A STUDY GUIDE by KAty MArriner http://www.metromagazine.com.au http://www.theeducationshop.com.au structures and features of a Their troubles mount. Only Keats’ his study guide non-print text; illness proves insurmountable. to accompany Bright Star – use their own written and spoken Director’s Statement texts to explore concepts and (2009), a feature The film is in itself a kind of ballad, ideas and to clarify their own and film written like Keats’ ‘Eve of St Agnes’ – it others’ understanding. and directed by Jane Campion, is a story about the love affair of is recommended for secondary Synopsis Fanny Brawne and John Keats. Tstudents from the middle to senior The story progresses in verses years. It provides information and London 1818: a secret love affair charting their increasing involvement suggestions for learning activities in begins between 23-year-old English and attachment as well as their English, Literature and Media. poet, John Keats, and the girl next deepening difficulties. door, Fanny Brawne, an outspoken Bright Star tells the story of John The storytelling’s restraint mimics student of fashion. The unlikely Keats, the English Romantic poet, Fanny’s own life restraint, the pair start at odds; he thinking her a and Fanny Brawne, his love and passive waiting fate of any young stylish minx, she unimpressed by inspiration. woman of her time: the life amongst literature in general. In completing the tasks, students the family, her obsession with will have demonstrated the ability to: It is the illness of Keats’ younger sewing, the restrictions on her brother that draws them together. activities and her chaperoned – analyse the construction of a Keats is touched by Fanny’s efforts outings. Against all these restraints, non-print text and comment to help and agrees to teach her her determined passion for Keats on the ways it represents an poetry. By the time Fanny’s alarmed expressed through the notes she interpretation of ideas and mother and Keats’ best friend left under his pillow or by presenting experiences; Brown realise their attachment, the herself at his window when he was – respond to a text both personally relationship has an unstoppable sick, seem all the more remarkable. momentum. and in detached and critical ways; The most important quality of this – discuss the social, cultural and Intensely and helplessly absorbed story was to get across the intimacy historical values embodied in a in each other, the young lovers are of the characters to the viewer. non-print text; swept into powerful new sensations, Rehearsal was very important for this ‘I have the feeling as if I were as it helped the actors to establish – draw on appropriate dissolving’, Keats writes to Fanny. a subtle Being. Both Ben Whishaw metalanguage to discuss the Their romantic obsession deepens. and Abbie Cornish have a particular SCREEN EDUCATION 2 delicious charisma which, through the rehearsal period, they gave their characters claim to. The more real they are, the more the mystery of their unique personalities is allowed to fascinate us, capturing our imagination and our hearts. Bright Star I see the world of Keats and Fanny as light-filled, literally leaking light, and even though the film ends with Keats’ death, the lamp lit by his poetic genius and unique spirit cannot be extinguished. It is Bright Star’s ambition to sensitize the audience, to light the lamp. – Jane Campion John Keats Born on 31 October 1795, John to Fanny Keats published three books scandalised of poetry in his lifetime but was Victorian attacked and dismissed by most society. critics. He had no advantages of Fanny’s letters birth, wealth or education. Yet grief to Keats, as he and hardship never destroyed his had requested, passionate commitment to poetry. were destroyed upon his death. It was not In the autumn of 1818 Keats moved until 1937, that a collection to Hampstead Village to nurse his of letters, written by Fanny brother Tom. It was during this time Brawne to Keats’ sister, revealed that Keats first met eighteen-year- the intensity of Brawne’s feelings old Fanny Brawne. After Tom’s for Keats and redeemed her rather death on 1 December 1818, Keats promiscuous reputation. moved to Wentworth Place, where he lived with his close friend and Keats is now regarded as one of the key figures of the Romantic fellow poet Charles Brown. Inspired This Grave contains all that was movement. Romanticism covers by his love for Fanny, Keats enjoyed mortal, of a YOUNG ENGLISH the period from 1800 to 1825. The an incredible burst of creativity in POET, who on his Death Bed, in Romantic poets can be divided into the two years that followed, until the Bitterness of his heart, at the two groups, earlier and later. The illness in the winter of 1820 took its Malicious Power of his enemies, major