Editing John Keats (section)

==Reception==
[[File:9069 - Roma - Cimitero acattolico - Lapide a John Keats (1795-1821) - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 31-March-2008.jpg|thumb|A [[relief]] of Keats on a wall near his grave in Rome]]

When Keats died at 25, he had been writing poetry seriously for only about six years, from 1814 until the summer of 1820, and publishing for only four. In his lifetime, sales of Keats's three volumes of poetry probably amounted to only 200 copies.<ref name="guardian1">{{Cite news |last=Andrew Motion |date=23 January 2010 |title=Article 23 January 2010 ''An introduction to the poetry of John Keats'' |work=The Guardian |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/john-keats-andrew-motion |access-date=15 February 2010}}</ref> His first poem, the [[sonnet]] ''O Solitude'', appeared in ''the Examiner'' in May 1816, while his collection ''Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and other poems'' was published in July 1820 before his last visit to Rome. The compression of his poetic apprenticeship and maturity into so short a time is just one remarkable aspect of Keats's work.<ref name="Neill418"/>

Although prolific during his short career, and now one of the most studied and admired British poets, his reputation rests on a small body of work, [[John Keats's 1819 odes|centred on the Odes]],<ref>Strachan (2003), p. 2.</ref> and only in the creative outpouring of the last years of his short life was he able to express the inner intensity for which he has been lauded since his death.<ref name="Walsh">Walsh (1957), pp. 220–221.</ref> Keats was convinced that he had made no mark in his lifetime. Aware that he was dying, he wrote to Fanny Brawne in February 1820, "I have left no immortal work behind me – nothing to make my friends proud of my memory – but I have lov'd the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remember'd."<ref>{{Cite web |title=John-Keats.com – Letters |url=http://www.john-keats.com/briefe/000220.htm |access-date=23 February 2019 |website=www.john-keats.com}}</ref>

Keats's ability and talent was acknowledged by several influential contemporary allies such as Shelley and Hunt.<ref name="guardian1"/> His admirers praised him for thinking "on his pulses", for having developed a style which was more heavily loaded with sensualities, more gorgeous in its effects, more voluptuously alive than any poet who had come before him: "loading every rift with ore".<ref>Keats Letter To Percy Bysshe Shelley, 16 August 1820</ref> Shelley often corresponded with Keats in Rome and loudly declared that Keats's death had been brought on by bad reviews in the ''Quarterly Review''. Seven weeks after the funeral he wrote ''[[Adonais]]'', a despairing elegy,<ref>''[[Adonais]]'' by Shelley is a despairing [[elegy]] of 495 lines and 55 [[Spenserian stanza]]s. It was published that July 1820 and he came to view it as his "least imperfect" work.</ref> stating that Keats's early death was a personal and public tragedy:
{{blockquote|<poem>
The loveliest and the last,
The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit.<ref>''[[Adonais]]'' (Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc.) by Shelley, published 1821</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats &#124; Representative Poetry Online |url=https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/adonais-elegy-death-john-keats |website=rpo.library.utoronto.ca}}</ref></poem>}}

Although Keats wrote that "if poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all," poetry did not come easily to him; his work was the fruit of a deliberate and prolonged classical self-education. He may have possessed an innate poetic sensibility, but his early works were clearly those of a young man learning his craft. His first attempts at verse were often vague, languorously narcotic and lacking a clear eye.<ref name="Walsh"/> His poetic sense was based on the conventional tastes of his friend Charles Cowden Clarke, who first introduced him to the classics, and also came from the predilections of Hunt's ''Examiner'', which Keats read as a boy.<ref name="Poems18">Gittings (1987), pp. 18–21.</ref> 

Hunt scorned the [[Augustan literature|Augustan]] or "French" school dominated by [[Alexander Pope|Pope]] and attacked earlier Romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge, now in their forties, as unsophisticated, obscure and crude writers. During Keats's few years as a published poet, the reputation of the older Romantic school was at its lowest ebb. Keats came to echo these sentiments in his work, identifying himself with a "new school" for a time, somewhat alienating him from Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron and providing a basis for scathing attacks from ''Blackwood's'' and the ''Quarterly Review''.<ref name="Poems18"/>
{{Quote box |align=right |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right |quote =<poem>
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
</poem> |source =First stanza of "[[To Autumn]]",<ref name="PaL157">Gittings (1987), 157</ref><br />September 1819}}
By his death, Keats had therefore been associated with the taints of both old and new schools: the obscurity of first-wave Romantics and uneducated affectation of Hunt's "Cockney School". Keats's posthumous reputation mixed the reviewers' caricature of the simplistic bumbler with the image of a hyper-sensitive genius killed by high feeling, which Shelley later portrayed.<ref name="Poems18"/>

