John Keats: The Poems

ANALYSING TEXTS

General hditor: lVicholas A1arsh

Published

Chaucer: The Canterbury Talcs Gail Ashton

\\'ebster: The Tragedies Kate A1~ghterson

John Keats john Blades

Shakespeare: The Comedies R. P. /Jraper

Charlotte Bronte: The Kovcls ltfike /;d1vardr

E. M. Forster: The Kovels Mikt /;d1rardr

Shakespeare: The Tragedies :Vicho!as Marsh

Jane J\usten: The Novels :Vicholas :\tarsh

William Blake: The Poems :Vitholas !vftmh

Emily Bronte: lfittherin.~ 1-fe~~h!s ,\'icholas Marsh

D. H. Lawrence: The Novels i\/chola.r :Harsh

Virginia Woolf: The Novels :Yicholas Marsh

John Donne: The Poems Joe :V11tt

Thonrns Hanh': The Non:Is ,Vorman P4_!!,f

Marlowe: The Plays _\fnie .\'imkin

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John Keats: The Poems

JOHN BLADES

* © john Blades 2002

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First published 2002 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York. N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world

PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin's Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd).

ISBN 978-0-333-94894-1 hardcover

ISBN 978-0-333-94895-8 ISBN 978-1-137-11221-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-11221-7

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Blades, john. John Keats I john Blades.

p. cm.-(Analysing texts) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-333-94894-1- ISBN 978-0-333-94895-8 (pbk.)

1. Keats, john, 1795-1821-Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Analysing texts (Palgrave (Firm))

PR4837 .856 2002 821'.7-dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02

2002025333

For Doug, and Ruth Stephens

Contents

General Editor's Preface

Introduction

Principal h1'ents in john Keats's l,ije

PART 1: ANALYSING KEATS'S POETRY

1 'Standing on tip-toe': Keats's Early Verse 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'

'Keen, fitful gusts are whispering here and there' 'I stood tip-toe upon a little hill' .~leep and Poetry Conclusions Further Research

2 The 'beautiful mythology of Greece': Endymion and

IX

Xl

Xll

3 3

11 16 26 34 35

Lamia 37 hndymion: I1 Poetic Romance I ,c1mia Conclusions Further Research

3 The Two Hyperions: 'a more naked and grecian Manner'

H;perion. /1 f'r~gment The r(zll of 1-[;perion. A Dream Conclusions Further Research

4 The Major Odes 'Ode to a Nightingale' 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'

vii

37 53 69 70

72 72 86

101 102

103 105 115

viii

'Ode on Melancholy' 'To Autumn' Conclusions Further Research

Contents

5 Three Medieval Love Stories Isabella; or, the Pot of Basil La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad The hve of St Agnes Conclusions Further Research

PART 2: THE CONTEXT AND THE CRITICS

6 Keats's Letters

7 Keats and Nineteenth-Century Romanticism The Origins of Romanticism Nature The Imagination Feeling The \X:1riter Language Romanticism after Keats

8 Some Critical Approaches to Keats's Writings Matthew Arnold H. \'\/. Garrod F. R. Leavis Susan J. Wolfson

Further ReadinJ!,

Index

126 136 146 147

148 148 161 169 183 184

187

200 200 204 206 210

211 216 218

220 220 226 231 237

242

244

General Editor's Preface

This series is dedicated to one clear belief: that we can all enjoy, understand and analyse literature for ourselves, provided we know how to do it. How can we build on close understanding of a short passage, and develop our insight into the whole work? What features do we expect to find in a text? Why do we study style in so much detail? In demystifying the study of literature, these are only some of the questions the Ana!J'sing Texts series addresses and answers.

The books in this series will not do all the work for you, but will provide you with the tools, and show you how to use them. Here, you will find samples of close, detailed analysis, with an explanation of the analytical techniques utilised. At the end of each chapter there are useful suggestions for further work you can do to practise, develop and hone the skills demonstrated and build confidence in your own analytical ability.

An author's individuality shows in the way they write: every work they produce bears the hallmark of that writer's personal 'style'. In the main part of each book we concentrate therefore on analysing the particular flavour and concerns of one author's work, and explain the features of their writing in connection with major themes. In Part 2 there are chapters about the author's life and work, assessing their contribution to developments in literature; and a sample of critics' views are summarised and discussed in comparison with each other. Some suggestions for further reading provide a bridge towards further critical research.

Analysing Texts is designed to stimulate and encourage your critical and analytic faculty, to develop your personal insight into the author's work and individual style, and to provide you with the skills and techniques to enjoy at first hand the excitement of discovering the richness of the text.

NICHOLAS lv1ARSH

lX

Introduction

Part 1 of this study of Keats involves detailed practical analysis of examples of his poetry. My general approach here has been to select a poem, or an extract from each poem under review, commenting on interesting themes and significant stylistic features and, where rele­vant, drawing out connections between the extract and other verse by Keats.

For the shorter lyrics I have generally used the whole of a poem but for the narrative verse I have adopted a slightly different ap­proach, taking a short passage as a starting point for an investigation of the whole work and arranging my analvsis around the key themes and techniques which the passage reveals. Accordingly, you will find it useful to have before you a copy of each of the longer poems under scrutiny. For my references and quotations I have used John Bar­nard's very comprehensive edition, John Keats: The Complete Poems,

published by Penguin. In Part 2, I have set out to locate Keats's poetry in the context of

his life and period, chiefly through a survey of his letters (Chapter 6) but also through a detailed analysis of the Romantic movement in the

nineteenth century (Chapter 7). The final chapter takes a close look at some critical attitudes to Keats's verse by reviewing the work of four important critics, and at the same time showing how critical attitudes have changed over the past two centuries.

