Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems: Penguin Pocket Poetry

by John Keats

In the summer of 1820, Keats published this collection, his third and final volume of poetry. A few months earlier, he had started coughing up blood; the following February, he would die of tuberculosis in Rome, aged just twenty-five. This volume contains his greatest work, written in an astonishing burst of creative genius in 1819. It includes 'Lamia', his tale of love and betrayal in ancient Corinth; the haunting medieval romance of 'The Eve of St Agnes'; and his six famous odes, now considered among the most famous verse in the language.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Romanticism, English Literature, Mythology, British Literature, Fiction

127 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1820

About the author

Rich melodic works in classical imagery of British poet John Keats include " The Eve of Saint Agnes ," " Ode on a Grecian Urn ," and " To Autumn ," all in 1819.

Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley include "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.

Work of the principal of the Romantic movement of England received constant critical attacks from the periodicals of the day during his short life. He nevertheless posthumously immensely influenced poets, such as Alfred Tennyson. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize poetry, including a series of odes, masterpieces of Keats among the most popular poems in English literature. Most celebrated letters of Keats expound on his aesthetic theory of "negative capability."

Wikipedia page of the author

Reviews

[Celia T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did you know that when it's July, and the sky is blue, and the birds are singing, you can go sit in a hammock with a bowl of cold fruit, and you can read Keats while you eat lychee and the raspberries in the sunshine? The cops can't even stop you

[Jacca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally finished it!

I'm not sure Keats is a poet I particularly enjoy but that's exactly why I'm reading these collections, to find out. This collection is packed with fantasy, Greek mythology, and some honestly quite nice odes.

Isabella: or, The Pot of Basil is a pretty compelling romantic tragedy which i enjoyed.

Some of the later, shorter poems were nice. I liked his writing on appreciation for the power and beauty of art and nature in Ode and Psyche.

Hyperion was an interesting piece about the transition from Titan to Olympian rule. For an unfinished poem I felt it ended in a rather significant and poignant way.

I'm not a fan of Keats' writing style and probably won't explore more of his work. I definitely enjoy modern poetry more.

[Sharvan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and Other Poems is my second time reading Keats. It surely didn’t disappoint me.

I’ve read some works of Keats before, but a lot of them were also new. Rereading the ones I’ve read before is something I didn’t think would be helpful. I didn’t realise their true meaning and message until I read them again with a fresh glance. I truely appreciate Lamia and Isabella more now.

The story that stood out the most is the unfinished one, Hyperion. I absolutely love how Keats gives a sort of continuation on the original myths, with his own signature style. The way he introduces and uses all of the titans gave the Greek mythology fanboy in me an amazing time.
The entire book gave me an amazing time.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I had to read and study Keats' Lamia, Isabella, Eve of St Agnes, and La Belle Dame Sans Merci for my A-level. I didn't really consider myself a Keats lover, and I'm still not quite there but I would say I appreciate his work, and it has opened my eyes to the world of Romantic poetry.

My main sticking point with Keats is I cannot agree with, or have any respect for his portrayal of women. Either they are passive victims, or they are evil villains who cruelly destroy the 'so very innocent' men. Yes, we must cut him some slack due to the societal expectations of the time, but also he subverted so many stereotypes that he should have subverted the gender expectations and not gone for complete misogyny. This means I cannot 'love' his poetry, but I can still appreciate it.

All this being said, he is a poetry mastermind. His symbolism, allegory, and metaphor in his poems are second to none. Isabella is my particular favorite is just incredible in how it uses the form of the poem to impress the tragedy- as well as the narrative perspective. Keats has an amazing ability with language, so whilst I don't agree with what he writes, I appreciate how he writes.

[Yoana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not smart and/or patient enough for early 19th century poetry. "Hyperion", a lengthy, detailed, overdramatic poem about the Titans' fall, nearly killed me.

[Diana Jaques · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each of these poems are beautifully written.

Lamina, Isabella, the Eve of St.Agnes and Hyperion are all lengthy poems.
Compared to what we are used to today, each of these poems are essentially stories in a poetical format.
When you are reading them, they all have such a wonderful, rhyming flow which I personally really enjoyed reading.

John Keats uses a lot of myth in his work, and also covers the subject of love, implementing it into his different pieces as he plays around with the poetic plot.

From this book, my two favourite pieces have to be, Lamia and the poem To Autumn.
Both are extraordinary pieces of writing that I am bound to read again.

Please note that what I have written is only about the pieces of Keats' work within this book in particular.

I highly recommend this book to those who like myths, love, seasons, and anyone who wants to read any classic poetry.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm nothing if not a Keats stan, so of course I loved this book. His imagery, the descriptions of nature and the fantastic rhythm in these poems are just perfect.

