“Bards of Passion and of Mirth
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have you souls in Heaven too,
Doubled lived in regions new"
__________
This philosophic questioning, it seems to me, is a good point at which to begin sharing with you, my thoughts on the poetry and life of John Keats; to which I would like to add the concluding sentiments as expressed in this particular Ode:
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumbered, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.”
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Now there is nothing profound either in the structure or content of this poem, but instead, the priceless affirmation of a truth: that each succeeding generation can draw on the abundance of riches that have been left to it by those who have gone before. But of course, as Keats well understood, we have to want to be influenced, which was why he devoted time to the study of fellow poets such as Chaucer, Spencer, Shakespeare and Milton; and, had an interest in, and view about, his contemporaries: Fielding, Wordsworth, Shelley and Byron.
And closely allied to the ideas expressed in this poem, are those to be found in Fancy, a poem that first appeared in a long letter that Keats wrote to his only surviving brother George, and his wife Georgiana, who, earlier, in that year, 1818, had emigrated to America. This letter, begun on the 16 December and not completed until January 1819, was started just two weeks after the death of their younger brother Tom, whom John Keats had cared for in his final weeks of life. So when Keats, in this poem, reflects on the transient nature of things, and works (backwards) through the seasons, consciously or unconsciously, powerful forces are at work, because chief among the formative influences in Keats early life, was death:
Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn’s red-lipped fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting,”
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That said, this poem is entirely positive, for it makes an important statement about the capacity of the creative mind to go beyond the norm, an idea that Keats conveys with subtlety in this rhyming couplet:
“Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her”
The point being, that the extension of our horizon is something that comes from within. As indicated here, Fancy is a caged bird that if once let loose will soar into the heavens, and in giving expression to the consequence of this freeing of the captive mind, Keats retraces its path back through the seasons, not as previously, to the point of decline and stagnation, but to a fullness of life in “Autumn” at which point the imagination (Fancy), makes it possible for us to see, hear, and feel those earlier sensations in the present moment:
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sword or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn’s Wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it – thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment – hark!
‘Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.”
________________
So accepting Keats’s point in these poems, that the poet can live twice, and that the past can be enjoyed simultaneously with the present, the poem, in the context of Fancy, progresses, until in its closing moments we are carried into the realms of Greek mythology, to the worlds of Cere: the goddess of corn and of harvests, to Pluto, in the poem alluded to as, ”the God of Torment”, to Hebe, a daughter of Jupiter and Juno, who was fair and always in the bloom of youth, and Jove, or (Jupiter), the most powerful of all the god’s among the ancients. And it was this preoccupation with the mythological: a feature of Keats’s poetry, that I have little knowledge of, that unexpectedly sent me off in a different direction.
As I read Endymion, Keats’s first attempt at Epic poetry based on the Greek myths, (and that is in excess of a hundred pages), I found myself becoming increasingly exasperated with grots, damsels, dells, bowers, nymphs, shepherds, and winged beasts; and fatigued, as I struggled amidst a panoply of unfamiliar names, to know what they represented. And as some had multiple identities, to know who was who. But not withstanding these frustrations, I kept going, for I had sufficient knowledge to know that this obscure poem had been a benchmark for Keats: a quite deliberate test of his ability, in the future, to write extensively and with imagination. But the further I travelled through this unreal world, the more I was confronted not by new God’s or strange creatures, but by the spectre of Robert Burns, whose personality is ever present in his poems, as is the physical and social landscape in which he lived. A consummate performer, he had a definite sense of self, and a determination that his many voices would be heard, and that he, Robert Burns, would be remembered. Whether it was lines of tenderness or of seduction, of humour or self deprecation, or an acerbic wit that mocked the self righteous, or the image of himself as a Scot poet forced into exile so that he could earn a living, the personality and character of Burns was ever present. And this was what I was missing in Endymion, the personality of Keats, and though I had read his poetry previously, I was disturbed by the though that he would be just as elusive in his better known poems; so much so, that I felt it a necessity to ask the question, Who was Keats? and as to whether or not it would be possible to construct a biography of him, minus his poems. An absurd idea you might think, but none the less, a measure of the extent to which Keats’s goal as a poet, seemed, to be at odds with that of Burns.
