposure and overexertions on that trip brought on the first symptoms of the tuberculosis of which he was to die. The Great Poets: John Keats to later assertions, Keats met these reviews with a calm assertion of his own talents, and he went on steadily writing poetry. But there were family troubles. About the same time, he met Fanny Brawne, a near neighbour in Hampstead, with whom he soon fell hopelessly and tragically in love. She seems to have been an unexceptional young woman, of firm and generous character, and kindly disposed toward Keats. But he expected more, perhaps more than anyone could give, as is evident from his overwrought letters. Both his uncertain The Great Poets: John Keats situation and his failing health in any case made it impossible for their relationship to run a normal course. About October Keats became engaged to Fanny. Article Contents. Print print Print. Table Of Contents. Facebook Twitter. Give Feedback External Websites. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article requires login. External Websites. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Author of The Romantic Poets and others. See Article History. The Great Poets: John Keats Questions. Written by poet Archibald MacLeish and narrated by actor James Mason, this film dramatizes the life of John Keats from his early years in England until his death at age Get exclusive access to content from our First Edition with your subscription. Subscribe today. Load Next Page. John Keats - Wikipedia

He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelleydespite his works having been in publication for only four years The Great Poets: John Keats his death from tuberculosis at the age of Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew after his death, and by the end of the 19th century, he had become one The Great Poets: John Keats the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of poets and writers. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keats' work was a great experience that he felt all of his life. The poetry of Keats is characterised by a style " This is typical of the Romantic poets, as they aimed to accentuate extreme emotion through an emphasis on natural imagery. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analysed in English literature. There is little evidence of his exact birthplace. Although Keats and his family seem to have marked his The Great Poets: John Keats on 29 October, baptism records give the date as the 31st. His father first worked as a hostler [6] at the stables attached to the Swan and Hoop Inn, an establishment he later managed, and where the growing family lived for some years. Keats believed that he was born at the inn, a birthplace of humble origins, but there is no evidence to support his belief. His parents were unable to afford Eton or Harrow[9] [10] so in the summer ofhe was sent to board at John Clarke's school in Enfieldclose to his grandparents' house. The small school had a liberal outlook and a progressive curriculum more modern than the larger, more prestigious schools. The headmaster's son, Charles Cowden Clarke, also became an important mentor and friend, introducing Keats to Renaissance literature, including TassoSpenserand Chapman's translations. The young Keats was described by his friend Edward Holmes as a volatile character, "always in extremes", given to indolence and fighting. However, at 13 he began focusing his energy on reading and study, winning his first academic prize in midsummer In Aprilwhen Keats was eight, his father died from a skull fracture, suffered when he fell from his horse while returning from a visit to Keats and his brother George at school. Frances remarried two months later, but left her new husband soon afterwards, and the four children went to live with their grandmother, Alice Jennings, in the village of Edmonton. In Marchwhen Keats was 14, his mother died of tuberculosis, leaving the children in the custody of their grandmother. She appointed two guardians, Richard Abbey and John Sandell, to take care of them. That autumn, Keats left Clarke's school to apprentice with Thomas Hammond, a surgeon and apothecary who was a neighbour and the doctor of the Jennings family. Keats lodged in the attic above the surgery at 7 Church Street until Historically, blame has often been laid on Abbey as legal guardian, but he may also have been unaware. It seems he did not. The money would have made a critical difference to the poet's expectations. Money was always a great concern and difficulty for him, as he struggled to stay out of debt and make his way in the world independently. On First Looking into Chapman's Homer Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise The Great Poets: John Keats Silent, upon a peak in Darien. Having finished his apprenticeship with Hammond, Keats registered as a medical student at Guy's Hospital now part of King's College London and began studying there in October Within a month of starting, he was accepted as a dresser at the hospital, assisting surgeons during operations, the equivalent of a junior house surgeon The Great Poets: John Keats. It was a significant promotion, that marked a distinct aptitude for medicine; it brought greater responsibility and a heavier workload. However, Keats' The Great Poets: John Keats took