John Keats- Poet.
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
In progress
Keats was born in 1795 in London, and originally trained as a surgeon. He later abandoned medicine to become a poet, but wrote only fifty four poems during his lifetime. He died in 1821 of tuberculosis, the disease which had already killed his brother Tom.
Keats' poetry
Keats was one of the last poets of the Romantic era, and wrote poetry that was characterised by the intensity and beauty of the language. One common theme in his poetry was the transcience of life, of which he had first hand experience. When Keat's later poems were written he had already been diagnosed with TB.
The poems
Odes
Keats wrote many shorter odes, including 'Ode to Psyche', 'Ode to a Nightingale','Ode to Melancholy' and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'.
'Ode on a Grecian Urn' looks at the way in which Art, for all its permanence, does not have the intensity or passion of life. It ends on the lines:
'"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"- that is allSome ascribe this to the voice of the urn itself within the poem, and others to Keats' own view. Keats' poems draw heavily on classicism, despite the fact that he himself was unable to read the classics in their original language. Because of this, he was looked down upon by his contemporaries and branded 'The Cockney Poet.'
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
'Ode to Melancholy' is ostensibly a poem which addresses ways of escaping life through suicide, concluding that 'Melancholy' is productive and that suicide is not an option ("No, no, go not to Lethe"1). The poem is a carefully thought-out argument from start to finish, and contains some very moving images of depression-'And when the Melancholy fit shall fall/ Sudden from heaven like a drooping cloud...'
'Ode to a Nightingale'..........Will follow.............
Longer poems
When Keats died, he left two poems unfinished: 'Hyperion' and 'Thingymajig' (I can't remember, OK- this entry will get better when I get some reference books out. I'm just trying to remember stuff for now, so I can't vouch for the factual accuracy of anything until it's finished.)
By the way, anyone who reads this, I'm completely stuck with it- should I aim for a short summary of each of the poems or stick to purely biographical stuff (with which I can easily fill an entry) and do separate entries for the poems?
