John Keats

Did You Know?

• Keats made the final revisions of 'Bright Star' after going ashore at Lulworth Bay or Holworth Bay in October 1820.
• His last request was to be placed under a tombstone bearing no name or date, only the words 'Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water.'
• Keats's autopsy showed his lung almost disintegrated.

Early life and education, 1795–1810

John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, to Thomas and Frances Keats. Baptism records give the date as 31 October, though the family marked his birthday on 29 October. He was the eldest of four surviving children; a fifth died in infancy. His father worked as an ostler at stables attached to the Swan and Hoop Inn, owned by his father-in-law, and Keats believed he was born at the inn, though no evidence supports this. He was baptised at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate and attended a local dame school. In summer 1803, he was sent to board at John Clarke's school in Enfield, a small school with a liberal outlook. The headmaster's son, Charles Cowden Clarke, became a mentor, introducing Keats to Renaissance literature. Keats was described as volatile and given to fighting, but at 13 he began focusing on reading and won his first academic prize in midsummer 1809. In April 1804, his father died from a skull fracture after falling from a horse. His mother remarried but soon left, and the children went to live with their grandmother in Edmonton.

Career

In October 1815, after his five-year apprenticeship ended, Keats enrolled as a medical student at Guy's Hospital. He quickly became a dresser, a role like a junior house surgeon, assisting in operations. This promotion showed his medical skill but added to his workload. His family, having paid for his long training, expected him to become a doctor, and Keats initially wanted that career. Living with other students, including future ink magnate Henry Stephens, he found his studies increasingly cut into his writing time. He had written his first poem, "An Imitation of Spenser," in 1814. Now, inspired by poets like Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron, and troubled by family money problems, he fell into depression. His brother George wrote that John feared he would never be a poet and might destroy himself if he wasn't. In 1816, Keats earned his apothecary's licence, qualifying him as a surgeon and physician, but soon told his guardian he chose poetry over surgery. He kept working at Guy's while focusing more on literature, especially sonnets. In May 1816, Hunt published "O Solitude" in The Examiner, Keats's first printed poem. That summer, he went to Margate with Clarke to write, starting "Calidore" and beginning a period of extensive letter writing. Returning to London, he lodged at 8 Dean Street and prepared for his Royal College of Surgeons exams.

Reception

Keats had been writing poetry seriously for only about six years when he died, and publishing for only four. Sales of his three volumes probably amounted to only 200 copies. His first poem appeared in the Examiner in May 1816, and his collection Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and other poems was published in July 1820. His reputation rests on a small body of work centred on the Odes. Keats was convinced he had made no mark in his lifetime, writing to Fanny Brawne in February 1820 that he had left no immortal work behind. Several influential contemporaries such as Shelley and Hunt acknowledged his talent. Shelley declared that Keats's death had been brought on by bad reviews in the Quarterly Review and wrote the elegy Adonais. Keats wrote that poetry should come as naturally as leaves to a tree, but his work was the fruit of deliberate classical self-education. His early works were often vague and lacking a clear eye, and his poetic sense came from the tastes of Charles Cowden Clarke and from Hunt's Examiner.

Letters

Keats's letters were first published in 1848 and 1878. In the 20th century they became almost as admired as his poetry, and T. S. Eliot called them the most notable and important ever written by any English poet. Keats spent much time considering poetry itself, its constructs and impacts. Few letters remain from before he joined his literary circle, but from spring 1817 there is a record of his letter-writing skills. He and his friends wrote to each other daily, and his letters contain humour and critical intelligence. When his brother George went to America, Keats wrote to him in detail, the body of letters becoming the real diary and self-revelation of his life. In February to May 1819 he produced many of his finest letters, exploring the idea of the world as 'the vale of Soul-making'. In the letters he coined ideas such as the Mansion of Many Apartments and the Chameleon Poet, which came to gain common currency. The poetical mind, Keats argued, was central to his correspondence.