Well the good news is, that in answering the question, Who was Keats? there is plenty, apart from his poetry, to go on: the letters that he wrote to family and friends between 1814 and 1820, and those written by his fiance Fanny (Frances) Brawn to his sister also called Fanny. And there are the letters and biography of Keats written by his friend Charles Armitage Brown, to which we can add the disturbing but deeply moving letters sent from Italy by the artist Joseph Severn, who, in Charles Brown’s absence, (for he could not be contacted), accompanied Keats to Italy, and cared for him, in the sometimes terrible last days of his life.
So what then, form these sources, can we know about the man:
When Fanny Brawne, as Keats had asked her to do, began what became a sustained exchange of letters with his sister, letters that began the day after the Maria Crowther sailed for Italy, she penned this portrait of the man she intended to marry:
”I cannot tell you how much everyone here exerted themselves for him, nor how much he is liked, which is the more wonderful as he is the last person to exert himself to gain people’s friendship. I am certain that he has some spell that attaches them to him, or else he has fortunately met with a set of friends that I did not believe could be found in the world……”
And that such people did exist, in Keats’s life, is at its most poignant in the person of Joseph Severn, who, writing to Charles Brown from Rome on 14 December 1820, gave this account of Keats’ decline:
“Not a single thing will digest. The torture he suffers all and every night, and best part of the day, is dreadful in the extreme. The distended stomach keeps him in perpetual hunger or craving; and this is augmented by the little nourishment he takes to keep down the blood. Then his mind is worse than all: despair in every shape - his imagination and memory present every thought – so strong that every morning and night I tremble for his intellect – the recollections of England – of his “good friend Brown” – and his “happy few weeks in x x x x ‘s care” – his sister and brother. Oh! he will mourn over every circumstance to me whilst I cool his burning forehead – until I tremble through every vein – concealing my tears from his staring glassy eyes. How he can be Keats again from all this – I have little hope – but I may see it too gloomily, since each coming night I sit up adds its dismal contents to my mind.”
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Born on 31st October 1795, John Keats was the oldest of five children to Thomas and Frances Keats. And it was the circumstances of his early years, that prompted me to suggest, that ”death”, was the most formative of influences in his early life and poetry. By the age of 14, both his parents, his brother Edward, and his maternal grandfather John Jennings, were dead. When the mother remarried in 1804 the Keats children went to live with their grandparents, only for the security provided in this move to be shaken by John Jennings death just nine months later. The Keats children, however, continued to live with their grandmother Alice Jennings, who, on the death of their mother in 1810, appointed John Nowland Sandall, and Richard Abbey as their legal guardians. So in effect, by the age of 14, Keats had been orphaned twice. Not surprising then, that as a young man he emerged into the adult world, with strong paternal feelings for his younger brothers and sister; a watchfulness that was a recurring characteristic in his letters to them. To Fanny who was living with her legal guardian Richard Abbey, he wrote simple but thoughtful letters, giving encouragement, and at times, advice. In a letter written at Oxford in September 1817, (where he was visiting a friend, and Fanny was 14 and still living with her guardian), he encouraged her to write and tell him about her reading, “if it be only six Pages in a week”. In response, he told her, he would write:
“….This I feel is a necessity for we ought to be come intimately acquainted, in order that I may not only, as you grow up, love you as my only Sister, but confide in you as my dearest friend…”
Then, in simple terms, and in the context of his poem, he tells her the story of Endymion, before, with a degree of naivety, (as he had never travelled abroad), he describes Oxford, and tells her of the letters that he has received from George and Tom: postmarked Paris:
“This Oxford I have no doubt is the finest city in the world – it is full of old Gothic buildings – Spires – towers - Quadrangles – Cloisters Groves & is surrounded with more clear streams than I ever saw together – I take a Walk by the Side of one of them Every evening and thank God, we have not had a drop of rain these many days – I had a long and interesting letter from George, cross lines by a short one from Tom yesterday dated Paris – They both send their loves to you – Like most Englishmen they feel a mighty preference for every thing English – the french Meadows, the trees the People the Towns the Churches, the Books the every thing – although they may be in themselves good; yet when put in comparison with our green Island they all vanish like Swallows in October.”
