The Complete Poems by John Keats

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Now, I've got mad love for Lord Byron, for both his poetry and his extravagant character. But as soon as I read his scoffing and sneering remarks on "that little dirty blackguard KEATES" -- well, I branded myself Team Keats forever. And I do love them both, but OOF! when I think about that feud I feel a window open to the very same black lake of bitterness, self-pity and despair we know Keats looked on for most of his life.

Of course, I don't agree when Keats throws shade on Byron's talent: "You speak of Lord Byron and me - There is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees - I describe what I imagine - Mine is the hardest task." I mean, come on, Keats. Byron had plenty of imagination, and was certainly as tormented and complex as any good Romantic in y'all's day.

But, I'm on Keats's side in his assessment of Byron's career as a creative. Byron didn't just get good reviews because of his title and social status, but Byron also never had his lack of title and social status brought up in bad reviews like Keats did. So you can't help but feel where Keats is coming from when he dismisses Byron's success as superficial: "You see what it is to be six foot tall and a lord!" And you can't help but bristle when Loooord Byron looks down his nose at the poor "cockney" Keats.

Yes, yeah, let's be real though: I'm a working-class writer from the sticks and when I say I'm Team Keats, I'm relating to the timeless, unfortunate rift between talented artists with money and talented artists without. Talent doesn't discriminate. Sometimes it lands in an aristocrat -- in a wealthy family, with connections, with education, with access to resources and support. And sometimes it lands in a real have-not, in a poor, sick family with far more dire immediate needs to attend to than creative ambition.

Poor Keats. He is the patron saint of all the lonely talents living outside the scene, watching their dreams snuffed out by poverty and lack of choices. And Byron, bless his heart -- he watches over all the talented young artists in Williamsburg, laboring all day over their idiosyncratic projects with little concern for money because their parents subsidize their apartments and allow them time to hone their crafts and go out schmoozing with the tastemakers in their highly networkable neighborhood.

We feel you, Keats. Don't we? Don't we just feel that bone-deep, miserable, mournful longing when he writes of ambition, and fame, and his own dwindling life? He was poor, he was sick, and he was never going to get his chance. It wasn't fair.

I always thought this part of Ode to a Nightingale was the saddest tangent on talent, fame and success. No particular nightingale is gifted with any unique song. One nightingale is the same as any other; any nightingale is the nightingale. But that means the nightingale is practically born into success and recognition -- and it sings its legendary song throughout the centuries, civilizations and languages. The nightingale will never think about its own craft, but it will sing and be recognized forever. The nightingale is beyond hardship and death.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

:( Poor Keats.

P.S. Here's a fun site for Keats & Byron fans!



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