JOHN KEATS

He lost his parents when he was young. He went to school and was attracted by classic art and literature. He visited British museum where he saw  the Elgin Marbles; he was interested in the perfection of plastic Greek art.. he wrote same poems, but critics, in order to attack his friends Hunt, criticised him. He loved Fanny Brawne, but they didn't married. He died young for his tuberculosis

In his poems the sense of death, of melanchony and unhappiness are ever present

Art expresses the perfection of beauty and is immortal, so art is the last form of knowledge because is able to make immortal what poet says. Beauty is truth. So Keats find in art  a sort of consolation of life that is characterised by sadness

He doesn't imitate classic art, but he add his personal power of creation to classic art: he create thanks with imagination  a perfect world. Nature is present only as a background, that participate to the events: there isn't a pantheistic vision

Ode on a Grecian Urn: he saw an urn and tells what he sees in the two sides: a boy wants to reach and kiss a girl, but art made immortal the lady for ever young and this love without an end. Poetry that speaks of reality is sweet, but poetry of imagination is sweeter. On the other side there is described a sacrifice: town will remain for ever without inhabitants, that are near the altar

La Belle Dame Sans Merci he is interested in medieval world, with its castles, kings, remote places, supernatural events. Even style is typical of middle age: it is a ballad