And in the following year while on a walking tour of the Lakes and Scotland, with his friend Charles Brown, Keats writes to her from Dumfries, enclosing poems that he has written for her. “We are in the midst of Meg Merrilies’ country”, he tells her, after which he copies out his poem, based on the story of Meg Merrilies as told to him by Charles Brown as the walked along:
“Old Meg she was a Gipsy
And liv’d upon the Moors
Her bed it was the brown heath turf
And her home was out of doors
Her apples were swart blackberries
Her currants pods o’ broom
Her wine was dew o’ the wild white rose
Her book a churchyard tomb
Her Brothers were the craggy hills
Her Sisters lurchen trees
Alone with her great family
She liv’d as she did please
No breakfast has she many a morn
No dinner many a noon
And ‘stead of supper she would stare
Full hard against the Moon -
But every morn of woodbine fresh
She made her garlanding
And every night the dark glen Yew
She wove and she would sing -
And with her fingers old and brown
She plaited Mats o’ Rushes
And gave them to the Cottagers
She met among the Bushes
Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen
And tall as Amazon:
An old red blanket cloak she wore;
A chip hat had she on -
God rest her aged bones somewhere
She died full long agone!”
________________
After which he wrote:
“If you like these sorts of Ballads I will now and then scribble one for you – If I send any to Tom I’ll tell him to send them to you – I have so many interruptions that I cannot manage to fill a Letter in one day – since I scribbled the Song we have walked through a beautiful Country to Kirkudbright – at which place I will write you a song about myself -”
“There was a naughty Boy
And a naughty boy was he
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see-
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red -
That lead
Was as weighty
That fourscore
Was as eighty
That a door
Was as wooden
As in england –
So he stood in
His shoes
And he wondered
He wondered
He stood in his
Shoes and he wonder’d”
_______________
Not much more than a year later, Tom would be dead, and George and his wife Georgiana, living in America; and given the “global village” in which we now live, it is all too easy to forget how distant a place America was in those days, or, of how slow and uncertain the lines of communication were. So to all intents and purposes after Tom’s death on 1 December 1818, Keats was on his own; as Richard Abbey’s cautious nature made contact between Keats and his sister difficult. But up to the point where George emigrated, it is clear from the extent to which Keats shared the details of his social, as well as his literary life, with his brothers, that they were a close family unit; a togetherness that in the sonnet, To my Brothers, (written in celebration of Tom’s 17 birthday), is tangible:
And their faint cracklings o’er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o’er fraternal souls.
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,
Your eyes are fixed, as in poetic sleep,
Upon the lore, so voluble and deep,
That aye at fall of night our care condoles.
This is your birth-day Tom, and I rejoice
That thus it passes smoothly, quietly.
Many such eves of gently whispering noise
May we together pass, and calmly try
What are this world’s true joys – ere the great voice,
From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.”