The Victorian sense of poetry as the work of indulgence and luxuriant fancy offered a schema into which Keats was posthumously fitted. Marked as the standard-bearer of sensory writing, his reputation grew steadily and remarkably.<ref name="Poems18"/> His work had the full support of the influential [[Cambridge Apostles]], whose members included the young [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]],<ref group="nb">[[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]] was writing Keats-style poetry in the 1830s and was being critically attacked in the same manner as his predecessor.</ref> later a popular Poet Laureate who came to regard Keats as the greatest poet of the 19th century.<ref name="OCEL"/> [[Constance Naden]] was a great admirer of his poems, arguing that his genius lay in his 'exquisite sensitiveness to all the elements of beauty'.<ref>'Poesy Club', Mason College Magazine, 4.5 (October 1886), p. 106.</ref> 

In 1848, twenty-seven years after Keats's death, [[Richard Monckton Milnes]] published the first full biography, which helped place Keats within the canon of English literature. The [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]], including [[John Everett Millais|Millais]] and [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti|Rossetti]], were inspired by Keats and painted scenes from his poems including "The Eve of St. Agnes", "Isabella" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci": lush, arresting and popular images which remain closely associated with Keats's work.<ref name="Poems18"/>

In 1882, [[Algernon Charles Swinburne|Swinburne]] wrote in the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' that "the Ode to a Nightingale [was] one of the final masterpieces of human work in all time and for all ages".<ref>{{cite EB9 |wstitle = Keats, John |volume= XIV |last= Swinburne|first= Algernon Charles |author-link= Algernon Charles Swinburne | pages = 22&ndash;24 |short=1}}</ref> In the 20th century Keats remained the muse of poets such as [[Wilfred Owen]], who kept his death date as a day of mourning, Yeats and T. S. Eliot.<ref name="Poems18"/> Critic [[Helen Vendler]] stated the odes "are a group of works in which the English language finds an ultimate embodiment."<ref>Vendler (1983) p. 3.</ref> [[Walter Jackson Bate|Bate]] said of ''[[To Autumn]]'': "Each generation has found it one of the most nearly perfect poems in English"<ref>Bate (1963) p. 581.</ref> and M. R. Ridley said the ode "is the most serenely flawless poem in our language."<ref>Ridley and Clarendon (1933) p. 289.</ref>

[[File:Portrait of Keats - HH.jpg|thumb|''[[Keats Listening to a Nightingale on Hampstead Heath]]'' by [[Joseph Severn]], 1845]]
The largest collection of the letters, manuscripts, and other papers of Keats is in the [[Houghton Library]] at [[Harvard University]]. Other collections of material are archived at the [[British Library]], [[Keats House]], [[Hampstead]], the [[Keats–Shelley Memorial House]] in Rome and the [[Pierpont Morgan Library]] in New York. Since 1998 the British Keats-Shelley Memorial Association have annually awarded a [[Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry|prize for romantic poetry]].<ref>[http://www.keats-shelley.co.uk/ksma%20awards.html#TheKeats-ShelleyPrize The Keats-Shelley Poetry Award] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130810103341/http://www.keats-shelley.co.uk/ksma%20awards.html#TheKeats-ShelleyPrize |date=10 August 2013 }}. Retrieved 11 February 2010.</ref> A [[Royal Society of Arts]] [[blue plaque]] was unveiled in 1896 to commemorate Keats at Keats House.<ref name="EngHet">{{Cite web |title=Keats, John (1795–1821) |url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/keats-john-1795-1821 |access-date=23 October 2012 |publisher=English Heritage}}</ref>

[[Jorge Luis Borges]] named his first encounter with Keats an experience he felt all his life.<ref>Jorge Luis Borges (2000). ''This Craft of Verse''. Harvard University Press, pp. 98–101.</ref>

===Biographers===
None of Keats's biographies were written by people who had known him.<ref name="gittings3"/> Shortly after his death, his publishers announced they would speedily publish ''The memoirs and remains of John Keats'' but his friends refused to cooperate and argued with each other to such an extent that the project was abandoned. Leigh Hunt's ''Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries'' (1828) gives the first biographical account, strongly emphasising Keats's supposedly humble origins, a misconception which still continues.<ref name="NDB"/> Given that he was becoming a significant figure within artistic circles, a succession of other publications followed, including anthologies of his many notes, chapters and letters.<ref name="gittings3">Gittings (1968), p. 3.</ref> 

However, early accounts often gave contradictory or biased versions of events and were subject to dispute.<ref name="gittings3"/> His friends Brown, Severn, Dilke, Shelley and his guardian Richard Abbey, his publisher Taylor, Fanny Brawne and many others issued posthumous commentary on Keats's life. These early writings coloured all subsequent biography and have become embedded in a body of Keats legend.<ref>Gittings (1968), p. 5.</ref>

