John Keats

John Keats: A True Romantic

    John Keats was born on October 31, 1795 in London, England. After his father’s death nine years later and an unsuccessful re-marriage by his mother, John moved with his mother, his brothers Tom and George, and his sister Fanny, to his grandmother’s house in Edmonton. It was here that he became acquainted with Charles Cowden Clarke, a young man like himself who was the son of the headmaster John Clarke, and began to become very interested in books, reading any that he could possibly get his hands on. After his mother’s death in 1810, guardianship of him and his siblings went to a man named Richard Abbey, who made Keats become a surgeon’s apprentice.

    In 1814, Keats had enough of the training and moved to London where he took a number of odd jobs, all the while harnessing his writing skill.
It was at this time, shortly after he had moved back to London, when Keats devoted his life to poetry and poetry alone. He wasn’t famous right away, in fact he wrote many poems which received much praise, but most received a lot of criticism from the public. Some attacks such as from Quarterly Review’s critique of Endymion, which Keats was very self-conscious about,

having said that he was not happy with it before it was published, cut deep to his core. Some argue that it was actually a combination of these criticisms along with his badly timed walking tour of Scotland and northern England in 1818 that caused Keats to develop a case of tuberculosis, which would end up killing him on February 23, 1821, at the age of twenty-six. He, like many other Romantic poets died at a very early age, a great tragedy to the poetic world.

     However, he did not die before doing two crucial things: making an impact on the world of writing and finding his true love. While taking care of his brother Tom in his last stages of life, a woman named Fanny Brawne moved next-door and enamored Keats into a love which was almost as lavish and sensual as his poems. Through some of his letters, we can truly appreciate just how much he loved her and some of his characters are meant to be a portrait of how he saw the two of them. Their love was a very influential part of Keats’ writings and without it he wouldn’t have been able to make the impact he wished to make in the world.

    Keats is now known as one of the most influential poets of the Romantic Era. He had a unique style that put an emphasis on sensual description. He could describe things lavishly to the point that the poems would be overflowing with emotion. It was also largely his personal influences which governed his work. He draws descriptions of detail from his own mind, from many sources. Some of these sources are his mad love for his fiancée Fanny Brawne, as well as the death of his brother Tom (also from tuberculosis). He should also get credit for his desire to achieve perfection in writing by constantly experimenting with new types of poems. Most agree that Keats’ best work occurs in 1819 with the creation of what would be called “the great odes,” each of which handles a new complex theme as well as greater and more elaborate detail than any of his earlier or later work.

    Keats met and became friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley, the husband of Mary Shelley just before 1820. The two of them, along with Lord Byron, made up a social circle, which made great contributions to the Romantic era through each person’s unique poetry. Each had their own distinct style, but Shelley and Keats would exchange their works through mail and critique them before publication, as well as giving personal advice to one another. One example of the personal advice given was an invitation given by Percy Shelley when Keats was on his deathbed: Percy asked him to visit him at his house or if not to at least get somewhere warmer, as the doctor had prescribed. Keats declined on the visit, but did take the advice and go to Rome, where he was to die. In reading some of their letters, it was apparent that the two saw each other as friends through their mutual struggles in their work as poets.

    Mary Shelley and John Keats didn’t correspond directly to each other, but through Percy Shelley, there was some contact, even if slight. Keats commonly exchanged work with Percy for proof-reading, so it is very likely that Mary read most, if not all, of Keats’ work and probably shaped Percy’s responses to his poems. It also can not be a coincidence that both Keats’ best work and Mary Shelley’s best work came around at just about the same time while her husband and Keats were regularly in touch. It is possible that some ideas, stylistic strategies, or selective diction from Keats’s work could have influenced parts of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Some of this influence could have also been indirect, possibly through the impact of Keats on Percy Shelley’s work.

    There may never be another more influential poet than John Keats. His style, attention to detail, and love of life sets him apart from any poet before or after his time period. When having to describe the Romantic era, we think of aspects of writing that can be attributed mostly to Keats, such as sensual pleasures, attention to detail, and the thought of true love. It was his love that set him apart, and that love keeps him in the top ranks of the Romantic era to this day.

- by Billy Pfeifer