__________
Later in a letter dated April 1817, while on route to the Isle of Wight, Keats describes the overnight coach journey to Southampton, and tells his brothers of how lonely he felt at breakfast. And much later in the year, December, we get a glimpse into his artistic and social life, that, in context, happened by default, when his friend Charles Dilke interrupted his letter writing:
“I have had two very pleasant evenings with Dilke yesterday & today; & at this moment just come back from him & feel in the humour to go on with this, begun in the morning, & from which he came to fetch me. I spent Friday evening with Wells & went the next morning to see Death on the Pale horse. It is a wonderful picture, when West’s age is considered. But there is nothing to be intense upon: no women one feels mad to kiss; no face swelling into reality. the excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close proximity to Beauty & Truth – Examine King Lear & you will find this exemplified throughout; but in this picture we have unpleasantness without any momentous depth of speculation excited in which to bury its repulsiveness…”
But it was not all intellectual rigour, for, as is apparent from a letter dated 5 January 1818, “boys will be boys”, and after referencing some bawdy conversation with regard to women, Keats’s attention turns to what in folklore, is popularly known as, - the piss pot:
“…on proceeding to the Pot in the cupboard it soon became full on which the Court door was opened Frank Floodgate bawls out, Hoollo! here’s an opposition pot – Ay, says Rice in one you have a Yard for your pot, and in the other a pot for your Yard. – Bailey was there and seemed to enjoy the Evening Rice said he cared less about the hour than anyone and the p[r]oof is his dancing – he cares not for time, dancing as if he was deaf. Old Redall not being used to give parties had no idea of the Quantity of wine that would be drank and he actually put in readiness and on the kitchen Stairs 8 dozen -”
And he shared with his brothers, not just his views on his contemporaries: Wordsworth in particular, (but without referring it in his letter dated 23, January 1818), the effect that the challenge of composing Endymion, had on him:
“I think a little change has taken place in my intellect lately – I cannot bear to be uninterested or unemployed. I, who for so long a time, have been addicted to passiveness – Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions, than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers – As an instance of this – observe – I sat down yesterday to read King Lear once again the thing appeared to demand the prologue of a Sonnet, I wrote it & began to read – “
After which he copied out the sonnet, a poem refined before publication, and that now goes by the title, “On Sitting Down to Read “King Lear” Once Again":
“O golden-tongued Romance, with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!
leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for, once again, the fierce dispute
Between damnation and impassioned clay
Must I burn through, once more humbly assay
The bitter sweet of this Shakespearian fruit:
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme
When through the old oak forests I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But, when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.”
_______________
Among his friends, Keats was a conciliator, as is apparent in the dispute between John Hamilton Reynolds, Benjamin Haydon, and Haydon and Leigh Hunt, (the details of which are of their time), and thereby not particularly interesting. Writing to his friend, Benjamin Bailey, a clergyman, on 23 January 1818 he wrote:
“Things have happened lately of great Perplexity You must have heard of them – Reynolds and Haydon retorting and recriminating – and parting for ever – the same thing has happened between Haydon and hunt – It is unfortunate – Men should bear with each other – there lives not the Man who may not be cut up, aye hashed to pieces on his weakest side. The best of Men have but a portion of good in them – a kind of spiritual yeast in their frames which creates the ferment of existence – by which a man is propell’d to act and strive and buffet with Circumstances. The sure way Bailey, is first to know a Man’s faults, and then be passive, if after that he insensibly draws you towards him then you have no Power to break the link. Before I felt interested in either Reynolds or Haydon - I was well read in their faults yet knowing them I have been cementing gradually with both – I have an affection for them both for reasons almost opposite – and to both must I of necessity cling – supported always by the hope that when a little time – a few years shall have tried me more fully in their esteem I may be able to bring them together – the time must come because they have both hearts and they will recollect the best parts of each other when this gust is over blown…”
But among these same friends, in the context of his poetry, some were more important than others. B. R. Haydon: an historical painter, was instrumental in introducing Keats to aspects of Greek culture, in particular they went together to the British Museum to view the Elgin Marbles. Charles Brown, on the other hand, (who invited Keats to come and live with him after Tom’s death), took a keen interest in his writing, encouraged him where necessary, and together they collaborated on writing the play, Otho the Great. And there were others, but one that we can not omit, was his publisher, John Taylor.
The extent of Haydon’s influence, and Keats’ admiration for him, are apparent in his letter of March 1817. By that time, he had already written the sonnet On Seeing the Elgin Marbles, and another in this context, dedicated to Haydon himself. And that Keats saw him as a mentor, there can be no doubt:
“You tell me never to despair – I wish it was as easy for me to observe the saying – truth is I have a horrid Morbidity of Temperament which has shown itself at intervals – it is I have no doubt the greatest Enemy and stumbling block I have to face – I may even say it is likely to be the cause of my disappointment. …I am very sure you do love me as your own Brother – I have seen it in your continual anxiety for me – and I assure you that your welfare and fame is and will be a chief pleasure to me all my Life. I know no one but you who can be fully sensible of the turmoil and anxiety, the sacrifice of all what is called comfort the readiness to Measure time by what is done and to die in 6 hours could plans be brought to conclusions – the looking upon the Sun the Moon and the Stars, the Earth and its contents as materials to form greater things – that is to say ethereal things – but here I am talking like a Madman greater things than our Creator himself made !!…”
As for his relationship with John Taylor, with whom Keats had to work closely in preparing the proofs for Endymion, and other poems, what was a personal friendship was sustained to the end; with Keats in his letters, expressing appreciation for Taylor’s help and patience in preparing the proofs.
