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Keats
Andrew Motion's dramatic narration of Keats's life is the first in a generation to take a fresh look at this great English Romantic poet. Unlike previous biographers, Motion pays close attention to the social and political worlds Keats inhabited. Making incisive use of the poet's inimitable letters, Motion presents a masterful account.
"Motion has given us a new Keats, one who is skinned alive, a genius who wrote in a single month all the poems we cherish, a victim who was tormented by the best doctors of the age. . . . This portrait, stripped of its layers of varnish and restored to glowing colours, should last us for another generation."—Edmund White, The Observer Review
"Keats's letters fairly leap off the page. . . . [Motion] listens for the 'freely associating inquiry and incomparable verve and dash,' the 'headlong charge,' of Keats's jazzlike improvisations, which give us, like no other writing in English, the actual rush of a man thinking, a mind hurtling forward unpredictably and sweeping us along."—Morris Dickstein, New York Times Book Review
"Scrupulous and eloquent."—Gregory Feeley, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Motion has given us a new Keats, one who is skinned alive, a genius who wrote in a single month all the poems we cherish, a victim who was tormented by the best doctors of the age. . . . This portrait, stripped of its layers of varnish and restored to glowing colours, should last us for another generation."—Edmund White, The Observer Review
"Keats's letters fairly leap off the page. . . . [Motion] listens for the 'freely associating inquiry and incomparable verve and dash,' the 'headlong charge,' of Keats's jazzlike improvisations, which give us, like no other writing in English, the actual rush of a man thinking, a mind hurtling forward unpredictably and sweeping us along."—Morris Dickstein, New York Times Book Review
"Scrupulous and eloquent."—Gregory Feeley, Philadelphia Inquirer
656 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
40 people are currently reading
1176 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Motion
111 books63 followersSir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.
Motion was appointed Poet Laureate on 1 May 1999, following the death of Ted Hughes, the previous incumbent. The Nobel Prize-winning Northern Irish poet and translator Seamus Heaney had ruled himself out for the post. Breaking with the tradition of the laureate retaining the post for life, Motion stipulated that he would stay for only ten years. The yearly stipend of £200 was increased to £5,000 and he received the customary butt of sack.
He wanted to write "poems about things in the news, and commissions from people or organisations involved with ordinary life," rather than be seen a 'courtier'. So, he wrote "for the TUC about liberty, about homelessness for the Salvation Army, about bullying for ChildLine, about the foot and mouth outbreak for the Today programme, about the Paddington rail disaster, the 11 September attacks and Harry Patch for the BBC, and more recently about shell shock for the charity Combat Stress, and climate change for the song cycle I've finished for Cambridge University with Peter Maxwell Davies." In 2003, Motion wrote Regime change, a poem in protest at Invasion of Iraq from the point of view of Death walking the streets during the conflict, and in 2005, Spring Wedding in honour of the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker Bowles. Commissioned to write in the honour of 109 year old Harry Patch, the last surviving 'Tommy' to have fought in World War I, Motion composed a five part poem, read and received by Patch at the Bishop's Palace in Wells in 2008. As laureate, he also founded the Poetry Archive an on-line library of historic and contemporary recordings of poets reciting their own work.
Motion remarked that he found some of the duties attendant to the post of poet laureate difficult and onerous and that the appointment had been "very, very damaging to [his] work". The appointment of Motion met with criticism from some quarters. As he prepared to stand down from the job, Motion published an article in The Guardian which concluded, "To have had 10 years working as laureate has been remarkable. Sometimes it's been remarkably difficult, the laureate has to take a lot of flak, one way or another. More often it has been remarkably fulfilling. I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad I'm giving it up – especially since I mean to continue working for poetry." Motion spent his last day as Poet Laureate holding a creative writing class at his alma mater, Radley College, before giving a poetry reading and thanking Peter Way, the man who taught him English at Radley, for making him who he was. Carol Ann Duffy succeeded him as Poet Laureate on 1 May 2009.
