John Keats is the greatest English romantic poet. In addition to wonderful poems, wonderful letters were written from his pen, addressed to friends and relatives, and representing not only philological, but also artistic interest. The biography of John Keats is very short, but he left behind a large poetic legacy. In such a short time, and he worked for only about six years, Keats was able to become a landmark poet. The works created by him are included in the annals of English literature and are considered as textbooks.
All the work of Keats was marked by the seal of genius and was a new stage in world poetry. The poet, anticipating his early departure, worked on the verge of his own abilities, completely devoting himself to creativity.
Childhood
The poet John Keats, whose poems urged the reading public to turn their eyes to heaven and helped them soar with their souls to the great ancient gods and heroes, was born on October 31, 1795 in the modest and poor family of Thomas Keats, the owner of the stable. The family lived in London and had four children, of which John was the eldest. The brothers were named George (1797-1741) and Tom (1799-1818), their sister was Fanny (1803-1889). Parents died early: father - in 1804, mother - in 1810. There were few accumulations in the family, but they were still enough to let the brothers graduate from the prestigious school, and the eldest, John, to receive a medical education. One of the teachers in the school where they studied, Charles Clark, made friends with John and comprehensively took care of him while studying. It was he who introduced Keats to the ancient masterpieces of English literature, taught him to subtly feel the fabric of poetry, and introduced him to romanticism.
Youth
From 1811 to 1815, John Keats did an internship at a London hospital, after which he passed the exam for the right to practice medicine. But life turned out differently. By his own admission, during important operations, he felt that his thoughts were floating in areas far from medicine. He, holding a scalpel, composed verses. This could not continue for so long, and so Keats did not associate his life with medicine, but set off on the free bread of a free poet.
By that time, he was already well versed in literature, highly appreciated Edmund Spencer and Homer, and attended a poetry circle. Among the members of this circle, derogatoryly nicknamed the "School of the simpletons," was a critic Lee Hunt, who later became a friend and publisher of Keats.
Lee Hunt
Lee Hunt (1784-1859), in addition to criticism, was engaged in journalism, dramaturgy and poetry. He was an honest and courageous man. He published his journal, in which he fiercely exposed the vices of society and those in power. For his remarks, Hunt was even imprisoned for two years. This created a halo of a martyr around him and greatly increased the number of worshipers. The poet John Keats wrote his first sonnet in 1815 as a greeting on Lee Hunt's release from prison.
Hunt was the first to see brilliant talent in Keats and in every possible way promoted his growth. He not only helped John prove himself, but introduced him to most of the poets of the Renaissance, and also brought Keats into the circle of the most advanced people in England. Lee Hunt prepared the foundation for Keats's future poetry, opening up the world of romanticism for him.
Romanticism
As a phenomenon, romanticism appeared in European and American culture at the dawn of the industrial revolution. His main tenets were a return to nature, to sensuality, to archaic. Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment - the realm of rationalism, scientific knowledge of the world, secularization of society. The romantics wanted to return religion to man as a taste for infinity, as an irrational component of understanding reality, as a lost path to happiness. Romanticism rebelled against the pragmatic materialism of the townsfolk and made it possible to return to the consciousness of people myth, legend, epic, folklore.
In England, romanticism began with the poets of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge. Having met with the German romantics Friedrich Schelling and the Schlegels brothers, they decided to put their theories into practice on their English soil. Unlike the Germans, among the English romantics an important place was given to the comprehension of social processes and criticism of the nascent bourgeois society. The prominent representatives of English romanticism were Walter Scott, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, William Blake and John Keats.
Despite different political beliefs (Coleridge was a staunch conservative, and Shelley was a brilliant revolutionary) and aesthetic views (idealist Blake and materialistic Scott), all romantics were united by a complete rejection of the nascent capitalist system, bourgeois mores and rational pragmatism. They were also similar in their positive attitude to human sensuality, to the renewal of the poetic system, to the use of symbols and metaphors. The romantics saw their goal in returning the tale to the enchanted world.
