Context

Keat's Life

Born October 1795 in London. Died in February 1821 (aged 25) in Rome.

• Received relatively little formal education.

• His father died in 1804. Throughout his life, he had close emotional ties to his sister, Fanny, and his two brothers, George and Tom.

• Keats was apprenticed to a surgeon in 1811, which he broke off 3 years later. He went to live in London to work in hospitals.

• After 1817 he devoted himself entirely to poetry.

• In 1818, Tom had been suffering from tuberculosis for some time, and in the autumn of 1818 Keats nursed him through his last illness.

  

• Around the same time, he met Fanny Brawne, his one love.

• In October 1819, Keats became engaged to Fanny.
• All the odes were composed between March and June 1819, apart from one.
• By the beginning of 1820, the evidence of tuberculosis was clear and from that time sustained work became impossible.
• He sailed in September 1820 to Rome, Italy where he died.

Romanticism

Late 18th to the mid-19th century. Created as a reaction to the 'age of reason', the Enlightenment period. Focused more on feelings, atmosphere and perception rather than facts.

Themes of Romanticism

• Nature: Revered as a powerful force, symbolising the sublime. Romanticists opposed industrialisation and urbanisation, which they saw as corrupting nature.

• Imagination and Emotion: Valued over rationality, contrasting the Enlightenment's emphasis on logic. Romantics celebrated creativity and the emotional depth of the human experience.

• The Age of Revolution: Influenced by the French Revolution (1789), Romanticism embraced ideals of liberty, equality, and the questioning of authority.

• The Genius: Focused on the artist as a unique creative force. Romanticists often portrayed poets and artists as inspired, solitary figures.

  

• Youthful Death: The theme of the tragic, untimely death of young poets and artists, is often seen as a loss of potential and brilliance.

• Innocence and Experience: Explored the tension between the purity of childhood and the harsh realities of adult life.

• Aesthetic Beauty: Emphasised beauty as an essential value. Romanticism sought to capture and celebrate the beauty in art, nature, and human expression.

Romanticism Humanism

Humanism generally applied to the social philosophy of 1400 to 1650. During this era, the freedom of individual expression and opposition to authority was first brought to the surface and became an integral part of the Western intellectual tradition.

Beauty was believed to afford a glimpse of a transcendental existence.

• This explains the humanist cult of beauty and makes it plain that humanism was fundamentally an aesthetic movement.
• Human experience tended to be the practical measure of all things.
• The ideal life was no longer a monastic escape from society, but a full participation in rich and varied human relationships. Hellenic philosophy was designed to teach man how to live successfully rather than how to die with the assurance of ultimate salvation.

They were relatively unconcerned about the supernatural world and the eternal destiny of the soul; they were primarily interested in a happy, adequate and efficient life here on Earth.

Keat's Letters

In a letter to Benjamin Bailey, November 22nd 1817:

• 'O for a life of sensation rather than of thoughts!'
  • Analysis: a rejection of contemporary Christian ideas, pre-destination. Prioritises experiences over theories.
• 'Enjoy ourselves hereafter by having what we called happiness on earth repeated in a finer tone'.
  • Analysis: a rejection of sacrificial lives / living for the afterlife. Considers the afterlife the root of slave life.
• 'What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or not - for I have the same idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative or essential Beauty.'
• 'The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream - he awoke and found it Truth'.

In a letter to Benjamin Bailey, 23rd January 1818

• 'I sat down to read King Lear yesterday, and felt the greatness of the thing up to the writing of a Sonnet preparatory'.

In a letter to George and Tom Keats 23rd January 1818

• 'Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers.
• 'I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.
• 'The excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty & Truth.'

In a letter to George and Georgiana Keats, finished May 1819

• This letter to George, Keats talks about his ideas of salvation.
• 'Call the world if you please "The vale of Soul-making"... I say 'Soul-making' - soul as distinguished from an Intelligence.'
• 'Do you not see how necessary a World of Pain and trouble is to school an Intelligence and make it a soul?'
• "Psyche was not embodied as a goddess before the time of apuleius… consequently the goddess was not worshipped or sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervour."

In a letter to Fanny Brawne, October 1819

• 'You dazzled me - There is nothing in the world so bright and delicate'

In a letter to Fanny Brawne, May 1920

• 'The Sun rises and sets, the day passes, and you follow the bent of your inclination to a certain extent - you have no conception of the quantity of miserable feeling that passes through me in a day.'
• 'I see life in nothing but the certainty of your Love - convince me of it my sweetest.'

In a letter to Percy Shelley, 16th August 1820

• 'Be more of an artist, and 'load every rift' of your subject with ore.'
• "My Imagination is a Monastery and I am it's Monk."

Literary Influences on Keats' Writing

Echoes of Other Writers

• Keats mirrors the language, forms, and styles of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, and Spenser.

Influence of the 'Cockney School'

• This group inspired Keats to write poetry that was pleasurable and rich in imagery and language.

Hellenic Revival Movement

• Led by Byron, this movement favoured the simplicity of the ancient world and its religions.
• Emphasized Art and Beauty.
• Moved away from the political and religious climate of Regency Britain.