Andrew Motion nació en 1952. Estudió en el University College de Oxford y empezó su carrera enseñando inglés en la Universidad de Hull. También ha sido director de Poetry Review, director editorial de Chatto & Windus, y Poeta Laureado; asimismo, fue cofundador del Poetry Archive, y en 2009 se le concedió el título de Sir por su obra literaria. En la actualidad es profesor de escritura creativa en el Royal Holloway, de la Universidad de Londres. Es miembro de la Royal Society of Literature y vive en Londres. Con un elenco de nobles marineros y crueles piratas, y llena de historias de amor y de valentía, Regreso a la isla del tesoro es una trepidante continuación de La isla del tesoro, escrita con extraordinaria autenticidad y fuerza imaginativa por uno de los grandes escritores ingleses actuales.
Motion was appointed Poet Laureate on 1 May 1999, following the death of Ted Hughes, the previous incumbent. The Nobel Prize-winning Northern Irish poet and translator Seamus Heaney had ruled himself out for the post. Breaking with the tradition of the laureate retaining the post for life, Motion stipulated that he would stay for only ten years. The yearly stipend of £200 was increased to £5,000 and he received the customary butt of sack.
He wanted to write "poems about things in the news, and commissions from people or organisations involved with ordinary life," rather than be seen a 'courtier'. So, he wrote "for the TUC about liberty, about homelessness for the Salvation Army, about bullying for ChildLine, about the foot and mouth outbreak for the Today programme, about the Paddington rail disaster, the 11 September attacks and Harry Patch for the BBC, and more recently about shell shock for the charity Combat Stress, and climate change for the song cycle I've finished for Cambridge University with Peter Maxwell Davies." In 2003, Motion wrote Regime change, a poem in protest at Invasion of Iraq from the point of view of Death walking the streets during the conflict, and in 2005, Spring Wedding in honour of the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker Bowles. Commissioned to write in the honour of 109 year old Harry Patch, the last surviving 'Tommy' to have fought in World War I, Motion composed a five part poem, read and received by Patch at the Bishop's Palace in Wells in 2008. As laureate, he also founded the Poetry Archive an on-line library of historic and contemporary recordings of poets reciting their own work.
Motion remarked that he found some of the duties attendant to the post of poet laureate difficult and onerous and that the appointment had been "very, very damaging to [his] work". The appointment of Motion met with criticism from some quarters. As he prepared to stand down from the job, Motion published an article in The Guardian which concluded, "To have had 10 years working as laureate has been remarkable. Sometimes it's been remarkably difficult, the laureate has to take a lot of flak, one way or another. More often it has been remarkably fulfilling. I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad I'm giving it up – especially since I mean to continue working for poetry." Motion spent his last day as Poet Laureate holding a creative writing class at his alma mater, Radley College, before giving a poetry reading and thanking Peter Way, the man who taught him English at Radley, for making him who he was. Carol Ann Duffy succeeded him as Poet Laureate on 1 May 2009.
Andrew Motion nació en 1952. Estudió en el University College de Oxford y empezó su carrera enseñando inglés en la Universidad de Hull. También ha sido director de Poetry Review, director editorial de Chatto & Windus, y Poeta Laureado; asimismo, fue cofundador del Poetry Archive, y en 2009 se le concedió el título de Sir por su obra literaria. En la actualidad es profesor de escritura creativa en el Royal Holloway, de la Universidad de Londres. Es miembro de la Royal Society of Literature y vive en Londres. Con un elenco de nobles marineros y crueles piratas, y llena de historias de amor y de valentía, Regreso a la isla del tesoro es una trepidante continuación de La isla del tesoro, escrita con extraordinaria autenticidad y fuerza imaginativa por uno de los grandes escritores ingleses actuales.