[Kit McEvoy Gould · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a shame Hyperion was left unfinished! The one poem I was warming to.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book of poems when I was at Sixth form, and loved the darkness of the poems. 'Lamia' has to be one of my favourites, it more like a short story than an actual poem.

[Felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

I frequently hear of a seperation between the Romantics and the pre-Romantics as having a lot to do with their engagement with classical ideas. Whereas many of the pre-Romantic or proto-Romantic poets found classical themes inescapable, poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth rejected them and instead engaged with new material, often based on folk tales or their own observation of common people.

John Keats is not a part of this trend. Almost every one of Keats' poems is steeped in the classical world. His longer poems engage with ancient stories and legends, and his shorter poems, whilst often more emotional, rely heavily on classical imagery. I find it a little strange that Keats relies on the Ancient Greek world quite so heavily - mainly because Keats himself couldn't read Greek.

The shorter poems in this collection are some of the finest ever composed in English. Keats' odes are a cultural touchstone that are impossible to escape from in the study of English poetry. I'm particularly fond of the Ode on Melancholy and the Ode on a Grecian Urn although all of the odes are worth reading - even if they are the only Keats that one ever reads. Keats performs astoundingly well in this short form, and is able to create sincere emotional images that linger in the mind.

The only real weakness of this collection is in the longer poems. Keats was certainly very accomplished in the longer form, but the form itself has lost its place in modern society. The longer poems are more a form of entertainment than an emotional platform, and retellings of classical myth in verse form simply don't resonate with readers the way they once did.

I'll close off this review with my favourite poem by Keats, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer - a poem that ironically isn't included in the collection I'm reviewing. It is however tonally similar, and unlike the poems in this collection, brief enough to include in its entirety at the end of a Goodreads review. It's a marvellous piece of writing, and really shows the engagement and appreciation Keats had of classical myth and legend, as well as his ability to create a potent sense of atmosphere.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

[Yeliz Merve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd mine—
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade.

John Keats spends a lot of this collection lusting after Greek mythology. Understandable, honestly, especially given the fact that he has a special skill in storytelling, and revamping older works, in both the mythical and medieval genre. His take on the Milton-esque version of the Titan's fall in the incomplete Hyperion, the Boccaccio retelling in Isabella, the sensuality in Lamia are all crafted with a masterful claim on the pen. I think at times, the female figures tend to dissolve into overused archetypes, which was a shame but expected given that he was a young man in the Romantic era. The Romanticism in question is displayed best in his Odes section, which truly read like torturous labor of love, however it can also be seen in his protests about science and how it creates mundanity out of the extraordinary. I also quite enjoy Keats' writing style, there is a certain quality of comfort and ease that, although prevalent among other Romantic era poets, has a unique evanescent quality which also, in a weird contradiction, clears the way for the emotions to linger after the words. I do wonder what might have became of Hyperion if he could have shrugged off the anxiety of influence that Milton had him under, or if he had lived long enough to really mature into his writing.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

But the God fostering her chilled hand,
She felt the warmth, her eyelids open'd bland,
And, like new flowers at morning song of bees,
Bloom'd, and gave up her honey to the lees.
Into the green-recessed woods they flew;
Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do.
…

Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay!
To thy far wishes will thy streams obey:
Stay! though the greenest woods be thy domain,
Alone they can drink up the morning rain:
…

Into another, she began to sing,
Happy in beauty, life, and love, and every thing,
A song of love, too sweet for earthly lyres,
While, like held breath, the stars drew in their panting fires
And then she whisper'd in such trembling tone,
As those who, safe together met alone
For the first time through many anguish'd days,
Use other speech than looks; bidding him raise
His drooping head, and clear his soul of doubt,
For that she was a woman, and without
Any more subtle fluid in her veins
Than throbbing blood, and that the self-same pains
Inhabited her frail-strung heart as his.
…

And every word she spake entic'd him on
To unperplex'd delight and pleasure known.
Let the mad poets say whate'er they please
Of the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses,
There is not such a treat among them all,
Haunters of cavern, lake, and waterfall,
As a real woman, lineal indeed
From Pyrrha's pebbles or old Adam's seed.

[Francisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is something both fascinating and kind of dull about Keats. The fascination is in the themes he uses, often derived from British folklore or Greek mythology, with romantic dark overtones which sometimes gives it an almost Horror feel, as in both Lamia and Isabella. Dull because is a really formal writer, and sometimes form overwhelms the poem in ways which are pretty distracting. 

That being said, the mix of the formalism and fantastic themes actually gives the poems some charm, adding some mystery to the stories within. Some of the highlights here are the above mentioned Lamia and Isabella, both long poems, with some of the short poems in the collection being particularly well known, such as Ode on a Grecian Urn. The low light of the collection for me was definitely the unfinished Hyperion which just goes on and on and stops in the middle, although even that has some quite bright sequences. A good collection, but I prefer my poetry a bit less classicist.