up increasing amounts of his writing time, and he was increasingly ambivalent about his medical career. He felt that he faced a stark choice. Now, strongly drawn by ambition, inspired by fellow poets such The Great Poets: John Keats Leigh The Great Poets: John Keats and Lord Byronand beleaguered by family financial crises, he suffered periods of depression. Although he continued his work and training at Guy's, Keats devoted more and more time to the study of literature, experimenting with verse forms, The Great Poets: John Keats the sonnet. Among his poems of was To My Brothers. There he began "Calidore" and initiated the era of his great letter writing. On his return to London, he took lodgings at 8 Dean Street, Southwark, and braced himself for further study in order to become a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. Five months later came the publication of Poemsthe first volume of Keats' verse, which included "I stood tiptoe" and "Sleep and Poetry," both strongly influenced by Hunt. Keats immediately changed publishers to Taylor and Hessey on Fleet Street. Within a month of the publication of Poems they were planning a new Keats volume and had paid him an advance. Hessey became a steady friend to Keats and made the company's rooms available for young writers to meet. Through Taylor and Hessey, Keats met their Eton -educated lawyer, Richard Woodhouse, who advised them on literary as well as legal matters and was deeply impressed by Poems. Although he noted that Keats could be "wayward, trembling, easily daunted," Woodhouse was convinced of Keats' genius, a poet to support as he became one of England's greatest writers. Soon after they met, the two became close friends, and Woodhouse started to collect Keatsiana, documenting as much as he could about Keats' poetry. This archive survives as one of the main sources of information on Keats' work. In later years, Woodhouse was one of the few people to accompany Keats to Gravesend to embark on his final trip to Rome. It was a decisive turning point for Keats, establishing him in the public eye as a figure in what Hunt termed "a new school of poetry. What imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth. In early Decemberunder the heady influence of his artistic friends, Keats told Abbey that he had decided to give up medicine in favour of poetry, to Abbey's fury. Keats had spent a great deal on his medical training and, despite his state of financial hardship and indebtedness, had made large loans to friends such as painter Benjamin Haydon. By lending so much, Keats could no longer cover the interest of his own debts. Having left his training at the hospital, suffering from a succession The Great Poets: John Keats colds, and unhappy with living in damp rooms in London, Keats moved with his brothers into rooms at 1 Well Walk in The Great Poets: John Keats village of Hampstead in April Both John and George nursed their brother Tom, who was suffering from tuberculosis. The house was close to Hunt and others from his circle in Hampstead, as well as to Coleridgerespected elder of the first wave of Romantic poets, at that time living in Highgate. In a letter to his brother George, Keats wrote that they talked about "a thousand things, Keats' brother George and his wife Georgina accompanied them as far as Lancaster and then continued to Liverpoolfrom where the couple emigrated to America. They lived in Ohio and Louisville, Kentuckyuntilwhen George's investments failed. Like Keats' other brother, they both died penniless and racked by tuberculosis, for which there was The Great Poets: John Keats effective treatment until the next The Great Poets: John Keats. Some biographers suggest that this is when tuberculosis, his "family disease," first took hold. The Great Poets: John Keats "refuses to give it a name" in his letters. The Great Poets: John Keats was on the edge of Hampstead Heathten minutes' walk south of his old home The Great Poets: John Keats Well Walk. The winter of —19, though a difficult period for the poet, marked the beginning of his annus mirabilis in which he wrote his most mature work. He composed five of his six great odes at Wentworth Place in April and May and, although it is debated in which order they were written, " Ode to Psyche " opened the published series. According to Brown, " Ode to a Nightingale " was composed under a plum tree in the garden. Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy 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 two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found those scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feelings on the song of our nightingale. First stanza of " Ode to a Nightingale ", May With biting The Great Poets: John Keats, Lockhart advised, "It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop Mr John, back to plasters, pills, and ointment boxes". The dismissal was as much political as literary, aimed at upstart young writers deemed uncouth for their lack of education, non-formal rhyming and "low diction". They had not attended EtonHarrow or Oxbridge and they were not from the upper classes. InKeats wrote " The Eve of St. In September, very short of money and in despair considering taking up journalism or a post as a ship's surgeon, he approached his publishers with a new book of