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March 16, 2020At school sex and death was provided via the medium of John Donne rather than by means of John Keats. So when I started to read a volume of John Keats' selected verse I wondered why somebody living in London at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the city was already a metropolis with over a million inhabitants sprawling over the landscape, swallowing up villages whole for breakfast as it grew, would be writing so much about grottos and woodland bowers. My curiosity worked on me until I had to succumb to the gravitational pull of the nearest bookshop and part with some pounds for this lengthy 1997 biography by former poet laureate Andrew Motion of John Keats, the poet who died at the age of twenty-five years and four months of tuberculosis in Rome.
The poet's life was short and a little less than half the book is taken up by his last year. Even so I would have been glad if the biography had been longer. Keats' posthumous reputation was wrapped up a couple of pages, more on contemporary medicine both in regard to his treatment and study at St.Thomas' hospital would have interested me, as would more on his schooling. The kindest compliment for any book is to wish it had been longer.
Keats received a drubbing from some critics in his lifetime both for the emotion in his poetry and his letters as well as for his politics. Motion does well in recapturing Keats politics and how difficult it was not to be political in British society in the years immediately after the Battle of Waterloo. What works less well for me is Keats turning from the study of medicine to writing poetry as a movement from curing the individual to curing society. But then I should remember he was young and idealistic.
His emotional side, which received negative criticism in stiff lipped times, was a mess of loss and heartbreak. Tuberculosis stalks through the pages, although a few people managed to die of other causes. His relationship with his mother is enlisted to explain his difficulties in romantic relationships (such difficulties however did not prevent him from needing to self administer syphilis cures). In an unpleasant twist masturbation and emotional engagement were both believed to be contributing factors in the spread of tuberculosis adding public shame to the difficulties of coping with the disease as well as an unwillingness to admit to having that disease for fear of appearing weak in soul as well as body.
Shelley and Byron lurk on odd pages, Keats meets Wordsworth - in formal dress and by Keats' time such an old conservative that it is a wonder that "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/ But to be young was very heaven!" was not edited out of his works. Keats attended some lectures by Hazlitt and reflects on Cobbett. My reading list lengthens.
I am drawn to buying a volume of Keats letters and reading further as he finds the words to express the idea of negative capability "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason" and see him recount his walking tour with a friend through the Lake District, Scotland and then Ulster, each region poorer than the last. Poverty feeds back into the politics as the inevitable result of the political decision to engage in a generation of near continuous warfare.
One of the pleasures of this book are the full-page reproductions of Keats' handwriting. Varying between cross written (first from left to right and then from top to bottom of a page to save on paper and postage costs) and poems in neat script for his publishers, and the letters addressed to his sweetheart Frances Brawne as "My sweet Fanny" I hope that the double entendre existed at the time and gave them both some enjoyment.
Something else that Motion brings out nicely is the affection that people had for Keats. Unfortunately this misfired after his death. Keats' sister broke off relations with Fanny Brawne when she married more than ten years after Keats death (three of which she spent wearing mourning even though the two were not so much as formally engaged let alone married). Keats' friend Brown, who married the servant girl that he had got pregnant in a Catholic ceremony which gave him custody rights but enabled him to dump the girl as soon as the child was weaned (Catholic marriages had limited legal status in the years before Catholic emancipation), quarrelled immediately after Keats death with his publisher over writing a biography (a task he could never get round to doing himself) and with Keats' surviving brother George over his poetic legacy more generally.
The pages given over to the poetry will probably get the most attention in schools and colleges. Motion pays attention to Keats' models, here we go back to politics as Keats naturally looked to Milton as a poet aligned to the Radical tradition. Unfortunately it is the Miltonic Endymion and Hyperion that come off as less successful than the Odes. So short a life, the man was still developing his voice when he reached his end. Motion is alive to the work of other poets coming to Keats' attention their impact upon him - most immediately in "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer".