[Jodie Steer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Keats in autumn seems very fitting - the nostalgia for a summer-like past reminisces on gold tinted memories. Many of the poems in this collection transport the reader into a different time and place, often Ancient Greece and Rome, to convey a sense of longing for the antiquity and dreaminess of distant memories. My favourite poem was To Autumn - I found this to be particularly lyrical and entrancing in its tribute to the season of reflection and fruitful harvest of life’s labours. However there were some poems that I could not get on with at all, especially those with very tight rhyming structures with couplets used excessively. I found it hard to lose myself in the poetry when the meter detracted from the beautiful language and descriptions. Lamia was a prime example of this as it became far too much like a nursery rhyme instead of allowing the heart wrenching story to flow. 3 stars.

[Sanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Keats. Almost did my master’s thesis on his work! I simply had a hard time fitting it into the theme of loneliness and isolation in nature. Thoreau’s Walden won out in the end, mostly because there is a sense of truth and togetherness in Keats’ work to me that made me feel like it was perhaps too beautiful for a thesis written in the horrible year of 2020.

Ode on a Grecian Urn is maybe my favourite poem ever. Isabella is both heart-wrenching and enchanting. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed Hyperion! Hadn’t read that one before.

I read through this little bundle by reading a poem a day, which I tried to do in the morning. As cliché as this sounds, it did make me look at the trees outside my apartment with a bit more wonder.

[mumu · Rating 4 out of 5]

i only read lamia but i had to review the whole collection, so here we are.

i'd heard about keats' lyrical poetry but man it's so good to read. he has this distinct tone of story-telling and it works really well even though lamia was so bloody long.

lamia herself was an interesting femme fatale. who hurt baby keats'? i think it was his partner fanny, because he really makes the reader hate her. i mean, describing her as a literal snake in the beginning? if subtlety was the approach you were going for it didn't work-

4 stars. very fun to read (yet loooonng)

[Abigail Hendricks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that this book was such an amazing compilation of amazing poems and short stories, a lot of the themes were filled with love stories, romantisizing life, and the greek gods. If you love all three this is the book for you. However, since I am a faster reader and I do not like reading super slowly, I think reading this more slowly would have helped me understand the short stories more. So even though it’s a small book, you need to read this slowly as this can be hard to understand because it is old poetry. But overall it was a fun weekend read.

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always looked at Keats as one of the exemplary figures of small r romanticism as contrasted with the capital R Romanticism of Melville and Blake. Which is to say that his strengths are more musical and personal, less philosophical. He had as good a sense of the music of vowels as anyone who ever wrote; you can hear that in "The Eve of St. Agnes" and the great odes (Nightingale, Psyche, Melancholy, Grecian Urn.) Still not a favorite, but I'm glad I revisited.

[Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought this because it contained Hyperion, and I was right to. Keats's poems are the epitome of the romantic spirit, and while I liked his odes and narrative Lamia and Eve of St Agnes, they all pale in comparison to Hyperion. It is brilliant. Curse every critic whose sarcastic responses to Endymion prevented Keats from completing it.

[Maja · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked "Isabella", in which a lady cuts off the head of her dead lover and plants it into a pot in which she then grows a giant basil plant (just wow), but about half of the content is Keats' unfinished poem Hyperion, which a) is extremely long-winded, b) I did not like the style and c) just...trails off in the middle of a line. Conclusion: I don't like most of Keats' work.

[Jeremy Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully bound and readable layout. Good selection of Keats poems, although no commentary or annotations are provided. If this is your first time with Keats, then I recommend an annotated edition. Keats makes several classical references and allusions, which might be easily overlooked or misunderstood.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Keats will forever hold a piece of my heart!!! There is a reason he is my all-time favourite poet. He was truly nothing short of a genius and deserved so much more praise and credit during his life time. He has such a way with words that truly speak to the heart and soul. His poems are utterly beautiful 🖤

[Eilidh Paterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ye canny write this sort a stuff nowadays. Absolutely in love with the odes special shoutout to ode to psyche, nightingale, to autumn. ❤️ I see peterloo massacre reference. 😘 I think Isabella is good but something feels amiss. And I don’t have the skills to comment on what.

[Molly Cawthorn-Matre · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4

[Hope Elizabeth Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the shorter poems the author is known for were excellent, the longer, narrative style pieces were rather mediocre as they tended to drag on in a convoluted and confusing manner.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keats at his peak of what was admittedly all too short a career. The edition I read was the bonny green hardbook Penguin edition that they put out recently.

[kaitlin :-) · Rating 5 out of 5]

holy moly i love this man
pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming????? half in love with easeful death???? i’m losing my mind

[aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

hyperion more like hyBOREion

[Jimmy Kindree · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved getting to read all these poems together in the collection as they were published. I'm going to reread and explore more.

[Stanzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still don't understand whatever Hyperion is about but have to admit the odes are pretty neat.