John Keats1795-1821

“They will explain themselves - as all poems should do without any comment.”John Keats to his brother George, 1818

JOHN KEATS

BIOGRAPHY

Early Life Born October 31, 1795 in central London Swan and Hoop Inn Eldest of four children (three boys and one

sister, Fanny) Father dies when Keats is eight years old;

mother dies of tuberculosis when he is fourteen Keats becomes a key figure in the second

generation of the British Romantic movement (along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley)

Education & Apprenticeship 1803: parents sent him to board at John Clarke’s school in Enfield,

close to his grandparents’ house (financial concerns) Clarke’s school was small, but progressive. Befriended headmaster’s son, Charles Cowden Clarke, who would

later introduce Keats to Renaissance literature and serve as a mentor.

Volatile, “always in extremes” personality At age 13, Keats began focusing his energy toward reading and

studying. At 14, after his mother dies, Keats leaves Clarke’s school to

apprentice with Thomas Hammond, a surgeon and apothecary until 1813.

Registers as a medical student at Guy’s Hospital in October 1815—shows distinct talent.

1816—receives apothecary’s license, but by the end of the year announces his intention to become a poet, not a surgeon.

Suffered periods of depression First poem, “An Imitation of Spenser”, was written in 1814, when

Keats was 19 and studying medicine.

Early Poetry and Influence Clarke introduces Keats to Leigh Hunt, an

influential poet and close friend of Byron and Shelley.

Though his poetry was not well received initially, Hunt continued introducing Keats to prominent men, establishing Keats as a respected public figure.

1817—his health failing, Keats moves in with his brothers to help care for brother Tom, who has tuberculosis. Some biographers suggest that it is while nursing his brother that Keats first contracted his “family disease.”

Hampstead Heath After brother Tom dies in December

1818, Keats moves in with a friend, Charles Armitage Brown.

During the winter of 1818-1819, Keats produces his most mature work.

Meets Wordsworth at a dinner at Hampstead.

Composes five of his six “great odes” in April and May 1819.

Romantic Life (Fanny Brawne and Isabella Jones)

Keats first met Fanny Brawne sometime between September and November 1818, when he was nursing his brother Tom.

Fanny’s grandfather had kept an inn, as Keats’s father had, and she had also lost several family members to tuberculosis. Their relationship was intimate, but brief.

Isabella Jones and Keats were also briefly involved in the winter of 1818-1819, when Keats was at his creative best.

Biographers suggest that the first version of Keats’s “Bright Star” sonnet may have been written for Isabella, but the final version was presented to Fanny. He continued to work on this poem until the last months of his life, and the poem is ultimately associated with Fanny.

By the end of June 1819, Keats arrived at an understanding with Fanny, though it was not a formal engagement because he still had no financial stability or prospects.

Keats suffered knowing that as a struggling poet, he would not be able to marry her anytime soon. He became jealous and depressed.

Fanny Brawne "My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist

without you — I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again — my Life seems to stop there — I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving — I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. [...] I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion — I have shudder'd at it — I shudder no more — I could be martyr'd for my Religion — Love is my religion — I could die for that — I could die for you." (Letter, 13 October 1819)

Keats began to lend Brawne books, such as Dante's Inferno, and they would read together. He gave her the love sonnet "Bright Star" (perhaps revised for her) as a declaration. It was a sort of work in progress which he carried on until the point of his death, and the poem came to be associated with their relationship. "All his desires were concentrated on Fanny".[48] From this point there is no further documented mention of Isabella Jones.

Sometime before the end of June, he arrived at some sort of understanding with Brawne, far from a formal engagement as he still had too little to offer, with no prospects and financial stricture.[49] Keats endured great conflict knowing his expectations as a struggling poet in increasingly hard straits would preclude marriage to Brawne. 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. "

LOVE FOR FANNY BRAWNE

"I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks;" he wrote to

her, "...your loveliness, and the hour of my death".[49]

In one of his many hundreds of notes and letters, Keats wrote

to Brawne on 13 October 1819: "My love has made me

selfish. I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of every

thing but seeing you again – my Life seems to stop there – I

see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at

the present moment as though I was dissolving – I should be

exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you ... I

have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion

– I have shudder'd at it – I shudder no more – I could be

martyr'd for my Religion – Love is my religion – I could die for

that – I could die for you."

