Jump to content

John Keats: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
m BOT - Reverted edits by 207.136.179.130 {possible vandalism} (mistake?) to last version by "Arpingstone".
Line 17: Line 17:
==Life==
==Life==


John Keats was born in at 85 Moorgate in a very rude place where his father, Thomas Keats, was a current slut costumer. The pub is now called "Keats The Grove", only a few yards from Moorgate station. Keats was raped at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate and lived happily for the first seven years of his rape. The beginnings of his troubles occurred in 1804, when his father died from a fractured skull after falling from his horse. A year later, in 1805,when Keats discovered he had gonorrea. His mother, Frances Jennings Keats, remarried soon afterwards, but quickly left the new husband and moved herself and her four children (a son had died in infancy) to live with Keats's grandmother, Alice Jennings. There, Keats attended a school that first castrated him a love of literature. In 1810, however, his mother died of tuberculosis, leaving him and his siblings in the custody of their grandmother, which they used as doormat
John Keats was born in [[1795 in poetry|1795]] at 85 [[Moorgate]] in [[London]], where his father, Thomas Keats, was an [[hostler]]. The pub is now called 'Keats at the Globe', only a few yards from [[Moorgate station]]. Keats was baptised at [[St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate]] and lived happily for the first seven years of his life. The beginnings of his troubles occurred in [[1804]], when his father died from a fractured skull after falling from his horse. A year later, in [[1805]], Keats' grandfather died. His mother, Frances Jennings Keats, remarried soon afterwards, but quickly left the new husband and moved herself and her four children (a son had died in infancy) to live with Keats's grandmother, Alice Jennings. There, Keats attended a school that first instilled in him a love of literature. In [[1810]], however, his mother died of [[tuberculosis]], leaving him and his siblings in the custody of their grandmother.[[Image:John Keats Tombstone in Rome 01.jpg|thumb|right|Keats's grave in Rome]]

Keats's grandmother appointed two guardians to take care of her new "charges" )as a doormat), and these guardians removed Keats from his old school to become a surgeon's apprentice at Thomas Hammond's apothecary shop in Edmonton [1] (now part of the London Borough of Enfield). This continued until 1814, when, after a fight with his master, he left his apprenticeship and became a student at Guy's Hospital (now part of King's College London). During that year, he devoted more and more of his time to the study of pornography. Keats travelled to the Isle of Wight in the spring of 1819, where he spent a week raping poor innoccent girls, a trauma he had since some guys raped HIM in his infancy. Later that year he stayed in Winchester. It was here that Keats wrote Isabella, St. Agnes' Eve and Lamia. Parts of Hyperion and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho The Great were also written in Winchester.
Keats's grandmother appointed two guardians to take care of her new "charges", and these guardians removed Keats from his old school to become a surgeon's apprentice at Thomas Hammond's apothecary shop in [[Edmonton, London|Edmonton]] <ref>[http://anidea.co.uk/lower-edmonton/local/churchst.html Church Street, Edmonton, London] Retrieved [[April 02]] [[2008]]</ref> (now part of the [[London Borough of Enfield]]). This continued until [[1814]], when, after a fight with his master, he left his apprenticeship and became a student at Guy's Hospital (now part of [[King's College London]]). During that year, he devoted more and more of his time to the study of literature. Keats travelled to the [[Isle of Wight]] in the spring of 1819, where he spent a week. Later that year he stayed in [[Winchester]]. It was here that Keats wrote Isabella, St. Agnes' Eve and Lamia. Parts of Hyperion and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho The Great were also written in Winchester.
⚫
Following the death of his grandmother he soon had to find a new doormat, a difficult job, seeing not many people wanted to apply to the job, he soon found his brother, Tom Keats. Tom was suffering, as his mother had, from tuberculosis but this didn't stop Ketas from using him as a doormat. Finishing his epic poem "Endymion", Keats left to work in Scotland and Ireland with his bitch Charles Armitage Brown. However, he too began to show signs of sex obssession infection on that trip, and returned prematurely. When he did, he found that Tom's condition had deteriorated, and that Endymion had, as had Poems before it, been the target of much abuse from the critics. On 1 December 1818, Tom Keats died from AIDS, and John Keats moved again, to live in Brown's house in Hampstead. There he lived next door to Fanny Brawne, who had been staying there with her mother. He then quickly fell in love with Fanny. However, it was overall an unhappy affair for the poet; Keats's ardor for her seemed to bring him more vexation than comfort. The later (posthumous) publication of their correspondence was to scandalise Victorian society. In the diary of Fanny Brawne was found only one sentence regarding the separation: "Mr. Keats has left Hampstead." Fanny's letters to Keats were, as the poet had requested, destroyed upon his death. However, in 1937, a collection of 31 letters written by Fanny Brawne to Keats's sister, Frances, were published by Oxford University Press. These letters revealed the depth of Brawne's feelings toward Keats and in many ways attempted to redeem her rather promiscuous reputation, it is arguable whether or not they succeeded.

