Keats died 200 years ago: February 24th,1821.
Note: It was the night of the 23rd or 24th if after midnight. … His ‘Carers’ were tired or not present at his precise death, plus letters of the news may have been misinterpreted date-wise from letters sent to England offering different dates. However, his tomb dates it as 24th, sobeit.
John Clare never met Keats but knew his published work and was impressed, having received copies of Keat’s second and third (last) book from his (Clare’s) publisher. Clare and Keats never met when Clare was in London, nor indeed, ever. They corresponded indirectly through their publisher and made comment on each others verse and style. Clare thought Keats leant too heavily on Greek Mythology and was not aware of the realities of the countryside as a resident of London. Keats thought Clare wrote with too much detail of the images of nature perhaps without direction. (my paraphrasing, please see Jonathon Bates’ biography of Clare pp187-192 for true details on Clare’s thinking on Keats et al). I do believe each was sympathetic to the other’s work and situation. Clare read , liked his work and even wrote a sonnet on his death. Indeed, Clare’s publishers, Taylor and Hessey were also Keats’ at the time of Keats’ death.
Clare, Sonnet on Keats: To the Memory of John Keats The world, its hopes and fears, have passd away No more its trifling thou shalt feel,or see Thy hopes are ripening in a brighter day While these left buds thy monument shall be. When Rancours aim have past in nought away Enlarging specks discernd in more than thee And beauties minishing which few display - When these are past, true child of Poesy, Thou shalt survive - Ah, while a being dwells With soul, in Nature’s joys, to warm like thine With eye to view her gasp spells And dream entranced oe’reach form divine Thy worth, Enthusiast, shall be cherishd here, - Thy name with him shall linger and be dear.
Keats, first published in 1817, was born in October 1795 in London. He died in Rome, 1821, of consumption, aged 25.
His first published collection was poorly accepted by literary critics and therefore readers of the day. His ‘Endymion’ also struggled though his third volume, with ‘Lamis, Isabella Eve of St Agnes’ and other poems gained him some better recognition as a poet and as having ‘potential.’ Even his first collection began to be recognised as being of a unique quality within the Romantics.
Today he is considered one of the great poets, a leading romantic poet who died young just as fame was perhaps heading his way. His literary accomplishments are great and considered more so because of his ‘humble’ beginnings, difficult life and early death from consumption. I could quote many titles of his poems as examples of his prominence in the poetical hierarchy. Keats sites aplenty exist. Usually the poems themselves are too long for me to include on this page ( see La Belle Dame Sans Merci in poetryparc.) but I have put two of his sonnets below:
To Sleep O soft embalmer of the still midnight, Shutting, with careful fingers benign, Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine: O soothes Sleep! If so it please thee, close In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes, Or wait the 'Amen', ere thy poppy throw Around my bed its lulling charities. Then save me, or the passed day will shine Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,-- Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed Casket of my soul.
And lastly:
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art -- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors - No - yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever - or else to swoon in death.
poetryparc 