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever", but it is the pain and wretchedness of his death that closes the book. Fanny Brawne in pain at not having been with him, Keats not able to read the last two letters from her - asking that they be laid in his grave instead. His friend Severn hovering about him as Keats passed away in rented rooms in Rome where he had been sent for the good of his health, finally asking the gravediggers to lay turfs with daisies upon his friend's grave. An utterly painful and miserable end to a Micawberish existence coloured by our knowledge that unbeknown to Keats a fair-sized inheritance from his grandparents had been lodged at Chancery and was to remain uncollected.
The poet's life was short and a little less than half the book is taken up by his last year. Even so I would have been glad if the biography had been longer. Keats' posthumous reputation was wrapped up a couple of pages, more on contemporary medicine both in regard to his treatment and study at St.Thomas' hospital would have interested me, as would more on his schooling. The kindest compliment for any book is to wish it had been longer.
Keats received a drubbing from some critics in his lifetime both for the emotion in his poetry and his letters as well as for his politics. Motion does well in recapturing Keats politics and how difficult it was not to be political in British society in the years immediately after the Battle of Waterloo. What works less well for me is Keats turning from the study of medicine to writing poetry as a movement from curing the individual to curing society. But then I should remember he was young and idealistic.
His emotional side, which received negative criticism in stiff lipped times, was a mess of loss and heartbreak. Tuberculosis stalks through the pages, although a few people managed to die of other causes. His relationship with his mother is enlisted to explain his difficulties in romantic relationships (such difficulties however did not prevent him from needing to self administer syphilis cures). In an unpleasant twist masturbation and emotional engagement were both believed to be contributing factors in the spread of tuberculosis adding public shame to the difficulties of coping with the disease as well as an unwillingness to admit to having that disease for fear of appearing weak in soul as well as body.
Shelley and Byron lurk on odd pages, Keats meets Wordsworth - in formal dress and by Keats' time such an old conservative that it is a wonder that "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/ But to be young was very heaven!" was not edited out of his works. Keats attended some lectures by Hazlitt and reflects on Cobbett. My reading list lengthens.
I am drawn to buying a volume of Keats letters and reading further as he finds the words to express the idea of negative capability "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason" and see him recount his walking tour with a friend through the Lake District, Scotland and then Ulster, each region poorer than the last. Poverty feeds back into the politics as the inevitable result of the political decision to engage in a generation of near continuous warfare.
One of the pleasures of this book are the full-page reproductions of Keats' handwriting. Varying between cross written (first from left to right and then from top to bottom of a page to save on paper and postage costs) and poems in neat script for his publishers, and the letters addressed to his sweetheart Frances Brawne as "My sweet Fanny" I hope that the double entendre existed at the time and gave them both some enjoyment.
Something else that Motion brings out nicely is the affection that people had for Keats. Unfortunately this misfired after his death. Keats' sister broke off relations with Fanny Brawne when she married more than ten years after Keats death (three of which she spent wearing mourning even though the two were not so much as formally engaged let alone married). Keats' friend Brown, who married the servant girl that he had got pregnant in a Catholic ceremony which gave him custody rights but enabled him to dump the girl as soon as the child was weaned (Catholic marriages had limited legal status in the years before Catholic emancipation), quarrelled immediately after Keats death with his publisher over writing a biography (a task he could never get round to doing himself) and with Keats' surviving brother George over his poetic legacy more generally.
The pages given over to the poetry will probably get the most attention in schools and colleges. Motion pays attention to Keats' models, here we go back to politics as Keats naturally looked to Milton as a poet aligned to the Radical tradition. Unfortunately it is the Miltonic Endymion and Hyperion that come off as less successful than the Odes. So short a life, the man was still developing his voice when he reached his end. Motion is alive to the work of other poets coming to Keats' attention their impact upon him - most immediately in "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer".
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever", but it is the pain and wretchedness of his death that closes the book. Fanny Brawne in pain at not having been with him, Keats not able to read the last two letters from her - asking that they be laid in his grave instead. His friend Severn hovering about him as Keats passed away in rented rooms in Rome where he had been sent for the good of his health, finally asking the gravediggers to lay turfs with daisies upon his friend's grave. An utterly painful and miserable end to a Micawberish existence coloured by our knowledge that unbeknown to Keats a fair-sized inheritance from his grandparents had been lodged at Chancery and was to remain uncollected.