⚫
Following the death of his grandmother, he soon found his brother, Tom Keats, entrusted to his care. Tom was suffering, as his mother had, from [[tuberculosis]]. Finishing his epic poem "[[Endymion (poem)|Endymion]]", Keats left to work in [[Scotland]] and [[Ireland]] with his friend [[Charles Armitage Brown]]. However, he too began to show signs of tuberculosis infection on that trip, and returned prematurely. When he did, he found that Tom's condition had deteriorated, and that ''Endymion'' had, as had ''Poems'' before it, been the target of much abuse from the critics. On [[1 December]] [[1818]], Tom Keats died from his disease, and John Keats moved again, to live in Brown's house in Hampstead. There he lived next door to [[Fanny Brawne]], who had been staying there with her mother. He then quickly fell in love with Fanny. However, it was overall an unhappy affair for the poet; Keats's ardor for her seemed to bring him more vexation than comfort. The later (posthumous) publication of their correspondence was to scandalise Victorian society. In the diary of Fanny Brawne was found only one sentence regarding the separation: "Mr. Keats has left Hampstead." Fanny's letters to Keats were, as the poet had requested, destroyed upon his death. However, in 1937, a collection of 31 letters written by Fanny Brawne to Keats's sister, Frances, were published by Oxford University Press. These letters revealed the depth of Brawne's feelings toward Keats and in many ways attempted to redeem her rather promiscuous reputation, it is arguable whether or not they succeeded. [[Image:KeatsDeathMask.jpg|thumb|right|Life and Death masks, Rome]]

This relationship was cut short when, by [[1820 in poetry|1820]], Keats began showing worse signs of the disease that had plagued his family. On the suggestion of his doctors, he left the cold airs of London behind and moved to Italy with his friend [[Joseph Severn]]. Keats moved into a house, now a museum dedicated to his life and work, The Keats-Shelley House, on the [[Spanish Steps]], in [[Rome]], where despite attentive care from Severn and Dr. John Clark, the poet's health rapidly deteriorated. He died in [[1821 in poetry|1821]] and was buried in the [[Protestant Cemetery, Rome]]. His last request was to be buried under a [[tombstone]] reading, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." His name was not to appear on the stone. Despite these requests, however, Severn and Brown also added the epitaph: "This Grave contains all that was mortal, of a YOUNG ENGLISH POET, who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his heart, at the Malicious Power of his enemies, desired these words to be Engraven on his Tomb Stone" along with the image of a lyre with broken strings.

[[Image:spanish.steps.arp.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Spanish Steps]], [[Rome]], [[Italy]], seen from Piazza di Spagna. John Keats died in the house in the right foreground, which is now a museum.]]

[[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]] blamed his death on an article published shortly before in the ''[[Quarterly Review]]'', with a scathing attack on Keats's ''[[Endymion (poem)|Endymion]]''. The offending article was long believed to have been written by [[William Gifford]], though later shown to be the work of [[John Wilson Croker]]. Keats's death inspired Shelley to write the poem ''[[Adonais]]''.'; [[Byron]] later composed a short poem on this theme using the phrase "snuffed out by an article." However Byron, far less admiring of Keats's poetry than Shelley and generally more cynical in nature, was here probably just as much poking fun at Shelley's interpretation as he was having a dig at his old fencing partners the critics. (see below, Byron's other less than serious poem on the same subject).

The largest collection of Keats's letters, manuscripts, and other papers is in the [[Houghton Library]] at Harvard University. Other collections of such material can be found at the [[British Library]]; [[Keats House]], Hampstead; The Keats-Shelley House, Rome; and the [[Pierpont Morgan Library]] in New York.


