John Keats

London 1795 – Rome 1821

• Born in London on October 29 or 31, 1795.

• the son of a rich livery stable owner;

• first studies at a private school at Enfield;

• his father dies when he is eight;

• his mother dies of tuberculosis six years later;

• great affection for his family and the death of both his parents causes a great shock;

• at the age of fifteen he is apprenticed to a surgeon and apothecary;

• the next four years he studies medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London;

• 1816 he abandons the medical career for literature.

• 1817 publication of his first volume of verse, titled “Poems”, containing his first great
sonnet “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” which reveals his great qualities
in embryo;
• April 1818 publication of “Endymion” – his first long and serious poem – a long
mythological poem which is an allegory of his search for an ideal female love;

• this work clearly reveals his cult of beauty from the very first line which reads
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever” ;
• By this time the family tendency to consumption (= tuberculosis) becomes manifest in
him and he tries to cure himself by moving to the Isle of Wight in the hope that the
seashore has a beneficial effect on his health.

• Summer 1818 walking tour through the Highlands with a friend.

• Due to the hardships suffered during the tour, his health worsens.

• Once back to London, he finds his brother dying of tuberculosis and assists him till death.

• The negative reviews his poem “Endymion” receives from critics contribute to the
worsening of his health conditions.
• Around this time he falls passionately in love with Fanny Brawne and for a time they are
engaged.
• Unfortunately, financial difficulties, Keats's deteriorating health and his almost religious
pursuit of poetry preclude marriage.

• Between autumn 1818 and autumn 1819 – the best of his literary production:

1. Hyperion – an unfinished epic poem retelling the myth of the war between the
Greek gods and the Titans;

2. La Belle Dame sans Merci – a literary ballad;

 Keats’s greatest narrative poem – it is the work which best
exemplifies his relish (= delight in) of sensation.
It is a tale of the elopement of two lovers against a background of
family feud, which evokes medieval romantic beauty tinged with
3. The Eve of gothic elements.
St. Agnes Its symbolic imagery is very effective, but its greatest achievement
is the handling of images of sensation
In the original version of this poem, Keats emphasized the young
lovers' sexuality, but his publishers, who feared public reaction, forced
him to tone down the eroticism.

A poem telling the story of a magic female snake who falls in love
with a young man, and transforms herself by magic into a woman.
4. Lamia They live together in joy, until a well-intentioned scholar ruins the
lovers' happiness by pointing out that it's a deception. Until the magic
spell is broken by the voice of reason and science, they are both
sublimely happy.
 5. A series of five odes:
Relations between:
• To Psyche
• To a Nightingale • pleasure and pain;
• On a Grecian Urn • happiness and melancholy;
• To Autumn • art and life;
• On Melancholy
• reality and imagination.

In the same period 1818 -1819 numerous letters containing precious information
on his development as a poet and the working of his genius – a remarkable
spiritual autobiography.

In 1820 he coughs up blood and immediately understand its meaning; he writes “that
drop of blood is my death warrant”.

He travels to Italy in a vain attempt to recover his health or, at least, to delay his
death. He dies in Rome in February 1821 and is buried in the Protestant cemetery.
 Beauty and Art
The aim of any work of art is to represent beauty.
Our first experience of beauty derives from the senses, from the
concrete physical sensations, so it’s physical beauty that we come into
contact with at first.
In this process of apprehension all senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell
and touch, are involved.
This physical beauty, is to be found in all forms of nature:
in the colours of plants, in the sweet perfume of flowers, in the attractive
forms of a woman etc, and …
it may lead to a much deeper experience of joy, i.e. to experience
spiritual beauty.
These two different types of beauty, one linked to the physical sphere of life,
(and, therefore, subject to change, decay and death) and the other to the
sphere of the spirit, which is instead related to eternity, are closely
intertwined as the former is the expression of the latter.
Keats finds spiritual beauty, which is not subject to change, in poetry and
in any other form of art,
Consequently, …
the contemplation of beauty is the central theme of Keats’s poetry and
the Classical Greek world is the main source of inspiration for Keats.

Negative capability

It is “when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts

without any irritable reaching after fact & reason”.
Per capacità negativa si intende il saper «stare nelle incertezze, nei
misteri, nei dubbi, senza essere impaziente di pervenire a fatti e a
ragioni»

Keats believed that great people (especially poets) have the ability to
accept that not everything can be resolved.
Negative capability, in his opinion, is the ability of a poet to suppress
his ego, to remove himself and his judgments from the work
In other words, he looks at his object, at the source of his inspiration,
so closely that he seems to lose his own identity, his sense of
separation from the thing and identify himself with it.
 Test yourself
While reading the previous paragraph take notes under the following
headings.
Then use the information you have gathered to organise your knowledge about the
work of John Keats.
1. The family problems which affected his poetic output;
2. The substance of his poetry;
3. The role of imagination;
4. The central theme of his works;
5. What the “negative capability” is and what the poet’s task is.
1. His father died as a consequence of a riding incident when he was only eight, his
mother died of TB six years later; his brother Thomas died of the same disease in
December 1818. These sad events inevitably influenced his literary production, in
the sense that in the Odes Keats produced between 1818 and 1819 he reflected
on the relations existing between pleasure and pain, happiness and melancholy,
art and life, death and eternity etc.
2. As already said in the previous answer, personal experience affects Keats’s literary
output but it is not the substance of his poetry, it is only the starting point.
In other words, Keats’s poetry is not his spiritual autobiography; it does not deal with
his personal experiences, which are only an excuse the poet uses to reflect on
universal values, such as pleasure and pain; happiness and melancholy;
art and life; reality and imagination, death and eternity. This approach is confirmed
by the use Keats makes of the poetic “I”, which does not represent himself but a
universal being, not linked to the events of his time.
3. Keats believes in the supreme value of imagination; he thinks that the artist
wouldn’t be able to create a great work of art without imagination, which takes two
main forms:
• the form of an artificial imagined world;
• a vision of what he would like human life to be.

4. The contemplation of beauty is the central theme of Keats’s poetry and the
Classical Greek world is the main source of inspiration for Keats. According
to him the expression of beauty is the ideal of all art.

5. The poet is gifted with the so-called “negative capability”, i.e. the ability the
poet has to suppress his certainties and his personality, to remove himself and
his judgments from the work. In other words, the poet is able to look at his object,
at the source of his inspiration, so closely that he seems to lose his own identity,
his sense of separation from the thing and identify himself with it.
As for the poet’s task, he must render beauty which leads to truth through
poetry.