John Keats

John Keats

Appunti in inglese su Keats; vita e opere

Keats, John (1795-l821), English poet, one of the most gifted and appealing of the 19th century and an influential ure of the romantic movement.
Keats was born in London, October 31, 1795, the son of a livery-stable owner. He was educated at the Clarke School, Enfield, and at the age of 15 was apprenticed to a surgeon. Subsequently, from 1814 to 1816, Keats studied medicine in London hospitals; in 1816 he became a licensed druggist but never practiced his profession, deciding instead to be a poet.

Early Works

Keats had already written a translation of Aeneid and some verse by Vergil; his first published poems (1816) were the sonnets "Oh, Solitude if I with Thee Must Dwell" and "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer." Both poems appeared in the Examiner, a literary periodical edited by the essayist and poet Leigh Hunt, one of the champions of the romantic movement in English literature. Hunt introduced Keats to a circle of literary people, including the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; the group's influence enabled Keats to see his first volume published, Poems by John Keats (1817). The principal poems in the volume were the sonnet on Chapman's Homer, the sonnet "To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent," "I Stood Tip-Toe upon a Little Hill," and "Sleep and Poetry," which defended the principles of romanticism as promulgated by Hunt and attacked the practice of romanticism as represented by the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron.
Keats's second volume, Endymion, was published in 1818. Based upon the myth of Endymion and the moon goddess, it was attacked by two of the most influential critical magazines of the time, the Quarterly Review and Blackwood's Magazine. Calling the romantic verse of Hunt's literary circle "the Cockney school of poetry," Blackwood's declared Endymion to be nonsense and recommended that Keats give up poetry.

Last Works

In 1820 Keats became ill with tuberculosis. The illness may have been aggravated by the emotional strain of his attachment to Fanny Brawne, a young woman with whom he had fallen passionately in love. Nevertheless, the period from 1818 to 1820 was one of great creativity. In July 1820, the third and best of his volumes of poetry, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, was published. The three title poems, dealing with mythical and legendary themes of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance times, are rich in imagery and phrasing. The volume also contains the unfinished poem "Hyperion," containing some of Keats's finest work, the lyric masterpiece "To Autumn" and three odes considered among the finest in the English language, "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode on Melancholy," and "Ode to a Nightingale."
In the fall of 1820, under his doctor's orders to seek a warm climate for the winter, Keats went to Rome. He died there February 23, 1821, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery. Some of his best-known poems were posthumously published, including "Eve of St. Mark" (1848) and "La belle dame sans merci" (The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy; first version pub. 1888). Keats's letters, praised by many critics as among the finest literary letters written in English, were published in their most complete form in 1931; a later edition appeared in 1960.
Although Keats's career was short and his output small, critics agree that he has a lasting place in the history of English and world literature. Characterized by exact and closely knit construction, sensual descriptions, and by force of imagination, his poetry gives transcendental value to the physical beauty of the world.

31 October, Keats born
18 December, Keats baptized at St Botolph, Bishopsgate

28 February, George Keats born

18 November, Tom Keats born

28 April, Edward Keats born (dies in 1802)

December, the Keats family moves to Swan and Hoop, 24 The Pavement, Moorfields

3 June, Frances Mary (Fanny) Keats born
John enters John Clarke's School at Enfield

April, John's father, Thomas Keats, dies in a riding accident
27 June, John's mother, Frances Keats, married William Rawlings

8 March, John's grandfather, John Jennings, dies and a lawsuit begins over his will
John's grandmother subsequently takes the children to live with her; she lives at Edmonton

John's mother leaves her husband and lives away from her children

John's mother returns to her mother's home, but dies shortly thereafter
Guardians are appointed for the Keats children
John is apprenticed to Dr Hammond

John has a serious quarrel with Dr Hammond

John write his first poem
December, his grandmother dies

1 October, John enters Guy's Hospital for training

3 March, John enters Guy's as dresser (applies bandages)
5 May, publishes his first poem in The Examiner
25 July, becomes Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries
October, writes his famous sonnet 'On Reading Chapman's Homer'
meets Leigh Hunt, Benjamin Haydon, John Reynolds
November, lives with George and Tom in Cheapside
1 December, John Keats is quoted in Leigh Hunt's 'Young Poets' article
John gives up medicine for poetry before the year ends

3 March, Poems is published by C and J Ollier
April-August, writes Books I and II of Endymion while traveling through Carisbrooke, Canterbury, Hastings, etc
During his travels, John meets Benjamin Bailey and Charles Brown
September, stays with Bailey at Oxford and writes Book III of Endymion
October, John falls ill and takes mercury
28 November, finishes Book IV of Endymion at Burford Bridge
December, John meets Wordsworth and writes some theatrical reviews