If you arc new to the study of Keats's work or to Romantic poetry in general then you may like to begin by reading Chapters 6 and 7. At the same time if you arc unfamiliar with the terminology of literary studies then a couple of useful reference books on this are The Penguin

Dictionary of Litera~y Temzs and Literary Theory, edited by J. A. Cuddon, and Practical Criticism, by John Peck and Martin Coyle (Macmillan Press - now Palgrave Macmillan). For those whose technical appetite is not readily satisfied by these two works, then Katie \X/ales's A Dictionary of Stylistics (Longman) should do the trick.

Xl

Principal Events in John I<eats's Life

1795 31 October John Keats born in Finsbury, London, to

Thomas and Frances Keats (Thomas was manager and ostler

at the Swan and Hoop Inn, Moorgate).

1797 Birth of brother George.

1799 Birth of brother Tom.

1801 Birth of brother Edward (who died before his fourth birth­

day).

1803 Birth of sister, Frances Mary (Fanny). August Keats goes to Clarke's School, London, a liberal and

progressive institution where he strikes a close and enduring friendship with the headmaster's son, Charles Cowden Clarke.

1804 April Father dies in riding accident. June Mother remarries. The Keats children are sent to live with their grandparents.

1810 Mother dies from tuberculosis.

1811 Keats leaves school to become apprenticed to Thomas Ham­mond, surgeon and apothecary. Completes a prose translation of The Aeneid begun at school.

1814 'Imitation of Spenser' (first known poem), 'On Peace' etc. December Fanny Keats goes to live in the care of the Keats family legal guardian, Richard Abbey (who later disap­proved of Keats's career as a poet).

XU

Principal f:-mzts in John Keats's Life xiii

1815 February Composes sonnet on release of the poet Leigh Hunt from prison (he had been convicted of libel against the

Prince Regent). October Enters Guy's Hospital as a student and later be­comes surgeon's dresser.

1816 July Qualifies as an apothecary, physician or surgeon. Summer vacation with Tom in Margate, Kent. September John, Tom and George share lodgings m London. October Meets the poets Leigh Hunt and John Reynolds, and the painter Benjamin Haydon. In this circle Keats's political and artistic views reach maturity. Composes 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' and 'Keen, fitful gusts ... '. December 'I stood tip-toe .. .' and Sleep and Poetry.

1817 March Poems, Keats's first volume of poetry, is published to almost complete critical silence, though it is highly praised by his associates. April Moves to Margate where Tom later joins him. Starts writing End)'mion. May In Hastings, Keats meets Mrs Isabella Jones; a well­read and highly attractive woman, worldly, with modern views on sexuality, Mrs Jones became the model or inspiration for some of Keats's independent and assertive female characters. November Completes EndJmion. December Keats attends the 'immortal dinner' at Hay­don's; \'V'ordsworth and Charles Lamb are among the guests.

1818 January Visits Wordsworth. March-April Nurses Tom in Teignmouth, Devon, where he writes Isahella. April J:nqymion published. May Brother George marries Georgiana Wylie. June They leave for America; Keats sets off on a walking tour of the Lake District and Scotland (plus N. Ireland) with

XlV Principal hvents in John Keats's Life

his friend Charles Brown. Keats hoped to find experience and material to 'get Wisdom' and enrich his writing. August Sore throat forces Keats's return to London where he nurses Tom. September Has begun f-[yperion. Meets Fanny Brawne. October 'Letter A' to George and Georgiana. December Tom dies of tuberculosis. Keats moves in with Brown at \X/entworth Place, Hampstead. December-January 'Letter B.'

1819 January Keats visits Chichester and begins The Eve of St AJ;nes. February Writes The Eve of St Mark. February-May 'Letter C'. March Abandons f-[ypen.on. Early signs that he has con­

tracted tuberculosis. April The Brawnes family moves next door to Keats. Meets Coleridge. Writes La Belle Dame sans Merci. April/May Composes the major odes: 'To Psyche', 'To a Nightingale', 'On a Grecian Urn', 'On Melancholy', and 'On Indolence'. George reveals the extent of his monetary diffi­culties and Keats becomes increasingly anxious about the family's precarious financial situation. June In love with Fanny Brawne but departs London to be free to compose poetry. June-October First visits Portsmouth, then Winchester -composes Lamia: begins The Fall of Hyperion. September Composes 'To Autumn'. Discards The rail of Hyperion on the grounds that it is influenced too much by Milton. December Becomes engaged to Fanny Brawne.

1820 February Keats suffers severe lung haemorrhage. Revises f ,amia. July Collection of verse later known as Poems 1820 published. August Nursed by Fanny and Mrs Brawne. Shelley invites Keats to Italy but he declines the offer.

Principal !~cents in John Keats's Life xv

September Leaves for Italy in the care of the painter and

steadfast friend Joseph Severn in the hope of recovering his

health. October Arrives at Naples where his ship is held in quaran­

tine for ten days. November Travels to Rome, and takes lodgings at the 'Span­

ish Steps'.

1821 February 23 Keats dies of tuberculosis and is buried m

Rome.