May 9, 2013
I don't tend towards biographies in general. Mostly because often too much in the way of factual content can be a little dry, no matter how it is presented.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed Motion's Keats immensely. I was a little apprehensive at first. I had basic facts and knowledge as a rough foundation, and some recollection of Keats from my university years (and the film Bright Star, ahem) but this was a whole other level.
Keats is synonymous with the idea of an inherently tragic figure, and rightly so in many regards. He very rarely encountered good fortune, despite his pursuit of truth and beauty. His family life was hard, he was essentially orphaned young, and his poetic work was largely overlooked during his lifetime. His health caused him to suffer immensely, and he was forced to leave the one true love of his life, knowing that he would never see her again. And yet, here we are now, two hundred years later, reading 500+ pages of biography and learning his poetry in schools and being impressed by how this man turned these tragedies into such written ecstasies.
The book gives a fantastically rounded version of Keats. He is not the wispy tragic figure that he is so often personified as, such as Shelley's claim he was "snuffed out by an article". Of course, it can't be denied that there is an element of the tragic about him, but the books manages to convey his wonderful personality, whether it be ironic or jealous, sociable, dramatic or depressed. He clearly was a man of very strong feelings, whatever they were, especially to throw in a potentially steady career as a doctor in order to dedicate his life to poetry. Writing was clearly a compulsion, rather than a decision based on common sense (financial common sense, at least)!
Small parts of this book are a little bit of a trawl - there is a lot of information packed in and not all facets are going to appeal to everyone. That said, it gave me a brilliant insight not only into Keats and his work, but the world he lived in, the people he knew, the political and literary climate of the time, even the medical world. There are also some fantastic anecdotes which make Keats come even more alive (pardon the expression). For instance, in Rome, he was so disgusted with the quality of some food that had been delivered to him and his friend that he simply just threw it out the window, and waited for some more (better quality) food to be provided (which is exactly what happened). Another time, he beat a butcher's boy for tormenting a kitten! In many ways, he was not the consumptive dreamy genius that we think. He was bold and brave and drew people into his orbit, collecting friends so dedicated that they pushed his cause even long after his death.
For me, the relationship between Fanny Brawne and Keats is something that I particularly find completely fascinating. It is completely understandable how this book inspired Jane Campion to make the wonderful film, Bright Star. Reading Keats' letters to Fanny Brawne in more detail is something I intend to do very soon, but even the excerpts and commentary provided in this biography was heart-wrenching enough!
"I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be Martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my Religion - I could die for that - I could die for you."
All in all, I found this a fantastic book. It provided such a well-rounded look at Keats, his life and his work. I was so very moved in the final chapters, ticking towards the inevitable and sad end. It has also inspired me to pick up other biographies in future, probably starting with some of Keats' poetic contemporaries.
I do have to hope that Keats, who felt sure that memories of him and his work would fade away as if "writ in water", would take some heart in knowing that his name is now irrevocably placed as one of the all-time great English poets.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed Motion's Keats immensely. I was a little apprehensive at first. I had basic facts and knowledge as a rough foundation, and some recollection of Keats from my university years (and the film Bright Star, ahem) but this was a whole other level.
Keats is synonymous with the idea of an inherently tragic figure, and rightly so in many regards. He very rarely encountered good fortune, despite his pursuit of truth and beauty. His family life was hard, he was essentially orphaned young, and his poetic work was largely overlooked during his lifetime. His health caused him to suffer immensely, and he was forced to leave the one true love of his life, knowing that he would never see her again. And yet, here we are now, two hundred years later, reading 500+ pages of biography and learning his poetry in schools and being impressed by how this man turned these tragedies into such written ecstasies.
