John Keats was born on October 31, 1795, in London. Keats was an English poet and a prominent figure in the Romantic movement, often regarded as the “poet of poets” alongside Edmund Spenser. Although he faced criticism during his lifetime, being labeled part of the “Cockney School,” his work gained significant influence after his death, impacting poets like Alfred Tennyson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and W.B. Yeats. Keats believed in a sensual ideal of beauty, which he expressed through elaborate verse and vivid imagery. Keats poetry was celebrated for his vivid imagery and emotional depth. His poetic style, characterized by musicality and rich descriptions, also influenced the Pre-Raphaelites. Keats trained as a surgeon before fully dedicating himself to poetry.
Keats’s life was marked by personal tragedys. In April 1804, when Keats was just eight years old, his father passed away from a skull fracture after a fall from his horse. Six years later, in March 1810, Keats’s mother died of tuberculosis, leaving him and his siblings in the care of their grandmother. He experienced the deaths of his brother Tom and his beloved Fanny Brawne, which deeply affected him. In 1820, John Keats began to suffer severely from tuberculosis, enduring two lung hemorrhages in early February. Hoping the warmer climate might help, he moved to Rome, but his health continued to deteriorate. By the beginning of 1821, he was in the final stages of the disease, and on February 23, 1821, at the age of 25, Keats passed away. He was laid to rest in Rome’s Protestant Cemetery, with a tombstone bearing his final wish: “Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water,” without his name or dates.
John Keats introduced the concept of “negative capability” in a letter to his brothers on December 21, 1817. This philosophical idea, linked to his atheistic views, posits that complete knowledge of the world is impossible due to its infinite complexity. Keats believed that only exceptional individuals, particularly poets, could truly grasp this awareness. Scholar Nathan Scott has noted parallels between Keats’ negative capability and the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, highlighting the depth of Keats’ thought and its relevance in broader philosophical discussions.
He published his first volume, “Poems,” in 1817, but it received mixed reviews. His work, however, began to gain recognition with subsequent publications, including “Endymion” (1818) and his famous odes, such as “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”
His poetry is characterized by rich sensory detail and themes of beauty, nature, and mortality. Keats was heavily influenced by the art and literature of classical antiquity, which is reflected in his use of mythological references.
Keats’ early work was heavily influenced by classical poetics, particularly the Renaissance poet Edmund Spenser. However, with “Endymion,” he began to break away from 16th and 18th-century conventions, embracing greater creative freedom in style and content. Despite this shift, his mature poetry retained numerous references to antiquity and Greek mythology, reflecting an Enlightenment focus on craftsmanship.
His early volumes highlight romantic rebellion, individualism, and a pantheistic reverence for nature. His friendship with Leigh Hunt helped him publish three poetry volumes during his lifetime (1817, 1818, and 1820), featuring ballads, odes, and the unfinished “Hyperion.” Keats’ first known work, “On Death,” showcases his philosophical approach and explores themes of existence, the ideal of art, and the nature of poetry.
During this period, Keats sought to merge nature and culture, aiming to uncover the ideal essence of art within the natural world. This idea is encapsulated in his concept of “Poetry of the Earth,” where natural imagery often symbolizes the poet’s mortality. A notable example is his famous “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819), where the nightingale’s song embodies the artist’s aspirations.
In his second volume of poetry, Keats honored figures like Tadeusz Kościuszko and Robert Burns, while also referencing classical and mythological figures such as Sappho, Homer, and Virgil. He explored longer poetic forms, including odes and epic narratives.
His final collection from 1820 introduced ballads, a genre he had not previously tackled, focusing on the timeless dynamics between men and women through subtle allusions to medieval legends and Greek mythology. Among these is “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (1819), inspired by the lyrical pride of the Provençal bard Alain Chartier.
To Fanny. I cry your mercy—pity—love!—ay, love! Merciful love that tantalises not One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love, Unmask’d, and being seen—without a blot! O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine! That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine, That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,— Yourself—your soul—in pity give … Read more
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone! Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast, Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone, Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and lang’rous waist! Faded the flower and all its budded charms, Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes, Faded the shape of beauty from my … Read more
In drear nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne’er remember Their green felicity— The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle through them Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime. In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne’er remember Apollo’s summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, … Read more
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet never did I breathe its pure serene Till … Read more
Left to herself, the serpent now began To change; her elfin blood in madness ran, Her mouth foam’d, and the grass, therewith besprent, Wither’d at dew so sweet and virulent; Her eyes in torture fix’d, and anguish drear, Hot, glaz’d, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear, Flash’d phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear. … Read more
As late I rambled in the happy fields, What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew From his lush clover covert;—when anew Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields: I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields, A fresh-blown musk-rose; ’twas the first that threw Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew As is … Read more
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains … Read more
My spirit is too weak—mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet ‘tis a gentle luxury to weep, That I have not the cloudy winds to keep, Fresh for the opening of … Read more
This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calmed—see … Read more
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With … Read more
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring’s honeyed cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is … Read more
Physician Nature! let my spirit blood! O ease my heart of verse and let me rest; Throw me upon thy tripod, till the flood Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast. A theme! a theme! Great Nature! give a theme; Let me begin my dream. I come—I see thee, as thou standest there, Beckon … Read more
The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead In summer luxury,—he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with … Read more
1. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: ‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, … Read more
O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, And pardon that thy secrets should be sung Even into thine own soft-conched ear: Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see The winged Psyche with awaken’d eyes? I wander’d in a forest thoughtlessly, And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, Saw … Read more
O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind, Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist, And the black elm tops ’mong the freezing stars, To thee the spring will be a harvest-time. O thou, whose only book has been the light Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on Night after night when … Read more
And what is love? It is a doll dress’d up For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle; A thing of soft misnomers, so divine That silly youth doth think to make itself Divine by loving, and so goes on Yawning and doting a whole summer long, Till Miss’s comb is made a pearl tiara, And … Read more
1. No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; Make not your rosary of yew-berries, Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow’s … Read more
O soft embalmer of the still midnight! Shutting with careful fingers and benign Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower’d from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine; O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close, In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes, Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling … Read more
Book I Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star, Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair; Forest on forest hung about his head Like cloud on cloud. No stir … Read more