John Keats 1795-1821

The magnificent writings of John Keats are only surpassed my the curiosity of what might have been if he had lived a longer life. Many of the famous writers today would not be so if they had only live the span that Keats lived. Keats was born into a working class family; his father owned a delivery stable in London. Keats had no formal education. In response to reading George Chapman’s translation of Homer, Keats wrote an Italian Sonnet cleverly entitled “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”. This form allowed him to address two views in one single sonnet. He read Chapman’s translation because he couldn’t read Latin. Like other romantics, Keats removed himself from the immediate influence of the literary past and dove even deeper to discover his inspiration.

John Keats was known for his sonnets. These sonnets were often accompanied with dark twists. They would start out innocent enough as love stories that had not so lovely endings. Keats feared he would live a short life, as he was diagnosed with TB. He often used his work to search for answers to human mortality. In Ode on a Grecian Urn he looks to art for comfort, and in Ode to a Nightingale he looks to nature. After Keats had explored the answers he seeked in The Odes he rejected what he had come up with. He decided that nightingales are immortal because they all sing the same song, and humans are individualistic creatures so are not immortal. He also finds that nature cannot always give consolation. John Keats is a “chameleon poet”, taking on the form of whatever he is currently involved in. John Keats is made all that more amazing to me by the fact that he accomplished what he did at such a young age. I can only wonder how the wisdom of time might have affected the talented writer had he lived a longer life