poems. Agnes, and Other Poemswas eventually published in July It received greater acclaim than had Endymion or Poemsfinding favourable notices in both The Examiner and Edinburgh Review. It would come to be recognised as one of the most important poetic works ever published. Wentworth Place now houses the Keats House museum. She is described as beautiful, talented and widely read, not of the top flight of society yet financially secure, an enigmatic figure who would become a part of Keats' circle. He writes that he "frequented her rooms" in the winter of —19, and in his letters to George says that he "warmed with her" and "kissed her". The themes of "The Eve of St. Like Keats' grandfather, her grandfather kept a London inn, and both lost several family members to tuberculosis. She shared her first name with both Keats' sister and mother, and had a talent for dress-making and languages as well as a natural theatrical bent. On 3 AprilBrawne and her widowed mother moved into the other half of Dilke's Wentworth Place, and Keats and Brawne were able to see each other every day. Keats began to lend Brawne books, such as Dante The Great Poets: John Keats Infernoand they would read together. He gave her the love sonnet "Bright Star" perhaps revised for her as a declaration. It was a work in progress which he continued at until the last months of his life, and the poem came to be associated with their relationship. Their love remained unconsummated; jealousy for his 'star' began to gnaw at him. Darkness, disease and depression surrounded him, reflected in poems such as "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci" where love and death both stalk. In one of his many hundreds of notes and letters, Keats wrote to Brawne on 13 October "My love has made me selfish. You have absorb'd me. Tuberculosis took hold and he was advised by his doctors to move to a warmer climate. In September Keats left for Rome knowing he would probably never see Brawne again. After leaving he felt unable to write to The Great Poets: John Keats or read her letters, although he did correspond with her The Great Poets: John Keats. None of Brawne's letters to Keats survive. It took a month for the news of his death to reach London, after which Brawne stayed in mourning for six years. In The Great Poets: John Keats, more than 12 years after his death, she married and went on to have three children; she outlived Keats by more than 40 years. During Keats displayed increasingly serious symptoms of tuberculosissuffering two lung haemorrhages in the first few days of February. John Keats - Poems, Ode to a Nightingale & Facts - Biography

John Keats born October 31, — died February 23, began life as the son of a stable-owner, and ended it as an unmarried, poor and tuberculosis- ridden young man. Somewhere along the way, he managed to become one of the most beloved poets of the English language and a perfect example of Romanticism. O sweet Fancy! She has vassals to attend her…. Above is an excerpt. Read the The Great Poets: John Keats of the poem here. Of the several great odes Keats wrote inthis is perhaps his most philosophical. It discusses the link between art and humanity as shown by the creation of the urnand how essential true beauty is to man. The Romantic concept is about as Keatsian as it gets:. Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Ah, happy, happy boughs! Who are these coming to the sacrifice? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? O Attic shape! Fair attitude! This poem was in fact written while Keats was just nineteen, and had not yet met Byron. Here Keats praises what would later become a common feature of his own work — the paradoxical beauty of sadness. Though a short poem, it still includes much of the lyrical imagery for which he later became famous. Here are the first few verses of the narrative poem. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the The Great Poets: John Keats, And no birds sing. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. Brimming with dazzlingly vibrant imagery, this poem manages to describe death only by encompassing the many beauties made up of life and the natural world. But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, Or on the wealth of globed peonies; Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. The nightingale as both creature and symbol is unattainable, leading us as the reader on a vivid flight of Keatsian fancy. Here are the first couple of stanzas. O, for a draught of vintage! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:. As much a hymn as anything else, this poem concerns a longing to escape sadness in sleep. For Keats, sleep becomes a snapshot of death, which he approaches with conflicting fear and desire. Then save me, or the passed day The Great Poets: John Keats shine Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,— Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And The Great Poets: John Keats the hushed Casket of my Soul. My spirit is too weak—mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Such dim-conceived glories of the brain Bring round the heart an indescribable feud; So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old Time—with a billowy main— A sun—a shadow of a magnitude. Arguably, no other poet has managed to create such a beautiful depiction of the season so deftly, or with such a kaleidoscopic wealth of images. Keats is able to convey the synaesthesia of three months in just three stanzas. The naturalistic, almost pastoral language is reminiscent of Hardy in places, though achieves as much with a fraction of the words. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among The Great Poets: John Keats river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. Here we go — the best poem ever written by Keats. Though experts disagree on whether it was written or revised for Fanny Brawne, it is certainly agreed that she is central to the poem. Bright Star has Shakespearean scope, and a strange air of elevated calm about it. Some much-loved poems have certainly been missed off, so if you want justice for a particular poem or simply feel that some reorganisation is in orderThe Great Poets: John Keats comment below. NOTE: The Society considers this The Great Poets: John Keats, where your poetry resides, to be your residence as well, where you may invite family, friends, and others to visit. Feel free to treat this page as your home and remove anyone here who disrespects you. Simply send an email to mbryant classicalpoets. The Society does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or comments and reserves the right to The Great Poets: John Keats any comments to maintain the The Great Poets: John Keats of this website and the integrity of the Society. Please see our Comments Policy here. But arguably is not enough, for Keats is so high in the poetic pantheon not just because he wrote the most superb lyrics La Belle Dame, a personal favourite of mine included herebut because he is an epic poet. A failed one — he died at 26 — but epic nonetheless; and so The Great Poets: John Keats is truly missing from this list are his two greatest works: Hyperion and the revised Fall of Hyperion. What is staggering about these two poems is that I cannot The Great Poets: John Keats of one poet post Milton who achieved the grandeur, the sublimity, the elevation of language in blank verse that Keats achieved in these two fragmentary masterpieces. I somewhat agree. One could argue Hyperion would have been his best work, had it been truly finished. The irony is that Keats complained of the miltonisms of the first Hyperion. I think the real issue however is that Keats is not a Romantic. Wordsworth and Coleridge, along The Great Poets: John Keats Byron represented a distinctly opposite moral and intellectual standard. The Romantic is obsessed with sensuality and The Great Poets: John Keats in it, while a Keats, a Shakespeare or Dante only use sensuality as a means of jumping off into that nether world, largely done by demonstrating where the senses breaks down i. Classical irony. Keats was defending and upholding the classical tradition. From my experience, perhaps the greatest article written on Keats and his poetry is from the Schiller Institute. I knew nothing about Keats until I read this and it forever changed my life. Grateful for the link to the Schiller article. Holds much meaning and also changed my life. Thank you. My top three favourites and indeed greatest poems are Keats Bright Star loves this poem from the age of 11 Then Ode on a Grecian Urn and finally Ode to a Nightingale These poems have changed my life in many ways. I admired the poetry of John Keats in my youth. His experiments with the odes have helped me on my own poetic journey through life. Yet, I must admit I find much of his poetry tiresome now, as my tastes tend to be more classical; and, in this respect, I suspect, I am entirely out of sync not only with the tastes of most of the members of the SCP, but nearly all of my contemporaries as well. Still, I appreciate Ms. He describes what he sees—I describe what The Great Poets: John Keats imagine—Mine is the hardest [sic] task. Keats strove for greatness in his gracious odes, but Byron drove along much rougher roads. I do agree with Mr. I understand that Mr. As such, I doubt whether Mr. Sale could disabuse me of such obtuseness. His couplet is very Shakespearean in its import as well. Yes, I would certainly include the Eve of St Agnes near the top of any compilation of his best poems. I think that no. Your postings are really superb. And I would The Great Poets: John Keats to be your member. I absolutely love Keats: both the person and his verses. But I have to struggle to understand the thoughts he is expressing and the feelings behind them. I try to dilute the task a little by reading verses by Wordsworth too. Byron and Shelley are generally beyond me: I am only an amateur in my poetry reading. I like to believe the tragedy in their lives must The Great Poets: John Keats been some stimulus to the thoughts in their verses. One can never exhaust or tire of beautiful and deep poetry; it gives more profound joy than joy itself. These are my thoughts: thank you all for your interesting writings on this site. Thank you for your thoughtful list which largely coincides with my favorites of Keats. You date Bright Star to and I wonder if I am mistaken in remembering that I have read elsewhere that it is considered his last poem, the original, untitled ms. Either way it is for me a heartbreakingly gorgeous bid for poetic immortality. Notify me of follow-up comments by email.