The book gives a fantastically rounded version of Keats. He is not the wispy tragic figure that he is so often personified as, such as Shelley's claim he was "snuffed out by an article". Of course, it can't be denied that there is an element of the tragic about him, but the books manages to convey his wonderful personality, whether it be ironic or jealous, sociable, dramatic or depressed. He clearly was a man of very strong feelings, whatever they were, especially to throw in a potentially steady career as a doctor in order to dedicate his life to poetry. Writing was clearly a compulsion, rather than a decision based on common sense (financial common sense, at least)!
Small parts of this book are a little bit of a trawl - there is a lot of information packed in and not all facets are going to appeal to everyone. That said, it gave me a brilliant insight not only into Keats and his work, but the world he lived in, the people he knew, the political and literary climate of the time, even the medical world. There are also some fantastic anecdotes which make Keats come even more alive (pardon the expression). For instance, in Rome, he was so disgusted with the quality of some food that had been delivered to him and his friend that he simply just threw it out the window, and waited for some more (better quality) food to be provided (which is exactly what happened). Another time, he beat a butcher's boy for tormenting a kitten! In many ways, he was not the consumptive dreamy genius that we think. He was bold and brave and drew people into his orbit, collecting friends so dedicated that they pushed his cause even long after his death.
For me, the relationship between Fanny Brawne and Keats is something that I particularly find completely fascinating. It is completely understandable how this book inspired Jane Campion to make the wonderful film, Bright Star. Reading Keats' letters to Fanny Brawne in more detail is something I intend to do very soon, but even the excerpts and commentary provided in this biography was heart-wrenching enough!
"I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be Martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my Religion - I could die for that - I could die for you."
All in all, I found this a fantastic book. It provided such a well-rounded look at Keats, his life and his work. I was so very moved in the final chapters, ticking towards the inevitable and sad end. It has also inspired me to pick up other biographies in future, probably starting with some of Keats' poetic contemporaries.
I do have to hope that Keats, who felt sure that memories of him and his work would fade away as if "writ in water", would take some heart in knowing that his name is now irrevocably placed as one of the all-time great English poets.
January 30, 2013
I've been picking through this biography for a paper, and can't wait to sit down and read the whole thing! Keats was a fascinating and tragic figure.
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I think I have some things to say about Keats, but it's late, and reading about the end of his life has made me sad. Review to come.
------------
OK. Where to begin? I should mention that I've been a fan of Keats, as much as I can be a fan without being particularly skilled at reading and understanding poetry, for several years. The odes, "The Eve of St. Agnes," "Lamia," "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," and oh my God "To Autumn." So beautiful. I have less success with the longer poems, like "Hyperion" and "Endymion." But his shorter poems and his letters have made me fall in love with him. When I spent the summer in London and Scotland, studying library science, one of our assignments was to make site visits of libraries and museums. I made Keats my assignment. I visited his Hampstead home, where he lived with his friend Brown and next door to the woman who would become his fiancee and his obsession. I visited Winchester, where he spent some time and which inspired him to write my favorite of his poems, "To Autumn." I walked the very path that Keats walked just a year before his death. Last year I visited Italy, and it wouldn't have been complete without a mini pilgrimage to the rooms near the Spanish Steps where Keats spent his final weeks. And upon reading this biography, I discovered that I'd been unknowingly stalking Keats throughout my earlier travels. I'd been to the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, which astonished and inspired Keats. I'd been to the birthplace of Robert Burns, where Keats made a pilgrimage on his walking tour of Scotland. I'd been to Ben Nevis, and stayed a short walk from the hospital in London where Keats trained to become a surgeon. I point this out just to show that I feel a weird sense of connection with Keats, in addition to my admiration, and that's what led me to read this large and intimidating biography. Which, I should point out, contains quite a bit of in-depth discussion and analysis of poetry. Be ye warned.
