Letter To John Taylor, 27 February 1818
Keats' letter to Taylor is a significant one, particularly for the “Axioms” in poetry which Keats shares with his publisher John Taylor. Here Taylor is trying to politely dampen the poet's expectation of Endymion.
Letter To John Taylor, 27 February 1818
Today’s letter to Taylor is a significant one, particularly for the “Axioms” in poetry which Keats shares
with his publisher
Summary:
Predicting what Taylor sent to Keats and why Keats is responding like that:
In short, Taylor attempted to politely dampen Keats’s expectations for the poem’s success by noting that
it might not be exactly to the public’s taste, as people might not have the physical/mental strength to
overcome rhetorical gymnastics.
Some people might feel a bit prejudiced against your poems because they are stuck in their old fuddy-
duddy ways.
Keat’s response:
Excitement towards Endymion
He acknowledges’ Taylor’s word but he continues to be eager to move beyond Endymion, he is ready to
“get Endymion printed that I may forget it and proceed.”
Go-cart:
• In his metaphors of the “go-Cart” and the “leading strings,” we see another indication of his
judgment of the poem as a trial of invention that is merely a stepping-stone to something
else.
• The “go-Cart” is what we would now call a baby walker; “leading strings” were devices used to
help children learn to walk (by having an adult hold string attached to the infant).
• So, yes, Keats is but a child learning to “not trip up my Heels” in the realm of poetic walking.
• Keats has moved from needing leading strings, “with which children used to be guided and
supported when learning to walk,” to using a Go-cart, “a light framework, without bottom,
moving on castors or rollers, in which a child may learn to walk without danger of falling.”
We will see a similar formulation in his Preface to Endymion, where he situates the poem as in between
the imagination of a boy and of a man:
However, you can argue during writing Endymion, rather than being a child, Keats is a teenager when it
comes to poetry. However, you can say he was both a genius and absurd
To the axioms, then. Here they are:
1. I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by Singularity
2. it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear a
Remembrance–
3. Its touches of Beauty should never be halfway thereby making the reader breathless instead of
content:
4. the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural too him–shine
over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the Luxury of twilight–but it is
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