January-February, revises and copies Endymion and attends Hazlitt's lectures
March-April, John stays at Teignmouth, nursing his ill brother Tom
Writes Isabella, or the Pot of Basil
Endymion published by Taylor & Hessey
22-30 June, George Keats leaves for America
John tours the Lake District with Charles Brown
July - 8 August, walking tour of Scotland with Brown
August - December, nurses Tom at Hampstead and meets Fanny Brawne for the first time
Attacks on Poems and Endymion appear in 'Blackwood's' and 'Quarterly'
Begins Hyperion
1 December, Tom dies
Keats moves to Wentworth Place

January, writes The Eve of St Agnes
Stays in Sussex and Hampshire
13-l7 February, writes The Eve of St Mark
March-April, John experiences a bout of depression and gives up writing Hyperion
The Brawnes move into part of Wentworth Place
21 April-May, writes La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Writes his famous Odes
John becomes unofficially engaged to Fanny Brawne
July-August, John experiences the first signs of tuberculosis
At Shanklin, Isle of Wight, writing Lamia Part I and Otho the Great
August-October, moves to Winchester, writes Lamia Part II
Writes To Autumn
Begins and abandons The Fall of Hyperion
October-December, John returns to Hampstead
Becomes officially engaged to Fanny Brawne
John suffers another bout of depression; he is ill and unhappy

January, George Keats returns to England to raise money
John comes to a financial settlement with the executor of his grandmother's estate; the settlement leaves him penniless (he gives most of his money to George)
3 February, John has his first lung haemorrhage and is confined to his house
May, Charles Brown rents out the house and John moves to Kentish Town, near Leigh Hunt
22 June, John has a severe second haemorrhage and moves to Leigh Hunt's home
July, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and other poems is published and well-reviewed
August, John leaves the Hunt home and is nursed by Fanny Brawne at Wentworth Place
17 September, John sails for Italy with Joseph Severn
November, John reaches Rome
30 November, John writes his last known letter

23 February, John dies at 26 Piazza di Sna, Rome
26 February, John is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome
 

John Keats was born on 31 October 1795, the first of Frances Jennings and Thomas Keats's five children (one of whom died in infancy).  His parents had been wed for barely a year when John was born.  His maternal grandparents, John and Alice Jennings, were well-off and, upon his parents' marriage, had entrusted the management of their livery business to Thomas.  These stables, called the 'Swan and Hoop', were located in north London and provided horses for hire to adjacent neighborhoods.

    Thomas and Frances lived at the stables through the births of their first three children.  George was born on 28 February 1797 and Thomas on 18 November 1799.  After their births, the young couple felt successful enough to move to a separate house on Craven Street, about a half-mile from the business.  Here, on 28 April 1801, their son Edward was born; he died shortly thereafter.  And on 3 June 1803, the last of their children and only daughter, Frances Mary, was born.

    Details of Keats's early life are scarce.  During the last few years of his life, letters allow one to track him virtually week-to-week but his childhood and adolescence are another matter.  Indeed, virtually all the information known is in the form of reminisces, many taken years after Keats had died.  Understandably, one must view these memories with some skepticism.  Whether discussing Keats's physical appearance (his brother George said he resembled their mother while a family friend said it was the father) or his pastimes, these sources contradict one another.

    Still, there are two well-known anecdotes about the young Keats.  In one, an elderly neighbor recalled that he always answered people by rhyming the last word of his answer to the last word in their question.  And when Mrs. Keats fell ill and was prescribed absolute quiet, five-year-old John stood guard at her door with an old sword.  His brother George recollected a happy childhood with affectionate parents; and despite the early deaths of their parents, all the Keats children were exceptionally close.

    Thomas Keats died on Sunday, 15 April 1804, while riding home from dinner; he had been to visit his sons at Enfield where they were schooled.  Apparently, his horse slipped on the cobblestones (a common enough accident) and threw him to the ground. Suffering a skull fracture, he lived for a few hours after being found by a night watchman.  Barely two months later, on 27 June 1804, Frances Jennings remarried.  Grief-stricken and unable to conduct the livery business herself, she wed a minor bank clerk named William Rawlings.  Rawlings was a fortune-hunter and the marriage was a failure.  The children were immediately sent to live with their grandmother and, within months, their mother joined them.  She had left Rawlings and, with him, the stables she had inherited from her former husband.  From this time on, her health declined precipitously.

    The upheaval in the children's lives continued for, on 8 March 1805, their grandfather died.  And, with his death, the financial turmoil which haunted Keats's life, began.  For John Jennings, a kindly and generous man, was also gullible; he had hired a land surveyor, not a lawyer, to draft his will and the result was ill-written and vague.  Mr. Jennings's real wishes were obscured and open to interpretation.  The specifics of the case are far too detailed for this generalized sketch, but are available in any biography of Keats.  here is also a book called The Keats Inheritance which can be found in any good university library.

