POEMS OF 1820

JOHN KEATS: POEMS OF 1820

Edited with an introduction by Miriam Chalk. Includes notes by M. Robertson, and a new gallery of images, including many paintings illustrating Keats' poetry.

This is the book published in 1820 by John Keats (1795-1821). It includes some famous 'Odes', the luxuriously sensuous 'Eve of St Agnes', and the longer poems 'Lamia' and 'Hyperion'.

John Keats is one of the few British poets who is truly ecstatic and wild. Keats is known for his ornate language, memorable phrases ('made sweet moan' in 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'), Romantic indulgences, and a tendency to gush and exaggerate. Keats is one of a few poets who write in English in a shamanic manner.

John Keats reaches the pinnacle of British poetry, as W. Jackson Bate, typical among critics, says: 'the language of his greatest poetry has always held an attraction; for there we reach, if only for a brief while, a high plateau where in mastery of phrase he has few equals in English poetry, and only one obvious superior.'

Like Arthur Rimbaud, and like the poet he is most compared with, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats burnt fiercely and died young. He is a poet as martyr and hero, a Vincent van Gogh of poesie. He is famous for his sensual odes - 'Ode to a Grecian Urn', 'Ode to Melancholy', 'To Autumn', 'Ode to Psyche' and 'Ode to a Nightingale' - the poems 'Lamia', 'Endymion' and 'Hyperion', the luxuriant 'The Eve of St Agnes', a group of sonnets, and the strange, haunting fairy tale poem 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'.

John Keats is a typical Romantic poet: he used pagan imagery; he employs much ancient Greek mythology; he  is a shamanic poet, who writes in feverish bouts; he is a 'poet's poet'; he wrote searing short poems, and attempted long, epic sequences; he revered the right authors (John Milton, William Shakespeare, the ancient Greeks); he died young; and he travelled to Italy, the key destination for the authentic Grand Tour experience.

 

 British Poets Series. Illustrated, with new images for this edition. Bibliography and notes. 224 pages.

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