Ancient Greece
The spirit of Ancient Greece captivated Keats in his youth. The immortal lines of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer and the great tragedians Sophocles and Euripides also helped. But to a greater extent this captivity in the spirit of Hellas was promoted by John Keats' amazing intuition. The poems of the ancient Greek poets, which he loved and appreciated, created in him that light, subtle sense of participation in the eternal archetypes, in the core universal traditions. Keats's worldview was so saturated with images from ancient Greek epics and myths that he was able to enrich romanticism with this captivating atmosphere of the existence of gods and goddesses, beauty and harmony, joy and greatness.
Becoming Keats as a Poet
Eternal lack of money made the life of a novice poet difficult and anxious. His engagement to Fanny Bron, whom he sincerely loved, was broken due to a constant lack of money. Bad heredity, stress and anxiety began to undermine his health, which he did not follow at all, working for wear and tear. Poems John Keats wrote selflessly, completely immersed in the material and estranged from the world.
His first collection of poems, modestly titled “Poems”, was released in 1817 and was immediately attacked by critical journalists. Some poetic quotes by John Keats, especially of a political nature, were constantly exaggerated and ridiculed by criticism. He was accused of lack of education, recalling his origin. Such as Keats, people “from the bottom”, who had the audacity to scold the established orders and actions of the authorities, were not taken seriously in those days. They were considered vulgar dropouts who should have known their place.
Endymion
After the publication of the first collection, Keats is removed from London to the province. There, in solitude, he focuses and works on the poem Endymion. This great work was intended to prove to friends and admirers the power of his talent. Although, first of all, he needed to prove it to himself. He coped with the poem brilliantly. It is "Endymion" that will reveal all the facets of the poet's work and, unfortunately, will bring the posthumous glory to John Keats.
In Endymion, the poet combined two equal goals of writing - a sober depiction of real human life with its hardships, deprivations and cataclysms, and the artist’s desire for free flight into the field of art. Showing the dark side of existence, Keats did not forget the bright aspirations for the beautiful. He proceeded from the tragic view that was characteristic of all romantics about the irreconcilable conflict between the ideal and the real. He tried to return the beauty that the spirit of the time cast out from a bourgeois, thoroughly rational society.
Quotes from John Keats Poems
- "How often have I been dying sweet."
- "I want light from a word, than just light."
- "And you are far away in humanity."
- "Beauty captivates forever ..."
- "Love and the glory of death are strong, and beauty is strong. But death is stronger."
William Hazlitt
After working on Endymion, Keats was significantly strengthened as a poet and citizen. His views became more daring and uncompromising. And then he began to notice naivety and gentleness in his senior comrade Lee Hent, and in his views he felt superficiality and conformism. Keats himself wanted a real fight. He moved away from Hent and acquired a new, more radical teacher and comrade. They became William Hazlitt, a student of Coleridge, a profound connoisseur of Shakespeare, a brilliant critic and subtle connoisseur of poetry. Hazlitt fearlessly and energetically criticized the bourgeoisie and fiercely hated all institutions of power, observing in them only instruments of oppression of the people.
Kitz took over from Hazlitt the attitude to art as a kind of higher power, which is the only patroness of workers and not subject to either pathetic rich people or arrogant usurpers. Love for Shakespeare as the highest embodiment of infinite freedom of creativity and poetic courage also passed to Keats from his new teacher and ally. Encouraged by new ideas, Keats writes the poem Isabella, or A Pot of Basil, in which he puts a farewell polemic with Lee Hunt.
Throughout 1819, John Keats worked on his odes, later called great. These are Ode to Psyche, Ode to Nightingale, Ode to Melancholy, Ode to Autumn, Ode to Idleness. In them, the poet showed readers the new facets of his genius. He skillfully woven an elegant mystical thread into the Hellenic ornament of his fantasies. In the same year he wrote the ballads “The Eve of St. Agnes”, “Lamia” and worked on a new large-scale poem “Hyperion”, which, alas, remained unfinished. The mood of his works becomes alarming and restless, spiritualistic motifs appear. Keats probably anticipated his imminent tragic death.
Illness and death
At the beginning of 1820, Keats had a sore throat, and therefore the nature of recent ailments became extremely clear. There is no doubt left. Tuberculosis has already brought to the grave the mother of Keats and his younger brother Tom. It was the turn of the poet himself. John spent his last year of his life in creative silence, solitude and peace.
He died in Rome, February 23, 1821, at the age of 25 years. The poet was buried in the Roman Protestant cemetery.
The words are inscribed on his grave: "Here lies someone whose name is written on the water."