In the penultimate letter sent to Charles Brown from Naples on 1 November 1820, Keats pours out his heart in respect of Fanny Brawn and concludes his letter by saying:
“My dear Brown, for my sake, be her advocate for ever. I cannot say a word about Naples; I do not feel at all concerned in the thousand novelties around me. I am afraid to write to her. I should like her to know that I do not forget her. Oh, Brown. I have coals of fire in my breast. It surprised me that the human heart is capable of containing and bearing so much misery. Was I born for this end? God bless her, and her mother, and my sister, and George, and his wife, and you, and all”
And when he was taking leave of Brown in his final letter, marked, “Rome 20 November 1820″, (which is what he was doing), his thoughts are for his brother and sister, and he is apologetic:
“Write to George as soon as you receive this, and tell him how I am, as far as you can guess; – and also a note to my sister – who walks about my imagination like a ghost – she is so like Tom. I can scarcely bid you good bye even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow.”
Now I appreciate that in the circumstances, these are emotive passages, but for me they are a true reflections of Keats’s capacity, throughout his life, to reveal himself. In this sense, (of being open to people), he was uncomplicated, and there was a nobility in his nature, which may explain why people were drawn to him in the way that Fanny Brawn suggests. And he was perceptive and kind: he made connections, so that the present was always - the inbetween - the link in a chain, connecting the past with the future. And he was kind, not just in respect of his feuding friends, but as exemplified in his capacity to be concerned for Fanny Brawne, and his next of kin, even in his darkest moments. And he was a saint. And should this observation shock you, let me explain.
Keats was an idealist, and a purist, who had an idea of poetry that was altogether different from that of Robert Burns. And while like Burns, he wanted to achieve fame as a poet, unlike Burns, the world as it was, was not his concern, which was why he did not write to please public sentiment. Instead, he believed that there was something else worth striving for: a beauty and a truth: an elevation of the spirit or a degree of consciousness that went beyond the norm, and which he sought to discover and give expression to in his poetry, and against terrible odds. In this context, Keats was a mystic, which explains the absence of ego in his poetry, and why there is something understated in him. And as I hope to show in succeeding blogs, besides what is to be discovered more broadly in the poems, in the context of this particular blog, there is more to add, in answering the question, Who was Keats?
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© Cormace McCloskey
Sources:
Ode, and Fancy,
Letter to George and Georgiana Keats, begun December 1818
Letters of John Keats
Edited by Robert Gitting
Oxford University Press 1990
ISBN 0-19-281081-2 (pbk)
Extract: Fanny Brawne to Fanny Keats
Letters of Fanny Brawne to Fanny Keats 1820-1824
Fred Edgcumbe (ed)
London. Oxford University Press (1936)
Extract: Letter, Joseph Severn to Charles Brown
The Life of John Keats
By Charles Armitage Brown
Oxford University Press. London N. York (1937)
Extract: Keats to his sister, 10 Sept 1815 and 2,3,5 July 1818
GITTING. as above
To my Brothers
BARNARD as below
“On Sitting Down to Read “King Lear” Once Again”
John Keats The Complete Poems
John Barnard (ed)
London. The Folio Society 2002
Available (Paperback, Penguin Classics)
Note: Brown’s biography of Keats is available to read (in full) – here
N.B. This blog was first piblished on 27 Semtemper 2010, but due to a mistake on my part, where I unintentionally deleted it, it had to be re-posted
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