The painting of Isabella by William Holman Hunt

Isabella is the narrative poem by John Keats. Isabella fell in love with Lorenzo who was murdered by her brothers. His ghost tells her in a dream of his murder. She keeps the head of her lover in a pot of basil. William Holman Hunt who painted the picture used his wife Fanny’s face for this drawing because she died of fever after child birth which is why he immortalized her beauty in the face of Isabella.  After her death, he worked on it steadily for months together returning to England in 1867, and finally he completed it in January 1868.

Isabella JonesKeats befriended Isabella Jones in May 1817 while on holiday in the village of Bo Peep, near Hastings. She was beautiful, talented, well educated not in the top rank of society yet financially secure, an enigmatic figure who would become a part of Keats's circle.[41][42] Throughout their friendship Keats never hesitates to own his sexual attraction to her, although they seem to enjoy circling each other rather than offering commitment. He writes that he "frequented her rooms" in the winter of 1818–19, and in his letters to George says that he "warmed with her" and "kissed her“.

The themes of The Eve of St. Agnes and The Eve of St Mark may well have been suggested by her, the lyric Hush, Hush! ["o sweet Isabel"] was about her, and that the first version of "Bright Star" may have originally been for her.[43][44] In 1821, Jones was one of the first in England to be notified of Keats's death.[41]

Letters Keats wrote hundreds of letters to his brothers,

sister, friends, and romantic interests. Much of what we know of Keats, his life, and his

inspiration come from his letters. None of Fanny Brawne’s letters to Keats survive.

We have his letters to her, but upon his request, after his death her letters were destroyed.

Though first published in 1848 and 1878, Keats’s letters were ignored until the twentieth century, when T. S. Eliot described them as "certainly the most notable and most important ever written by any English poet.”

Later Life By the end of 1819, tuberculosis took hold and his doctors

advised him to move to a warmer climate. September 1820: Keats departs for Rome and dies there five

months later. His friend and travel companion, Joseph Severn, nurses him

and attempts to comfort him throughout treatment until Keats dies on February 23, 1821 at the age of 25.

Keats is buried in Rome. His last request was to be placed under a unnamed tombstone which contained only the words (in pentameter, of course), "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."

“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: / Here lies One / Whose Name was writ in Water. 24 February 1821"

Fanny mourns for Keats for six years, and marries in 1833, more than 12 years after his death.

Poetry John Keats's literary career amounted to just three and a half

years.  It began in July 1816 after he passed the apothecaries' examination at Guy's Hospital and lasted until late 1819. He wrote a few poems before 1816, but his career truly began after he left his medical training.

Keats wrote 150 poems, but those upon which his reputation rests were written in the span of nine months, from January to September 1819.  This intense flowering of talent remains unparalleled in literary history.

Keats published three books of verse in his lifetime:  The first volume, Poems, was published by C and J Ollier in March

1817.  It was dedicated to Leigh Hunt and contained thirty-one works, including 'Sleep and Poetry' and 'On first looking into Chapman's Homer'. 

His second volume, Endymion, was published by Taylor and Hessey in April 1818.  It was savagely reviewed and sold poorly. 

His third volume, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems, was published by Taylor and Hessey in June 1820.  It contained thirteen works, including the great odes of 1819 (though not the 'Ode on Indolence') and 'Hyperion'.

Odes Ode: usually a lyric poem of moderate length,

with a serious subject, an elevated style, and an elaborate stanza pattern. The ode often praises people, the arts of music and poetry, natural scenes, or abstract concepts. The Romantic poets used the ode to explore both personal or general problems; they often started with a meditation on something in nature, as did Keats in "Ode to a Nightingale" or Shelley in "Ode to the West Wind."

Keats is known for his five 'great odes' of 1819, which are generally believed to have been written in the following order - Psyche, Nightingale, Grecian Urn, Melancholy, and Autumn

Sonnet formKeats employed the irregular rhyme scheme : abc, abd, cab, cde, de. It follows neither the Petrarchan octave nor the Shakespearean quatrains and concluding couplet.

Keats’s sonnet addresses his theme of the traditional stanza patterns and their rhyme schemes. The poet freely experiments with both, leading directly to the triumphant odes of Keats’s annus mirabilis. These odes of 1819—“To a Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode on Melancholy,” and “Ode on Indolence”display the fruit of Keats’s sonnet experimentation, which led directly to the new lyric form used in the great odes. Here Keats conserves some of the elements of both sonnet forms: the quatrain of the English form (abab) and the sestet of the Petrarchan sonnet (cde, cde). However, he organically extends these forms, makes them more malleable, “more interwoven and complete/ To fit the naked foot of poesy.” In his odes, he successfully prunes out the “dead leaves” in the bay-wreath crown, avoiding monotony and gaining new freedom. Thus he develops the perfect genre he had been seeking in “On the Sonnet.