Shelley promoted Keats as someone whose achievement could not be separated from agony, who was 'spiritualised' by his decline and too fine-tuned to endure the harshness of life; the consumptive, suffering image popularly held today.<ref>Motion (1997), p. 499.</ref> The first full biography was published in 1848 by Richard Monckton Milnes. Landmark Keats biographers since include [[Sidney Colvin]], [[Robert Gittings]], [[Walter Jackson Bate]], [[Aileen Ward]], and [[Andrew Motion]]. The idealised image of the heroic romantic poet who battled poverty and died young was inflated by the late arrival of an authoritative biography and the lack of an accurate likeness. Most of the surviving portraits of Keats were painted after his death, and those who knew him held that they did not succeed in capturing his unique quality and intensity.<ref name="NDB"/>

===Other portrayals===
[[File:The John Keats Statue in London.jpg|thumb|Sculpture of Keats, seated on bench, at [[St Thomas' Hospital|Guys and Saint Thomas' Hospital]], London]]
''John Keats: His Life and Death'', the first major motion picture about the life of Keats, was produced in 1973 by [[Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]] It was directed by [[John Barnes (film producer)|John Barnes]]. [[John Stride]] played John Keats and [[Janina Faye]] played Fanny Brawne.<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Keats: His Life and Death |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1708428/ |access-date=23 February 2019 |via=www.imdb.com}}</ref> The 2009 film ''[[Bright Star (film)|Bright Star]]'', written and directed by [[Jane Campion]], focuses on Keats's relationship with Fanny Brawne.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090927145121/http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21014 The Academy of American Poets] ''"Bright Star": Campion's Film About the Life and Love of Keats''.</ref> Inspired by the 1997 Keats biography by Andrew Motion, [[Ben Whishaw]] played Keats and [[Abbie Cornish]] played Fanny.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Talking Pictures: 'Bright Star' – 2 1/2 stars |url=http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/talking_pictures/2009/09/bright-star-2-12-stars.html |access-date=8 April 2014 |archive-date=1 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201145143/http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/talking_pictures/2009/09/bright-star-2-12-stars.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet Laureate]] [[Simon Armitage]] wrote "'I speak as someone...'" to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Keats's death. It was first published in ''[[The Times]]'' on 20 February 2021.<ref name="ispeak">{{Cite web |title='I speak as someone...' |url=https://www.simonarmitage.com/wp-content/uploads/I-speak-as-someone.pdf |publisher=Simon Armitage |access-date=29 March 2021 |archive-date=15 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715122216/https://www.simonarmitage.com/wp-content/uploads/I-speak-as-someone.pdf |url-status=dead }} ''Includes full text of poem''</ref><ref name="morrison">{{Cite news |last1=Morrison |first1=Richard |title=Simon Armitage: Ode to my hero, John Keats |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/simon-armitage-ode-to-my-hero-john-keats-zt5zvxp57 |access-date=29 March 2021 |work=The Times |date=20 February 2021 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="nolife">{{Cite news |title=No life without death, no death without life': laureate's tribute to Keats |url=https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=112605 |access-date=29 March 2021 |work=Write Out Loud |date=22 February 2021 |language=en-gb}}</ref> In 2007 a sculpture of Keats seated on a bench, by sculptor [[Stuart Williamson]], was unveiled at [[St Thomas' Hospital|Guys and Saint Thomas' Hospital]], London by the [[Poet Laureate]], Andrew Motion.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/2984#:~:text=Poet%20laureate%20Andrew%20Motion%20visited,a%20surgeon%20at%20the%20hospital.&text=The%20bronze%20statue%20by%20sculptor,the%20grounds%20of%20Guy's%20Hospital.|title=John Keats statue unveiled at Guy's Hospital |work=London SE1 |date=25 October 2007 |access-date=21 March 2022 |last1=Team |first1=London SE1 Website }}</ref>

A [[Statue of John Keats, Moorgate|sculpture]] of the 21-year-old Keats, by [[Martin Jennings]], was unveiled by [[Michael Mainelli]], the [[Lord Mayor of London]], in [[Moorgate]] in the City of London on 31 October 2024, the 229th anniversary of Keats' birth.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://x.com/citylordmayor/status/1851979141907701776 |title= Lord Mayor, City of London |publisher=x.com |date=31 October 2024 |access-date=1 November 2024}}</ref><ref name='CityAM'>{{cite news|author=Jack Mendel|title=Bronze sculpture of poet John Keats to be unveiled in London|url=https://www.cityam.com/bronze-sculpture-of-poet-john-keats-to-be-unveiled-in-london/|work=[[City AM]]|date=26 October 2024|accessdate=28 October 2024}}</ref><ref name=Guard24>{{cite news |last=Creamer |first=Ella |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/26/john-keats-statue-bronze-martin-jennings-moorgate-london |title=John Keats statue to be unveiled near his birthplace in London's Moorgate |date=26 October 2024 |work=[[The Guardian]] |accessdate=28 October 2024}}</ref>