    The ht over shares in the estate began shortly after Jennings's death and ended long after John Keats's death.  Their grandmother, now almost seventy, was left with half the income she and her husband had lived on.  To practice economy, she moved to a smaller home and attempted to save what she could.  In her own will, she appointed Richard Abbey trustee and guardian of her grandchildren.  This appointment was to have tragic consequences for all the Keats children, but most especially John.

    Mrs. Jennings's new home was close to Enfield, where the youngest son Tom was sent to join his brothers at school. At Enfield, the Keats brothers were well-liked and popular.  John caught the lasting attention and admiration of his schoolfellows; their reminisces stress his bravery and generosity to others.  They also mentioned his sensitivity, a trait which did not prevent him from engaging in hts.  As schoolfellow Edward Holmes remembered, 'The generosity & daring of his character - in passions of tears or outrageous fits of laughter always in extremes will help to paint Keats in his boyhood.'  But Holmes, who later became a well-known music critic, stressed that Keats 'was a boy whom any one might easily have fancied would become great - but rather in some military capacity than in literature.'  Simply put, there was little in John's character which would indicate a great future in poetry.  Such conventional expectations border on snobbery but are easily understood; upon reading To Autumn, for example, who imagines Keats indulging in buffoonery and fisthts?  Our conventional image of a poet is of a sensitive, troubled soul, usually thin and clad in black with doe eyes

    The money problems which began with his grandfather's death were exacerbated by his mother's death in mid-March of 1810 and his grandmother's death in December of 1814.  Keats, as the eldest child, was old enough to try and help his mother through her illness; her death impressed itself upon him deeply.  His grandmother, whose home had been his for nearly a decade, was also sorely missed.  Upon her death, a man called Richard Abbey entered Keats's life and his impact has been largely condemned.  Abbey was the man whom the elderly Alice Jennings had made executor of her estate and guardian of her grandchildren.  He was a conservative miser who took Keats's younger sister Fanny into his home.  Using the vague wording of John Jennings's will as a pretext, Abbey often deliberately withheld money from the Keats children.  He did this despite his legal obligations, largely because he believed they would waste the money and become destitute.  It was only years after Tom and John had died that George and Fanny actually received their entire inheritance.  It is rather heartbreaking to read about Keats seeking loans from friends in order to buy food and a warm coat while Abbey wrangled with his inheritance, whether through malice or disinterest; also, the psychological and physical effects of his poverty can only be guessed at - Keats rarely complained and was generous to a fault.

    Abbey's own conservative austerity made him very unsympathetic to the Keats children.  He had a low opinion of their temperaments and maturity.  Abbey wanted the Keats sons to achieve success in respectable, stable careers, hence his desire for John to become an apothecary; like most Englishmen, he did not consider poetry, particularly as practiced by a middle-class boy, to be a good career choice.  Poetry was the provenance of the noble and wealthy; they alone possessed the leisure and education to indulge in wordplay.  John Keats and his brothers could not afford such a lifestyle.  This attitude was pervasive enough to influence early reviews of Keats' poetry; influential magazines such as Blackwoods called him 'ignorant and unsettled', a 'pretender' to a poetic career.

    The real story of Keats's inheritance is quite complicated and is adequately explained in any biography.  It is worth mentioning here simply because his entire adult life was spent struggling with money.  Keats had an admirable character and he made friends easily; while shy, he was also personable and rarely ill-tempered.  The friends he made during his short life all remained intensely devoted to him.  After his grandmother's death, Abbey withdrew John and George from school and apprenticed John to a surgeon. Keats displayed aptitude for the difficult job but his heart was already devoted to poetry.  Throughout his poetic career, Keats was only too aware of the art to which he aspired.  He was both unable and unwilling to disregard his desire to write.  Posthumously regarded as the greatest English poet since Milton (and certainly there is no one to rival him after his death, Keats was never subject to such acclaim while alive.  Shelley admired him and wrote him encouraging, almost paternal letters; friends such as Leigh Hunt were equally supportive.  But the truth is that Keats wrote his greatest works in such a short span of time that it was impossible for anyone to adequately appreciate his genius.  But it is worth discussing his friendships, at least briefly, so as to understand their impact upon his life.

    Keats eventually met Charles Brown, the man who would become his closest friend and the two lived together, except for some short intervals, until Keats left for Rome.  Along with the artist Benjamin Haydon (someone who was not averse to pressing Keats for a loan), Brown is the subject of much information about Keats's early adulthood.  By all accounts, it was a reasonably happy time.  Keats's main preoccupation, besides money, was his brother Tom's ill health.  Tom eventually died of tuberculosis and John, who ceaselessly nursed him, was forever altered by this loss.  Speaking of his sister Fanny, who so closely resembled Tom, Keats remarked that Tom's ghost was haunting him.  In Rome during the last months of his life, he undoubtedly remembered nursing his brother; by then, Keats himself was starving, unable to eat what little food he could afford, and both his lungs had virtually disintegrated.

