THE POETRY OF JOHN KEATS 1795 -1821 Made

THE POETRY OF JOHN KEATS 1795 -1821 Made by. Pulatova iken : A

KEATS FAMILY BACKGROUND October 31, 1795, John Keats is born, the first child of Thomas and Frances Keats. Brother George is born in 1797 Brother Tom is born in 1799 1803 Sister Fanny is born

KEATS EDUCATION v 1803 enters John Clarkes School at Enfield v Becomes friends with Charles Cowden Clarke v Clarke encourages Keats interest in reading v Becomes an avid reader after death of mother

KEATS EDUCATION 1803 enters John Clarkes School at Enfield Becomes friends with Charles Cowden Clarke encourages Keats interest in reading Becomes an avid reader after death of mother

Compared to the education, travels, and personal lives of Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, Keats experience was more limited and his education seemed more a matter of chance than plan. Although trained in medicine he gave up his studies and devoted all his energy to writing poetry.

VIEWS ON SOCIETY, POLITICS, AND RELIGION Seems to have had no abstract, programmatic interest in such subjects. His literary world was very limited but not superficial. Brief literary career characterized by a chosen intensity and concentration of enormous talent and energy.

SUMMATION OF KEATS CAREER According to Andre Maurois, biographer of Shelley and Byron, a great man. . . finds himself modeled by the function he has to perform. . . of making his life a work of art, at becoming what the world would have him be. . . and so acquires. . . in spite of himself and whatever may be his intrinsic worth, that. . . which makes him a fine model for the artist

KEATS OWN ADMISSION OF HIS ROLE v At 25, fully aware of his impending death, he closed a letter to a friend, I can scarcely bid you good-bye even in a letter. I always made an awkard bow (qtd. In Heath 991). His poems and letters were the artistic transformation of the everyday into the extraordinary. Few poets have ever been so definite about the connection between life and art.

KEATS OUTLINE OF HIS LITERARY CAREER

Indulgence in Luxury (youth) poet sees himself as a protected spectator becoming aware of the possibilities of a nobler life Compares himself to Wordsworth if human life is a large mansion of many apartments, both poets have passed through the infant (thoughtless) chamber where they were intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere. . . saw nothing but pleasant wonders and thought of delaying there forever in delight (Heath 992). Poetry viewed as a means of self-exploration and fulfillment.

LAST YEARS OF LIFE AND CAREER v In 1816, Keats had hoped for 10 years to fulfill v his poetic apprenticeship, but found that he v had less than 3 years to write four to live. v Poems show a rapidly fast-growing intensity of v concern with subject, style, and purpose. Poems v are a way of exploring and discovering.

POEMS OF THIS PERIOD v Characterized by an intensity and urgency to explore dreams, fantasy, reality (as in The Eve of St. Agnes) At times seems to mock his own seriousness ex. Suggests that the destructive ferocity of a gentle robin eating a worm is a smaller version of the shark attacking its prey

POEMS OF THIS PERIOD v Characterized by an intensity and urgency to explore dreams, fantasy, reality (as in The Eve of St. Agnes) At times seems to mock his own seriousness ex. Suggests that the destructive ferocity of a gentle robin eating a worm is a smaller version of the shark attacking its prey

IDEA OF NEGATIVE CAPABILITY THROUGHOUT KEATS POETRY Even before he was aware of his deteriorating heath, Keats knew that he must choose between half-knowledge or none. He praised negative capability as the poets ability to exist in uncertainties, doubts, and mystery, without necessarily reaching for fact and reason, and using that experience as subject for poetry

APPRECIATION WAS DELAYED v Contemporaries were unsympathetic and unimpressed by his poems A century later, William Butler Yeats would write: I see a school boy when I think of him With face and nose pressed to a sweetshop window For certainly he sank into his grave His senses and his heart unsatisfied And madebeing poor, ailing, and ignorant, Shut out from all the luxury of the world, The coarse bred son of livery stable keeper Luxuriant song.