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Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water (Burley, World Wide Web). These words were engraved in John Keats tombstone at his request. They reflect his despair of having such a short and, at least in his own mind, not very successful life. He thought that he would be remembered as a failure or, even worse, forgotten altogether and would soon be erased from the face of history as quickly as words that are written in water vanish. This, fortunately, did not happen. Keats is now regarded as one of the great Romantic poets.
One can only imagine what heights he would have achieved if his life had not been cut short by tuberculosis. This terminal illness had a profound effect on John Keats outlook on life and on his poetry. John Keats was born in 1795, the first of four children born into a lower-class family. At this time in history it was said that, poets are born, not made. Typically, poets were either rich gentlemen who did not have to work or well-to-do intellectuals with a strong educational background in 2 literature. Keats was neither.
However, Keats family situation slowly improved over the years and he was able to attend John Clarke s school at Enfield. During his early adolescence, Keats was not very scholarly and was far more interested in outdoor activities than in his books. He was popular and well liked, but also known for an aggressive temper. His teachers thought that he would either become a prizefighter or a sailor, but never a poet (Nylander University of Columbia Website). It was not until his teenage years that Keats showed any true promise at anything.
He had begun to take more interest in his studies and became interested in medicine. At the age of fifteen, he became an apprentice to an apothecary at Guy s Hospital and became a licensed apothecary seven years later (Stillinger 7). The poet s home life was at first very loving, but eventually turned turbulent and eventually turned disastrous. Early in his life he led an ordinary, happy life and had his whole family for support. This all changed on a London street when Keats was nearly ten. His father was thrown off his horse and died of the resulting injuries (Bromwich 533).
As if this were not enough, his mother quickly remarried a clerk named Rawlings, who was after her inheritance from Keats father. A very short time after his father s death, the poet s maternal grandfather, Mr. Jennings, died. He left his 3 family a rather large sum of money but his confusing and vague will would later make the author s life more difficult.
Soon after marrying, Rawlings and Keats mother ran into money and legal difficulties and several family and financial upsets occurred. As a result, young Keats and the other children were brought to their grandmothers in Enfield to be cared for. By this time, all of the tragedy had started to have an effect on him and Keats began to have periods of depression that would plague him for the rest of his life (Walsh 10). If not for his loving grandmother and the secure atmosphere of John Clarke s school, Keats life would have been shattered. His mother soon split up with Rawlings for unknown reasons and vanished. The young Keats heard rumors of his mother living in East London with another man and drinking heavily, but did not choose to believe any of them.
He had a great fondness for his mother and would do anything to please her. In 1809, four years after her disappearance, the author s mother finally reappeared, sick and desperate, to live with the children and their grandmother. This was a great turning point in John Keats life (Nylander University of Columbia Website). Keats mother had tuberculosis, then known as consumption (Williams 2).
This would be the first time this disease would affect Keats, 4 but far from the last. With the knowledge that his mother would die within a few years, the fourteen-year-old Keats did everything he could to please her. He made her meals, stayed up late to talk to her, read to her, and allowed no one else to care for her (Walsh 15). He also realized that he would soon have to take care of his younger brothers and sister. Keats suddenly became very dedicated to his studies and read nearly every book in the school library, often begging the headmaster for more.
He took his family s burden very seriously and decided to become a doctor. His choice to enter the field of medicine was probably a result of his recent distress at not being able to do anything to help his now dead mother. At age fifteen he became an apprentice to an apothecary at Guy s Hospital. In his free time he developed his love for books and studied various subjects including geography, science, history, a great deal of fiction and, of course, a fair share of poetry (Nylander University of Columbia Website). While working at Guy s Hospital, Keats kept in touch with Charles Cowden Clarke, an old friend and the son of Keats former headmaster. Clarke encouraged him to read everything he could get his hands on and eventually gave him the Faire Queen by Edmund Spenser, a book that would inspire young Keats first poem: Imitation of Spenser.
However, it was not 5 until a year later or around 1815 that he would be able to summon the courage to show Clarke and others his poetry. The first piece that he showed off to people was a small sonnet. He was encouraged by the positive feedback and began to take his poetry more seriously. Up until this point, Keats was interested in poetry but only regarded it as a hobby and was strongly dedicated to medicine (Spurgeon 10). Keats early poetry was highly imitative and embarrassingly sentimental. In his Imitation of Spenser, the poet overuses adjectives formed by adding -y to nouns and verbs; mossy beds, jetty eyes, law crest, fleecy white, and many more (Stillinger 2).
Most of his style and tone came from his readings of Leigh Hunt, the publisher of a magazine called The Examiner to which Keats subscribed his whole life. Hunt s style was not romantic. Instead, it is referred to as romanticized. This form of poetry was highly popular during Hunt and Keats time period. It was decorated and overly superficial. His first published poem, O Solitude! , received little public attention but it was enough to encourage Keats to abandon medicine for poetry altogether.
O SOLITUDE! If I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep, Natures Observatory whence the dell, 6 Its flowery slopes its rivers crystal swell, May seem a span: let me thy vigils keep Most boughs pavilion; where the Deer's swift leap Startles the wild Bee from the Fox-glove bell. Ah! fain would I frequent such scenes with thee; But the sweet converse of an innocent mind, Whose words are images of thoughts refund, Is my souls pleasure; and it sure must be Almost the highest bliss of human kind, When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee. This poem was an improvement on his previous efforts, but it still contained many signs of an immature and undeveloped poet.