Bibliography

W. Jackson Bate, John Keats

I believe this work won the Pulitzer Prize, and deservedly so.  It is, by far, the best biography of John Keats.  Bate's work is impeccably researched and beautifully written.  His analysis of Keats's poetry, particularly the great odes of 1819, is of particular interest.  His account of Keats's last days is heartbreaking.  This biography does its subject justice - and that is the highest complement I can bestow.

Robert Gittings, John Keats

The Gittings biography was written after Bate's, and is a perfectly competent and engaging work.  But it is not as beautifully-written as Bate's biography, and also lacks its emotional impact.  Gittings's attempt was to correct a few inaccuracies or conjectures upon Bate's part, and he does include an interesting discussion on the possibility that Keats suffered from venereal disease, a topic Bate avoided.  And he also restores Fanny Brawne to human form (Bate, like most other 20th century biographers, created a hagiography of sorts around Keats's true love, in reaction to her negative portrayal by the Victorians.)
I would read this biography as a companion to Bate's work simply because the former is a far greater literary accomplishment (a biography that transcends its genre.)  But Gittings is a more than worthy introduction to Keats's life and work and, I think, a less expensive purchase.  Sadly, the rising cost of books does make price a consideration for most of us.

John Evangelist Walsh, Darkling I Listen: The Last Days and Death of John Keats

This book was published in late 1999, and is a wonderful addition to the Keats canon.  It focuses only on Keats's life after his illness was first diagnosed, and includes - among many interesting features - a medical interpretation of Keats's symptoms, a detailed account of Severn's life after nursing Keats, a discussion of Fanny Brawne's life after Keats (including the history of their famous love letters.)  Very well written, and quite heartbreaking at times.

Andrew Motion, Keats

I didn't much like this biography - but, in the interest of fairness, here is Amazon.com's summary: 'Whitbread Prize-winning biographer Andrew Motion aims to broaden our understanding of John Keats (1795-l821) by paying close attention to the historical context in which he wrote and the political opinions he voiced. The poet was 'of a sceptical and republican school,' Motion argues, and Keats's work reflected his experiences 'not just as a private individual, but socially and politically as well.' This bracing reinterpretation stresses the vigor of Keats's character as well as his verse, burying for good the sentimental cliché of a sickly dreamer concerned only with art for art's sake.'

Hmmm. 'bracing reinterpretation'.  I don't think so. The problem is that there was no need for a 'bracing reinterpretation'.  No modern biography of Keats has portrayed him as a 'sickly dreamer concerned only with art for art's sake'.  Bate and Gittings certainly didn't.  They both created nuanced and believable portraits of the poet.  So the reinterpretation must be for some unknown et of people who haven't read anything published after 1850. This 'biography' has the added indignity of a very ugly portrait of Keats on the cover.

Helen Vendler, The Odes of John Keats

I disagree with quite a few of Vendler's ideas and interpretations of Keats's famous 1819 odes, but I still love this work.  Reading a critical study of any poet can be a tedious experience, but Vendler is talented and passionate - so while you may disagree with her, she always makes you think.  I consider this work to be a necessary purchase after reading the Odes. In fact, if you're like me and have few opportunities to discuss Keats's poetry, you can always have an imaginary debate with Vendler.  The imaginary debate has the added advantage of being under your sole control - so you always win! Well, it's a thought.  Rather pathetic, but a thought.

Harold Bloom, The Visionary Company

I like this book a lot.  It discusses all of the Romantics, and so places Keats in historical and critical context.  It's quite entertaining (Bloom is usually entertaining if often too wordy for his own good), and well-written and thoughtful.  Bloom is like Vendler - you can disagree with him, but you can also have another imaginary debate.

The Selected Letters of John Keats, edited by Robert Gittings

Gittings provides a wonderful introduction to this collection of Keats's letters.  Two of the greatest epistolary talents in English history were 2d generation Romantic poets - Byron and Keats.  Keats's letters provide invaluable insight into the facts of his life, of course, but also include his feelings about all sorts of things - poetry, love, literary criticism, life in London, etc. These were recognized as extraordinary in his lifetime - though he died virtually unknown, Keats's friends kept most of his letters because they were brilliant and beautifully-written.  If nothing else, read his love letters to Fanny and the last letter he ever wrote, to his best friend Charles Brown.  'I can scarcely bid you good-bye, I always made an awkward bow.' Keats never made an awkward bow.

TS Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

This collection of Eliot's Oxford lectures contains an interesting discussion of Keats but it's quite brief.