A whistle-stop tour through the life and legacy of John Keats, from his personal troubles to his veneration as a key figure of the Romantic movement. NOTES 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. For a discussion of Brawne’s reputation see Bate, Keats, p.421-424. REFERENCES Epitaph: Walter Jackson Bate, John Keats (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), p.694. Description of Keats’ Physical Appearance: Bate, Keats, p.18, p.114-115. Description of Keats’ Personality: Bate, Keats, 17-18. Martin Halpern, ‘Keats and the “Spirit that Laughest”, Keats-Shelley Journal, Vol. 15, 1966, p.69. Death of Edward Keats: Chronology published in John Keats, Selected Letters, ed. Robert Gittings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p.xxxix. Death of Thomas Keats, Frances Jennings & Tom Keats: Chronology published in John Keats, Selected Poems, ed. John Barnard (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2007), p.ix-xii. Emigration of George Keats: Chronology published in Keats, Selected Poems, ed. Barnard, p.xi. Keats Abandons his Medical Career: Kelvin Everest, entry: John Keats, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, http://www.oxforddnb.com/, last accessed 16th October. Review of Endymion: John Wilson Croker, review of Keats’ Endymion, The Quarterly Review, April 1818, http://www.lordbyron.org/doc.php?choose=JoCroke.1818.Keats.xml, last accessed 11th October 2016. Attacks on ‘The Cockney School of Poetry’: John Gibson Lockhart, ‘On the Cockney School of Poetry, No.I-VIII’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, October 1817 – July 1825, http://www.lordbyron.org/contents.php?doc=JoLockh.Cockney.Contents, last accessed 11th October 2016. Description of Fanny Brawne’s Personality: Jane Campion, Introduction, So Bright and Delicate: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2009), p.vii-viii. Keats & Fanny Brawne are Engaged: Chronology published in Keats, Selected Poems, p.xiii. Financial Troubles Impact Marriage Prospects: Bate, Keats, p.535. Keats’ Journey to Rome & Death: Bate, Keats, p.655-696. ‘If I should die…’: Letter from John Keats to Fanny Brawne, February (?) 1820, Keats, Selected Letters, ed. Gittings, p.335. Romanticism: M. H. Abrams, entry: Romantic Era, A Glossary of Literary Terms: Ninth Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009), p.255. The following are useful introductory websites (all last accessed 11th October, 2016): - https://masterworksbritlit.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/introduction-to-romanticism/ - http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html - https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-romantics ‘I think I shall be…’: Letter from John Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, October 1818, Keats, Selected Letters, ed. Gittings, p.151. (This is an educational and non-commercial video. WordLine has tried to follow Fair Use guidelines whenever using pre-existing images or footage.)

• published: 15 Oct 2016
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