John Keats (1795-1821), one of the greatest English poets and a major figure in the Romantic movement, was born in Moor fields, London. His father died when he was eight and his mother when he was fourteen. These sad circumstances drew him particularly close to his two brothers, George and Tom, and his sister Fanny. He was educated at a school in Enfield, where he began a translation of Virgil’s Aeneid. Leaving school at fifteen, he spent five years as an apprentice to an apothecary-surgeon. In 1815 he left his apprenticeship and became a student at Guy’s Hospital, London. But he soon gave up his medical career to devote himself to the muse.
Keat’s first volume of poems was published in 1817. It attracted some good reviews, but these were followed by the first of several harsh attacks by the influential Blackwood’s Magazine. Endymion, which he dedicated to Chatterton, was published in the spring of 1818 and it received severe criticism. After Tom’s death he moved into a friend’s house in Hampstead. There he met and fell deeply in love with a young neighbour, Fanny Brawne. During the following year, despite ill health and financial problems, he wrote an astonishing amount of poetry, including The Eve of St. Agnes, LaBelle Dame Sans Merci, Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn. His second volume of poems appeared in 1820. The tuberculosis that ran in the family did not leave him alone. His health deteriorated from bad to worse in 1820. On the recommendation of his doctors, he sailed to Italy with his painter friend, Joseph Severn, to spend the winter there. He died on 23rd February, 1821 in Rome. His tomb bears the epitaph, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water’, a line he wrote for himself.
Keat’s poetry is at its best in his odes. The six odes, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Melancholy, Ode on Indolence, To Autumn and Ode to Psyche touch the highest watermark of English poetry. In all these odes, he seeks to discover permanence in a world of change, and juxtaposes the permanence of art with the mutability of the real and the material.
Keat’s first volume of poems was published in 1817. It attracted some good reviews, but these were followed by the first of several harsh attacks by the influential Blackwood’s Magazine. Endymion, which he dedicated to Chatterton, was published in the spring of 1818 and it received severe criticism. After Tom’s death he moved into a friend’s house in Hampstead. There he met and fell deeply in love with a young neighbour, Fanny Brawne. During the following year, despite ill health and financial problems, he wrote an astonishing amount of poetry, including The Eve of St. Agnes, LaBelle Dame Sans Merci, Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn. His second volume of poems appeared in 1820. The tuberculosis that ran in the family did not leave him alone. His health deteriorated from bad to worse in 1820. On the recommendation of his doctors, he sailed to Italy with his painter friend, Joseph Severn, to spend the winter there. He died on 23rd February, 1821 in Rome. His tomb bears the epitaph, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water’, a line he wrote for himself.
Keat’s poetry is at its best in his odes. The six odes, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Melancholy, Ode on Indolence, To Autumn and Ode to Psyche touch the highest watermark of English poetry. In all these odes, he seeks to discover permanence in a world of change, and juxtaposes the permanence of art with the mutability of the real and the material.
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