Keats’s poem “On the Sonnet” examines that poetic form significantly for its structural demands and restrictions. The poet begins by positing the necessity of “dull rhymes,” which he feels chain “our English” and “fetter” the sonnet. He offers next the image of Andromeda, or “pained loveliness”; Ovid tells of this beautiful maiden being chained to a rock by Jupiter to pay for her mother’s excessive boasting. Here Keats compares the confinement of the lovely and innocent Andromeda with the sweet beauty of poetry being fettered by the demands of rhyme. The poet seems, however, resigned to rhyme’s fetters but insists that rhyme, like an intricate sandal, be more “interwoven and complete/ To fit the naked foot of poesy.” The poet offers this interweaving as a solution to what Keats in his letters calls “pounding rhymes.” He wants rhyme to be more subtle and intricate, complementing the content of the poem as a whole and not drawing attention to itself.

His next concern is the sonnet’s need for a metrical pattern that is carefully handled: “Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress/ Of every chord.” The assumption here is that the sonnet should be music, but not music of a breezy or vague sort. The sonneteer should “inspect” and “weigh” the sound with “ear industrious, and attention meet,” concerned that the meter and stress pattern enhance the sound of the poem.

ANALYSIS OF “ ON HIS SONNET”

The poem “On the Sonnet” by John Keats stands as an example of what is known be “imitative form” by literary critics in which the form of the poem in some way imitates its subject matter.  The poem, written in moderately regular iambic pentameter, is a protests against the “dull rhymes|” and predictability of the sonnet form and calls for a new type of sonnet in which the rhymes, rather than forming predictable patterns, are more “interwoven.” Thus rather than starting off with two open quatrains (like the English sonnet) or two envelope quatrains (like the Italian sonnet), Keats uses a sestet based on three rhyme sounds, followed by another irregularly rhymed quatrain, and resolving, in the final four lines into an open or alternating quatrain.

Thematic Contrasts/Juxtaposition Issues of identity are common (dreamer/poet) Intersection of love and pain (“leopardess… I would

like her to ruin me”) and love and death “The Fatal Woman” Common contradictory ideas in Keats’ poetry: transient sensation or passion / enduring art dream or vision / reality joy / melancholy the ideal / the real mortal / immortal life / death separation / connection being immersed in passion / desiring to escape

passion

Romanticism vs. Neoclassicism

Neoclassic Trends Stressed reason and

judgment Valued society Followed authority Maintained the

aristocracy Interested in

science and technology

Romantic Trends Stressed

imagination and emotion

Valued individuals Strove for freedom Represented

common people Interested in the

supernatural

Romanticism Romanticism: attitude or intellectual orientation that

characterizes many works of literature, music, painting, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to mid-19th century

Rejects precepts of calm, order, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typifies classicism (in general) and late 18th century Neoclassicism (specifically)

Reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th century rationalism and materialism

Emphasizes the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental

Romanticism (cont.) Characteristic Attitudes of the Romantic Movement:

Deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature General exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses

over intellect Turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of

human personality and its moods and mental potential Preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional

figure in general, and focus on his passions/inner struggles New view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, whose

creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures

Emphasis on imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth

Obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era

Predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic

Synaesthesia and Imagery Keats uses vivid, concrete imagery. Compressed imagery: condenses images to

heighten intensity for readers Pictoral: visual senses often personified Associated: senses evoked—literal is metaphoric Keats is known for using Synaesthetic

(multisensory/attributing traits from one sense to another) Images

“taste the warm South” “sunburnt mirth” “taste the music of that vision pale”

Negative Capability First appeared in a letter to his brother in December 1817. The

idea was not elaborated upon outside this letter. Theory invented by Keats to describe the capacity of the human

mind for accepting uncertainty and the unresolved Great people, especially poets, have the ability to accept the

fact that not everything can be resolved. Imagination lends access to holy authority, and such authority cannot be understood by man. “I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various

subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason - Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge. This pursued through Volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates every other consideration.”