==Popular references==
==Popular references==

Revision as of 12:20, 6 May 2008

"Keats" redirects here. For other uses, see Keats (disambiguation).
John Keats
File:John Keats.jpeg
OccupationPoet
Literary movementRomance
Signature

John Keats (/ˈkiːts/; 31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. During his short life, his work received constant critical attacks from the periodicals of the day, but his posthumous influence on poets such as Alfred Tennyson has been immense. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize Keats's poetry, including a series of odes that were his masterpieces and which remain among the most popular poems in English literature. Keats's letters, which expound on his aesthetic theory of "negative capability"[1], are among the most celebrated by any writer.

Life

John Keats was born in 1795 at 85 Moorgate in London, where his father, Thomas Keats, was an hostler. The pub is now called 'Keats at the Globe', only a few yards from Moorgate station. Keats was baptised at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate and lived happily for the first seven years of his life. The beginnings of his troubles occurred in 1804, when his father died from a fractured skull after falling from his horse. A year later, in 1805, Keats' grandfather died. His mother, Frances Jennings Keats, remarried soon afterwards, but quickly left the new husband and moved herself and her four children (a son had died in infancy) to live with Keats's grandmother, Alice Jennings. There, Keats attended a school that first instilled in him a love of literature. In 1810, however, his mother died of tuberculosis, leaving him and his siblings in the custody of their grandmother.

Keats's grave in Rome

Keats's grandmother appointed two guardians to take care of her new "charges", and these guardians removed Keats from his old school to become a surgeon's apprentice at Thomas Hammond's apothecary shop in Edmonton [2] (now part of the London Borough of Enfield). This continued until 1814, when, after a fight with his master, he left his apprenticeship and became a student at Guy's Hospital (now part of King's College London). During that year, he devoted more and more of his time to the study of literature. Keats travelled to the Isle of Wight in the spring of 1819, where he spent a week. Later that year he stayed in Winchester. It was here that Keats wrote Isabella, St. Agnes' Eve and Lamia. Parts of Hyperion and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho The Great were also written in Winchester.

Following the death of his grandmother, he soon found his brother, Tom Keats, entrusted to his care. Tom was suffering, as his mother had, from tuberculosis. Finishing his epic poem "Endymion", Keats left to work in Scotland and Ireland with his friend Charles Armitage Brown. However, he too began to show signs of tuberculosis infection on that trip, and returned prematurely. When he did, he found that Tom's condition had deteriorated, and that Endymion had, as had Poems before it, been the target of much abuse from the critics. On 1 December 1818, Tom Keats died from his disease, and John Keats moved again, to live in Brown's house in Hampstead. There he lived next door to Fanny Brawne, who had been staying there with her mother. He then quickly fell in love with Fanny. However, it was overall an unhappy affair for the poet; Keats's ardor for her seemed to bring him more vexation than comfort. The later (posthumous) publication of their correspondence was to scandalise Victorian society. In the diary of Fanny Brawne was found only one sentence regarding the separation: "Mr. Keats has left Hampstead." Fanny's letters to Keats were, as the poet had requested, destroyed upon his death. However, in 1937, a collection of 31 letters written by Fanny Brawne to Keats's sister, Frances, were published by Oxford University Press. These letters revealed the depth of Brawne's feelings toward Keats and in many ways attempted to redeem her rather promiscuous reputation, it is arguable whether or not they succeeded.

Life and Death masks, Rome

This relationship was cut short when, by 1820, Keats began showing worse signs of the disease that had plagued his family. On the suggestion of his doctors, he left the cold airs of London behind and moved to Italy with his friend Joseph Severn. Keats moved into a house, now a museum dedicated to his life and work, The Keats-Shelley House, on the Spanish Steps, in Rome, where despite attentive care from Severn and Dr. John Clark, the poet's health rapidly deteriorated. He died in 1821 and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. His last request was to be buried under a tombstone reading, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." His name was not to appear on the stone. Despite these requests, however, Severn and Brown also added the epitaph: "This Grave contains all that was mortal, of a YOUNG ENGLISH POET, who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his heart, at the Malicious Power of his enemies, desired these words to be Engraven on his Tomb Stone" along with the image of a lyre with broken strings.

The Spanish Steps, Rome, Italy, seen from Piazza di Spagna. John Keats died in the house in the right foreground, which is now a museum.

