This document gives an outlook on everything that you need to know when understanding the context of John Keats, if he were to come up in an examination.
John Keats context
- Many turbulent changes occurred in his time of profound widespread social and political
upheaval
- In 1821, he had spent his days brokenhearted, desperately ill and concerned that he had
failed his quest to become one of the great English poets
- He believed that his legacy would be washed away
- By the time Keats turned 15, he had lost numerous family members
- He racked up enormous bills when trying to become a doctor, only to become a poet
instead
- He tried to get married but was ultimately not financially stable
- He died in Rome in the hope of salvaging his illness
- Letter to Lord Byron: “My friends proud of my memory”
- His life haunts his verse
- Romantic poets revelled in the mysteries of the universe
- They believed in the power of imagination
- Second generation Romantic
- “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty”
- Keats was plagued by deep criticism and heartbreak “here lies one whose name was
writ in water”
- Known for luxurious and sensuous language
- The opposition between the eternal transcendent moment and the transient human
condition
- Often seen as the least political Romantic poet
- Motif in his poem: polarities, irreconcilable oppositions
Note on Keats’ Critical Reception: Out of the work published in his lifetime, only Keats’ final
volume was well-received. 'Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems' (1820)
was published just seven months before he died, and was praised in both 'The Examiner' and
'Edinburgh Review'. The positive feedback, however, was rather a case of too little, too late.
Keats was already caught in the throes of consumption, and his peers even came to blame the
illness on the critical onslaught that he had endured over 'Endymion'. This melodramatic and
rather inaccurate myth was perpetuated by Byron (who claimed that Keats was ‘snuffed out by
an article’), Percy Shelley (in his poem, 'Adonais'), and by Keats’ own tombstone; against his
wishes, Charles Brown and Joseph Severn included in the inscription that he died ‘at the
Malicious Power of his Enemies’.
Note on Fanny Brawne’s Reputation: Brawne’s reputation as a ‘flirt’ has (surprisingly) been
much debated by scholars. Some, for instance, have blamed the Victorians and their strict code
of sexual propriety for exaggerating her flirtatious nature; when Keats’ love letters were
published in 1878, the respectable classes were scandalised by their passionate feeling and
quick to label Brawne as a ‘bad influence’ on the beloved poet.
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