Keats: "And today is the anniversary..."

Keats: "And today is the anniversary..."

"And today is the anniversary of the end of one of the last truly happy periods in the life of John Keats (books by this author). It was on this day in 1818 that Keats finished a long walking tour through Northern England, Ireland, and Scotland. John Keats was 23 years old. He'd planned to become a surgeon, but he realized his real vocation was poetry, and in the spring of 1818, he published his first major long poem, Endymion. And then he set out on a hike through the countryside with his friend Charles Brown. Wordsworth had been inspired by walking around England, so Keats decided to do the same that summer.

Keats was a London boy. He had never seen the mountains. He had never seen a waterfall. He wrote letters back to his brother about the wonderful things that he saw, but gradually on his hike he realized he was no Wordsworth, that he did not want to write about scenery. He was more interested in the people whom he saw along the way. He was fascinated by the peasants who walked barefoot on the roads, carrying their shoes and stockings so they would look nice when they got to town. He once saw an old woman being carried along the road in a kind of a cage like a dog kennel, smoking a pipe.

He came back to London and learned that the reviews of Endymion were coming in, and critics had written ferocious attacks against him. He was crushed. And his brother had come down with a serious case of tuberculosis. His brother died in December, and by the end of that year, John Keats had contracted tuberculosis himself. He would die three years later, in 1821. It was in those last three years of his life that he wrote most of his greatest poems — including the six great odes that he is known for — all written in Keats's amazing year: 1819." -writers almanac (today's date)

Comments?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Keats: "And today is the anniversary..."

"And today is the anniversary of the end of one of the last truly happy periods in the life of John Keats (books by this author). It was on this day in 1818 that Keats finished a long walking tour through Northern England, Ireland, and Scotland. John Keats was 23 years old. He'd planned to becom ...[text shortened]... all written in Keats's amazing year: 1819." -writers almanac (today's date)

Comments?[/b]

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
A singular story of courage in pursuing ones ideals and dreams not knowing where the road will go, end, fork or turn us back. Ferocious criticism never much altered the way Keats wrote, but it did hasten his death through feeling so unloved.

Originally posted by Teinosuke
[b]Byron's 'Don Juan', stanza 60 of Canto XI
John Keats, who was killed off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, - without Greek
Contrived to talk about the Gods of late,
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate: -
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an Article.[/b]

Originally posted by Teinosuke
[b]Byron's 'Don Juan', stanza 60 of Canto XI
John Keats, who was killed off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, - without Greek
Contrived to talk about the Gods of late,
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate: -
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an Article.[/b]

Originally posted by NoEarthlyReason
I love that final couplet, the way it mixes solemnity and lightness of touch. Absolutely delectable.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
England has some of history's greatest literary giants. Too many to count, but most notably Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Swift, Byron, Keats, Tennyson, the list goes on and on. Once you add the whole UK it becomes overwhelming with Joyce, Browning, Burns, and so many others.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
What a great poem about thin skinned, poor Keats. Right on the money!

Originally posted by NoEarthlyReason
I've recently become very partial to Joseph Conrad after reading Heart of Darkness and 'Twixt Land and Sea. Reading the classics has become my refuge and my spiritual tuition. I'm not sure which other countries have great literary traditions, but I have been especially struck my the Russian novels I've read. America of course has a great storytelling ...[text shortened]... just an illusion, but it's one I enjoy being under so will try and keep it that way.

Originally posted by Teinosuke
Conrad of course was a Pole and learned English as his third or fourth language (after Polish, Russian and probably French). English and American literature are bridged by such figures as Henry James who was raised in the US but lived largely in Britain. In a sense all the national literary traditions are intertwined; the poem by Byron quoted above, Don Ju ...[text shortened]... nt on to be the foundation point of the great nineteenth-century novelistic tradition in Russia.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Then we have geniuses who catch fore all on their own through failings in other arts such as Arrigo Boito whose operas were middling at best, but who wrote to libretti of unparalleled genius in Othello and Falstaff for Verdi.

Originally posted by Teinosuke
Have you even seen Boito's Mefistofele staged? I understand a production in San Francisco a while ago got high acclaim.