For instance, the use of adding -y to nouns and verbs is still present but in a much lesser amount (White 57). Also, the poem seems too sentimental and lush in its language. But its tone differed significantly from his earlier poems. He had been influenced by Wordsworth, who had released a collection of poems in 1815 that absolutely delighted Keats. Wordsworth s works helped to break him away from the popular poetry of the day and into the Romantic movement (Williams 40) The Romantic movement was not only a new form of poetry, it was a rebellion.
It was a reaction against the poetry of previous centuries, where technique was considered more important than inspiration and where common sense was prized more than passion (Walsh 23). Some general characteristics of Romantic literature include: appreciation of beauty, emphasis on fantasy or dreams, use of tradition or custom, sympathy for the 7 less fortunate, and appreciation of nature. The first wave of Romantic poetry swept over England in 1798, when Wordsworth and Coleridge had published their lyrical ballads. Keats and Shelley were to dominate the second wave (Murry 10). John Keats did not begin to fully explore Romanticism until after his contraction of tuberculosis. His brother s death and his realization of his own mortality changed the poet s outlook on life.
He began to view the world more romantically, wishing that he could live forever but at the same time knowing that the best he could do was to enjoy his remaining years as much as he could. In The Eve of St. Agnes, perhaps the poet s most successful work, Keats touches upon all the aspects of Romanticism to some degree (Blackstone 37). From such a steadfast spell his ladys eyes; So mused awhile, entitled in woof d fantasies. Awakening up, he took her hollow lute, Tumultuous, and, in chords that tenderest be, He played and ancient ditty, long since mute, In Provence called, La belle dame sans mercy, Close to her ear touching the melody Wherewith disturbed, she uttered a soft moan: He ceased she panted quick and suddenly Her blue affray d eyes wide open shone. Upon his knees he sank, pale as a smooth-sculptured stone.
Her eyes were open, but she still beheld, Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep There was a painful change, that nigh expelled The blessed of her dream so pure and deep. 8 Here, the poet investigates dreams and the pain of awakening from a truly pure and deep one. This just one of many examples of the characteristics of Romanticism evident in this poem. However, Eve of St. Agnes does not delve into each specific area as much as some of Keats other poems. For instance, in his Ode To a Nightingale, the poet reflects that even if one could transcend into a utopian dream world, one would be better off to get as much out of this world as one can.
In To Autumn, Keats discusses the beauty that can be found in nature, especially in the changing of the seasons (Murry 48). A difference in poetic style was not the only change that Keats experienced due to his illness. In 1819, the poet fell in love with Fanny Browse. Sadly, they never married as a result of Keats worsening health and financial problems (Bromwich 533). Also, Keats attitude on life would fluctuate frequently. On some days, Keats would feel the need to take in as much of the world as possible.
This eagerness and appreciation of beauty and the world found its way into many of Keats poems, especially the more traditionally Romantic ones. During other days, the poet would be depressed and contemplate his bad fortune and his own mortality. These feelings also found their way into his poetry, including When I Have Fears (Williams 78) 9 When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has grand my teeming brain, Before high pil d books, in character, Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain; When I behold, upon the nights start face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love!
then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. Besides this poem, other examples of Keats depression as a result of his illness can be found in Ode on a Grecian Urn and Bright star! . John Keats reached the apex of his poetical career during 1819, at age 23. He knew that he did not have long to live and his feelings about his own mortality affected nearly everything he did or wrote. The influence of tuberculosis can be most noticeably seen in his five great odes (Murry 35). These include Ode To Melancholy, Ode To Psyche, To Autumn, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode to a Nightingale.
In the Ode to a Nightingale, Keats explores man s desire to be a part of an immortal, idyllic world. In the first three stanzas, the speaker yearns after an invisible bird, believing that it symbolizes utopia, a place that is the opposite of our world in which, Youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes. By the fourth stanza, the speaker is able to join the 10 bird through the power of imagination (Colburn 216). However, he immediately finds that he has lost more than he has gained by transcending into this dream world: But here there is no light I cannot see what flowers are at my feet (Brooks 44). Once there, he finds out that it is not a world untouched by death, but one in which death is not a negative and painful thing. The only joy the speaker can think of is to die To cease upon the midnight with no pain.
He also feels that his venture to this world is only a visit, one that will soon end. Why is it that the speaker cannot stay in the world of the nightingale? According to Clean Brooks, [the speaker] tells us himself: it is the dull brain that perplexes and retards. (Brooks 45) The only way that the speaker is even allowed to visit this magical world is through imagination, which releases one from the dominance of the dull brain. The brain insists upon clarity and logic; the only way for the speaker to join the nightingale s world is to forget these, which he can only do for a short duration (Colburn 216) Eventually, the speaker exits the fantasy and says goodbye to the bird. He has learned that he cannot be a part of the bird s world and probably would not want to even if he could. The speaker is left with the feeling of contentment at knowing that he is living in the world that is best for him.
It is not hard to see the resemblance between 11 the speaker and Keats. John Keats was a very important poet, although he did not realize it at the time of his death. One can only wonder how different his poetry and life would have been if tuberculosis had not entered his life. Because of his illness his life was in many ways a reflection of Romanticism and the Romantic Movement.
His life was very tragic, but he appreciated the world and its beauty. His short life also produced some very important pieces of literature, very much like the Romantic Movement did (Nylander University of Columbia Website). The man who feared his life was as ephemeral as Word Writ in Water turned out to be one of the most important Romantic poets who has been immortalized through his work.
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