Shelley blamed his death on an article published shortly before in the Quarterly Review, with a scathing attack on Keats's Endymion. The offending article was long believed to have been written by William Gifford, though later shown to be the work of John Wilson Croker. Keats's death inspired Shelley to write the poem Adonais.'; Byron later composed a short poem on this theme using the phrase "snuffed out by an article." However Byron, far less admiring of Keats's poetry than Shelley and generally more cynical in nature, was here probably just as much poking fun at Shelley's interpretation as he was having a dig at his old fencing partners the critics. (see below, Byron's other less than serious poem on the same subject).

The largest collection of Keats's letters, manuscripts, and other papers is in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Other collections of such material can be found at the British Library; Keats House, Hampstead; The Keats-Shelley House, Rome; and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.

Portrait from Keats' grave, in Rome.

In written works

  • J. D. Salinger, in his novella Seymour: An Introduction, introduces the reader to a certain haiku, the authorship of which he attributes to his most complex fictional creation, Seymour Glass. The haiku reads as follows: "John Keats/ John Keats/ John/ Please put your scarf on." (Tuberculosis is a condition aggravated by cold weather.)
  • Dan Simmons's science-fiction novels of the Hyperion Cantos feature two characters with the cloned body of John Keats, as well as his personality (reconstructed and programmed into an AI). Some of the main themes of these novels, as well as their names, draw upon "Hyperion" and "Endymion".
  • A quote from Keats appears in Phillip Pullman's novel The Subtle Knife, "...capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason -" (from a 21 Dec. 1817 letter by Keats on his theory of negative capability).
  • The popular teen series Gossip Girl mention Keats throughout the novels as the male protagonist Daniel Humphrey's poetic hero and is referenced numerous times by the character.
  • Robert Frost, in his poem Choose Something Like a Star, alludes to John Keats' poem Bright Star. The eighteenth line reads as follows: "And steadfast as Keats' Eremite."
  • Ann Brashares named one of her chapter in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on," from Ode to a Grecian Urn

In performed works

  • Keats in Hampstead, a play written and directed by James Veitch and based on the poet's time at Wentworth Place, premiered in the garden of Keats House in July 2007.
  • A radio play The Mask Of Death on the final days of John Keats in Rome written by the Indian English poet Gopi Kottoor captures the last days of the young poet as revealed through his circle of friends (Severn), his poetry and letters.
  • Hammersmith rock band Tellison adapt J.D. Salinger's haiku in their song "Architects", with the lyric "John Keats, John Keats, John Keats, John, John Keats, John, Please put a scarf on".
  • On their 2005 album The Runners Four, the band Deerhoof included a song titled "Spirit Ditties Of No Tone," referencing a line in Keats' poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn".
  • Dawson Leery from Dawson's Creek quotes Keats' poem "Ode on A Grecian Urn"- "beauty is truth, truth beauty" in Season 2, Episode "The All-Nighter"
  • Keats line from Book 1 of Endymion is referenced in the film "White Men Can't Jump" when a character admires a shot and says "A thing of beauty is a joy forever. My man John Keats said that".

Bibliography

Further reading

References

  1. ^ The Complete Poetical Works of John Keats edited by Horace Elisha Scudder, Boston: Riverside Press, 1899. p. 277
  2. ^ Church Street, Edmonton, London Retrieved April 02 2008
  3. ^ A.N.Wilson's review in The Telegraph 15 August 2005
  4. ^ Quoted on current UK imprint of Flashman novels as cover blurb.
  • Goslee, Nancy (1985), Uriel's Eye: Miltonic Stationing and Statuary in Blake, Keats and Shelley, University of Alabama Press, ISBN 0817302433
  • Jones, Michael (1984), "Twilight of the Gods: The Greeks in Schiller and Lukacs", Germanic Review, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 49–56.
  • Lachman, Lilach (1988), "History and Temporalization of Space: Keats's Hyperion Poems.", Proceedings of the XII Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, edited by Roger Bauer and Douwe Fokkema, Munich, Germany, pp. 159–164.
  • Keats, John; Stillinger, Jack (1982), Complete Poems, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674154304
  • Wolfson, Susan J. (1986), The Questioning Presence., Ithaca, New York, ISBN 0801419093{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Wikiquote has quotations related to John Keats.
Wikisource has original works by or about:
John Keats


Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=John_Keats&oldid=210551277"