I thought I had a general understanding of Keats. Who he was. What his life was like. And while I had a decent understanding of the basic trajectory of his life, I was shocked at how much I learned about him, and how affecting his story was. Keats lived a difficult life filled with challenges and grief, which I knew, and I hesitate to just give an extensive timeline of his life. So instead I'll just point out some of the things that I didn't know. He was born in the East End of London. John Keats was a Cockney! I had no idea. I always imagined him speaking with a posh British accent. Imagining him with a Cockney accent makes him more approachable. More human. He was also, kind of, a little bit of a misogynist. Normally this would be a big deal-breaker for me, but reading about his life, and knowing about the time, I was somehow able to understand, if not accept, where he was coming from. Largely because he was aware that his views of women were "not right," and because there were a few women who were important in his life and who he respected. Most importantly, I learned that Keats was politically minded, savvy, and while the negative reviews of his work that prevailed in his day upset him, he knew to expect them. He was mainly upset because they affected his ability to make a living as a poet, not because he was the delicate, sensitive poet that he gained a reputation for being. He was actually kind of a dude. He spent half the book treating himself for VD, so he was obviously no shy and retiring violet. There are reports that he once beat a butcher's boy for tormenting a kitten. He wasn't afraid of a fight, he was social, and while he wasn't willing to play the game in the literary world, he absolutely knew that it existed and how it would affect him. Again, this was a pleasant surprise that made him more vivid in my imagination, and more human.
I feel like I'm rambling. Which happens when I have a lot to say about a topic that I find interesting. So let me reign myself in, and just address how absolutely heartrending I find the end of his life. He was so very, very young when he died. Just over 25 years old. He had barely known Fanny Brawne, his fiancee, his great love, and his jealous obsession. He was a trained surgeon who had nursed two family members with tuberculosis until their deaths, and so had every idea of what his own death from that disease would look like. He was separated from family and friends, in a foreign country, horribly ill and subjected to bleedings and starvation diets in the attempt of a cure, he had little hope of a lasting reputation as a poet. His letters from his last weeks, and the descriptions of his friend and nurse Severn, are absolutely heartbreaking. Andrew Motion tells the story in such a way that you can feel Keats' anguish at his impending death. You know that poem by Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle?" It was very much on my mind as I read about the end of Keats' life. His grief and anguish were never from a place of self-pity or fear. Instead, it was anger and rage. Anger that his progress as a poet would cease. Anger that he must leave Fanny Brawne before their relationship could be fully realized. Anger that all the beauty and horror and poverty and brilliance of the world were disappearing for him. It was raw and brutal, and it brought me to tears. I wonder if he would be gratified to know that he is now considered one of the pre-eminent English poets. I hope so.
To wrap up, and to sum up my feelings about Keats after having read hundreds of pages about him and his poetry, let me quote Hugh Grant from the Bridget Jones's Diary movie: "Fuck me, I love Keats."
------------
I think I have some things to say about Keats, but it's late, and reading about the end of his life has made me sad. Review to come.
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OK. Where to begin? I should mention that I've been a fan of Keats, as much as I can be a fan without being particularly skilled at reading and understanding poetry, for several years. The odes, "The Eve of St. Agnes," "Lamia," "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," and oh my God "To Autumn." So beautiful. I have less success with the longer poems, like "Hyperion" and "Endymion." But his shorter poems and his letters have made me fall in love with him. When I spent the summer in London and Scotland, studying library science, one of our assignments was to make site visits of libraries and museums. I made Keats my assignment. I visited his Hampstead home, where he lived with his friend Brown and next door to the woman who would become his fiancee and his obsession. I visited Winchester, where he spent some time and which inspired him to write my favorite of his poems, "To Autumn." I walked the very path that Keats walked just a year before his death. Last year I visited Italy, and it wouldn't have been complete without a mini pilgrimage to the rooms near the Spanish Steps where Keats spent his final weeks. And upon reading this biography, I discovered that I'd been unknowingly stalking Keats throughout my earlier travels. I'd been to the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, which astonished and inspired Keats. I'd been to the birthplace of Robert Burns, where Keats made a pilgrimage on his walking tour of Scotland. I'd been to Ben Nevis, and stayed a short walk from the hospital in London where Keats trained to become a surgeon. I point this out just to show that I feel a weird sense of connection with Keats, in addition to my admiration, and that's what led me to read this large and intimidating biography. Which, I should point out, contains quite a bit of in-depth discussion and analysis of poetry. Be ye warned.