poets of the first group were toll. Concerned friends and followers desired these words to be Engraven Wordsworth and Coleridge, whose deemed it necessary for Keats to on his Tomb Stone leave England. In September 1820, best poetry was written in accompanied by his friend Joseph Brawne mourned Keats as if they the decade or so following 1798. Severn, Keats sailed to Italy. had been married, wearing widow’s The second group consists of black for three years and spending Byron, Shelley and Keats, whose Keats died on 23 February 1821 hours in her room re-reading his major poetry appeared during and was buried in the Protestant letters or wandering alone on the fifteen-year period from Cemetery, Rome. His last request Hampstead Heath. In 1833 Fanny 1810 to 1825. Keats’ poetry was was to be buried under a tombstone married and began a family, but characterised by sensual imagery reading, ‘Here lies One Whose she never took off the ring Keats and remain among the most popular Name was writ in Water.’ His name had given her. She also kept many poems in English literature. was not to appear on the stone. of Keats’ love letters to her. Some – A detailed biography can be His friends Joseph Severn and were mere notes, others lengthy found at <http://www.john-keats. Charles Brown added the following chronicles of his devotion. epitaph, along with an image of com>. The website also provides a lyre with broken strings: The publication of Keats’ letters information about Keats’ poetry SCREEN EDUCATION 3 • For both Keats and Fanny this is first love. What statement does ‘Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art –’ Bright Star make about first love? • Many have critiqued, challenged Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art – and attempted to explain Keats and Fanny’s affair. What does Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night Campion want us to think? • Is it not extraordinary? When And watching, with eternal lids apart, among Men I have no evil thoughts, no malice, no spleen Like nature’s patient sleepless Eremite, – I can listen and from every one I can learn – my hands are The moving waters at their priestlike task in my pockets I am free from all suspicion and comfortable. Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, When I am among Women I have evil thoughts, malice, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask spleen – I cannot speak or be silent – I am full of Suspicions Of snow upon the mountains and the moors – and therefore listen to no thing – I am in a hurry to be gone – No – yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, You must be charitable and put all this perversity to my being Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, disappointed since Boyhood – … I must absolutely get over this, – To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, but how? The only way is to find the root of the evil, and so cure it. Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, – John Keats, in a letter to Benjamin Bailey, July 1818 Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, Nothing strikes me so forcibly with a sense of the rediculous as love And so live ever – or else swoon to death. – A Man in love I do think cuts the sorryest figure in the world – Even when I know a poor fool to be really in pain about it, I could and letters. Similar information can in love, the only other possibility he burst out laughing in his face be found at <http://englishhistory. can imagine is to die at a moment – His pathetic visage becomes net/keats/contents.html>. when he is experiencing the ecstasy irrisistable. of love. Keats wrote the sonnet ‘Bright star, – John Keats, in a letter to his would I were stedfast as thou art –’ • Why do you think Campion brother George, September 1819 for Fanny Brawne. settled on ‘Bright Star’ as the title Keats had admitted to being of the film? The sonnet is considered one perplexed by women and by love. • What does the sonnet tell us of Keats’ loveliest and most What happens when he meets about love? paradoxical. The speaker wishes he Fanny? When does he admit to were as eternal as a star. But while • Keats’ final poem was called ‘Ode being confused by love? When he longs for this unchanging state, to Fanny –’ does he acknowledge that he he does not wish to exist by himself, Read the poem and share your has arrived at an understanding in ‘lone splendour.’ Instead he wants impressions of it with others in the of love? to be ‘Awake for ever’ and ‘Pillow’d class. What does the ode tell us upon my fair love’s ripening breast.’ • When did you know that Keats about Keats’ love for Fanny? Unfortunately, these two desires – to was attracted to Fanny? When experience love and to be eternal – A love story did you know that Fanny was cannot co-exist.