The Odes of Keats & Their Earliest Known Manuscripts in Facsimile

by John Keats, Robert Gittings (Editor)

. 1970, bright clean copy, with dustjacket, neat name on endpaper, no other markings, Professional booksellers since 1981

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

1000 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1819

About the author

Rich melodic works in classical imagery of English 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

[B. P. Rinehart · Rating 5 out of 5]

(March 20. 2017: This is one of the more respectable of my early reviews on this site.)

[From September 2012]
Ode To Psyche: He let his imagination run wild and saw the figure of Greek myth and dedicated some lines to wanting her. T.S. Eliot's favorite ode.

Ode To A Nightingale: He is in pain. And then a bird sings. He listens and meditates on it, and then is tired of the bird. This is the longest of the "Odes" and is MUCH better than I make it sound.

Ode To A Grecian Urn: This is the one everyone has to study at some point. I think it is safe to say it is his best known poem period. Here is a picture of an urn that Keats would have saw in a museum back then. In this poem Keats takes the pictures on the urn and transforms it, through an imagined "conversation" to the object, into one of the best stories ever written. (Guess which one of these is my favorite.)

Ode To Melancholy: Shortest ode. Dr. Keats prescribes some lyrical medication for dealing with melancholy.

Ode on Indolence: He sees "shadows" that turn out to be virtues he use to want in his life but now just sees them fade (Love, ambition, and..."Posey").

To Autumn: Well the fall is a season where certain things live and other things die...until spring. But more importantly it is necessary so we better just enjoy it (my interpretation).

So there you have it, all of his 1819 odes. I could have done more of his poetry (and I might in the future) but for now this will do. If you can stand poetry you can't go wrong with these poems.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

By pure coincidence, I read these poems together for the first time today, on the 200th anniversary of John Keats' death. His odes are beautiful.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

When through the Old Oak Forest I'm gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But, when I'm consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.
- Sonnet on sitting down to read King Lear once again, John Keats.

[phoebe]

not my favorite bc of the language, but i love the subject matters. ode to a nightingale is particularly good. very accurate depiction of depression

[Kendall Snee]

Part 1 of my summer reading series
I have been on a mission to refamiliarize myself with the poetic canon. I’ve been taking this online poetry workshop and Keat’s Ode’s was our first stop on said poetry tour de force.

Things learned: to truly understand poetry, especially the romantics you have to have a good handle on Greek mythology.

Keats is pretty emo. I am surprised he is not marketed like a Poe or Dickinson the way he talks of self harm and suicide ideation in ode to melancholy.

We had some pretty interesting conversations about Keat’s lost stanzas and if it’s revisionist of us to go back and read the poem with the stanza included.

[R. Will ཨོཾ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m sorry I will be a Keats glazer till I die I do not gaf. Like there was no one doing verse like this man like NOT A SINGLE MISS. you cannot outdo the doer
You just can’t . This verse is so effortlessly fluid and yes floral but it doesn’t feel heavy or overly dense ok now. Imma be real it’s been a while since I’ve been in the realm of the romantics and just the constant Greek allusions do get tiring to me after a period of non exposure but it’s just part of the form or hashtag whatever. Anyway I love my recurrently suicidal chronically ill emotional support white man he’s just like me fr

[Edward Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forget the Preface, just read the Odes

His perfumed English words drip like jewelled dew drops from the reader's mouth. Oh yes, these poems implore to be read out loud, even to one's self.

If English Poetry ever approached perfection it was in these Odes. Keats is a moonchlild, an Apollo, a Nightingale, driven to articulate in verse that beauty is truth, and that this truth is beautiful in its expression.

[Tom Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

While language is dated his Wisdom comes through.

Keats’ thoughts on Fame, Death, and Beauty are timeless though his language and style are probably foreign to 21st Century readers.

The Audible copy also contained some Sonnets along with the Odes. The narration was perfectly appropriate to the poems. Four Stars. ****

[Jacky Chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd forgotten how stunningly beautiful Keats' poetry is.

[Iz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ode to a nightingale…Gosh! There is something about the way a poet can make something we never truly think about in such depth so utterly appealing.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Six romantic odes from 1819. Possibly the basis of his best known work, particularly Ode to a Grecian Urn.

[PastelKos · Rating 5 out of 5]

thelw na parw pipa ston Khts

[Pedro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written collection of Odes, ceremonious lyric poems, that explore the landscape of the human.

[Moon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read A Pocket Poets illustrated by Patricia Machin. It was not good. A few of the poems were alright. Maybe it's the old English style.

[Gabriella Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adieu is Keats’ favorite word (it’s in every ode I’m not even lying)

[Amalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ode on a Grecian Urn
Ode to a Nightingale
To Autumn
Ode on Melancholy

[ZaRi]

1.
No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

2.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

3.
She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous
tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

[Kate Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!! These are definitely a must-read. The language is classical but it's written so well that it becomes simple to understand. The poems have so many layers that it's so easy to get lost in them and indeed I did.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some beautiful writing; just a shame he died young.

[Matt Lanka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply some of the most sublime poetry ever written.