The House in Hampstead where John Keats lived from 1818 to 1820 and wrote "Ode to a Nightingale" under the pear tree

Ode to a nightingale' is superficially praise for the nightingale's song. In a deepest sense it was Keats‘ search for a way to transcend this world and all the pain associated with it. He probably wrote this ode after he became ill and when he came to terms with his sad fate. This ode is written in the first person, which makes this ode almost confessional. Keats first describes the immense joy that bordered on pain that he felt on hearing the nightingale's song. This hints that he wanted the song to help him transcend this world. Keats says that his heart was aching with a 'drowsy', numb pain. The words 'numbness pains' are an oxymoron and a paradox, this hints at Keats' confusion as well as his intoxication. He says that his senses were dulled as though he had drunk the juice of the hemlock- a poisonous plant or as if he had taken 'opiate' or opium or like he was submerged in the 'Lethe' the river of forgetfulness of the past in Greek mythology. He then says this state was brought on not by sadness or envy but happiness at the happiness of the nightingale and its song about summer. He compares it to a 'dryad of the trees' which is a forest sprit in Greek mythology in the form of a young maiden. .

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

      "The Ode to Psyche" is not universally admired, as are "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and "To Autumn." It has been called "the least clearly organized of the odes" and the "least coherent and most uneven of the later poems." But even its detractors have admired Keats's skillful combining of nature and myth and his sensuous language, as in the description of Cupid and Psyche together.    Psyche is clearly a symbol:

In Greek myth, Psyche represented the soul or mind, meanings that work well in this poem, with its explicit references to thought and mental process.Psyche is sometimes seen as a particular quality of mind, imagination. Psyche, like imagination, crosses the boundary separating the mortal and the immortal, the transitory and the eternal, because she has been both mortal and immortal.

The critic Harold Bloom suggests that that Psyche symbolizes the human-soul-in-love; hers is a love story, her lover Cupid is the god of love, his mother is the goddess of love, the poet encounters Psyche and Cupid between kisses, and the last line of the poem welcomes love.

          The poet feels the loss of faith or source of inspiration. Though the gods have lost their power in modern society, the poet still desires transcendence, that is, to rise above the limits of everyday reality for a higher reality, one which engages the higher faculties like imagination and spirit.

ODE TO PSYCHE

"The Ode to Psyche" is not universally admired, as are "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and "To Autumn." It has been called "the least clearly organized of the odes" and the "least coherent and most uneven of the later poems." But even its detractors have admired Keats's skillful combining of nature and myth and his sensuous language, as in the description of Cupid and Psyche together.

ANALYSIS OF ODE TO PSYCHE

  The poem moves from the poet-dreamer coming upon Psyche and Cupid in an intense moment between kisses, through his description of two ages of disbelief i.e, Psyche's and his own--to end with his dedicating himself to Psyche and what she symbolizes.

Stanzas I-III At the outset of this ode, the poet wonders whether he really saw Psyche or whether he dreamed the encounter (I, 5-6). Does the answer to that question affect the validity of his experience? If the encounter was a vision or waking dream, would the experience be negated?           The description of Cupid and Psyche in stanza II and the poet's praise of her beauty in Stanza III prepare for his conversion in stanza IV; they help to explain it. Keats emphasizes the joyful state Psyche has achieved and her beauty, which deserve to be worshipped, though her age and the poet's age ignore her. The second half of stanza III and lines 1-3 of stanza IV describe the failure of the ancients to worship Psyche. And the poet lives in "days so far retired / From happy pieties" (IV, 5-6). 

JOHN KEAT’S POEMS

There are four narrative poems not taking into account of Hyperion, which is epic rather than narrative and these are : Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, Lamia and The Eve of St. Mark. Isabella is taken from The Decameron of Bocaccio : The Eve of St. Agnes is based on the superstition traditionally associated with St. Agnes’ Eve ; Lamia draws its inspiration from a medieval superstition ; while The Eve of St. Hark deals with the superstition associated with St. Mark’s Eve.

The objective element in the poems under consideration is unmistakable. Keats does have one of the essential characteristics of the story-teller ; he successfully effaces himself in the story that he narrates. The stories are intensely subjective in tone, for in them Keats gives his own idealistic interpretation of the legends and the superstitions that he handles. Moreover, he never misses the opportunity of illustrating his favourite principle—the workmanship of beauty and the supreme delight that beauty brings to the minds and hearts of men. Undeniably, Keats’s narrative poems are of a high order of excellence.

The analysis of Keat’s poetry

QUOTES

Sources Cited http://

englishhistory.net/keats/poetry.html wikipedia