I thought I had a general understanding of Keats. Who he was. What his life was like. And while I had a decent understanding of the basic trajectory of his life, I was shocked at how much I learned about him, and how affecting his story was. Keats lived a difficult life filled with challenges and grief, which I knew, and I hesitate to just give an extensive timeline of his life. So instead I'll just point out some of the things that I didn't know. He was born in the East End of London. John Keats was a Cockney! I had no idea. I always imagined him speaking with a posh British accent. Imagining him with a Cockney accent makes him more approachable. More human. He was also, kind of, a little bit of a misogynist. Normally this would be a big deal-breaker for me, but reading about his life, and knowing about the time, I was somehow able to understand, if not accept, where he was coming from. Largely because he was aware that his views of women were "not right," and because there were a few women who were important in his life and who he respected. Most importantly, I learned that Keats was politically minded, savvy, and while the negative reviews of his work that prevailed in his day upset him, he knew to expect them. He was mainly upset because they affected his ability to make a living as a poet, not because he was the delicate, sensitive poet that he gained a reputation for being. He was actually kind of a dude. He spent half the book treating himself for VD, so he was obviously no shy and retiring violet. There are reports that he once beat a butcher's boy for tormenting a kitten. He wasn't afraid of a fight, he was social, and while he wasn't willing to play the game in the literary world, he absolutely knew that it existed and how it would affect him. Again, this was a pleasant surprise that made him more vivid in my imagination, and more human.
I feel like I'm rambling. Which happens when I have a lot to say about a topic that I find interesting. So let me reign myself in, and just address how absolutely heartrending I find the end of his life. He was so very, very young when he died. Just over 25 years old. He had barely known Fanny Brawne, his fiancee, his great love, and his jealous obsession. He was a trained surgeon who had nursed two family members with tuberculosis until their deaths, and so had every idea of what his own death from that disease would look like. He was separated from family and friends, in a foreign country, horribly ill and subjected to bleedings and starvation diets in the attempt of a cure, he had little hope of a lasting reputation as a poet. His letters from his last weeks, and the descriptions of his friend and nurse Severn, are absolutely heartbreaking. Andrew Motion tells the story in such a way that you can feel Keats' anguish at his impending death. You know that poem by Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle?" It was very much on my mind as I read about the end of Keats' life. His grief and anguish were never from a place of self-pity or fear. Instead, it was anger and rage. Anger that his progress as a poet would cease. Anger that he must leave Fanny Brawne before their relationship could be fully realized. Anger that all the beauty and horror and poverty and brilliance of the world were disappearing for him. It was raw and brutal, and it brought me to tears. I wonder if he would be gratified to know that he is now considered one of the pre-eminent English poets. I hope so.
To wrap up, and to sum up my feelings about Keats after having read hundreds of pages about him and his poetry, let me quote Hugh Grant from the Bridget Jones's Diary movie: "Fuck me, I love Keats."
August 26, 2022
4,25 stars - English Ebook
Short note in agenda:
The alchemy that Andrew Motion creates from the various elements of Keats' poems and letters, and the knowledge of the work of biographers that preceded him, cut to the chase in understanding the historical and political contexts of Keats brief, stellar life is a passioned intresting read.
I have put the book down to attend a dinner with friends and found myself speeding back home to eagerly pick it up again!
It's almost appalling to think of the book ending so soon, not due to the number of pages that remain but Keat's impossibly early death.
Short note in agenda:
The alchemy that Andrew Motion creates from the various elements of Keats' poems and letters, and the knowledge of the work of biographers that preceded him, cut to the chase in understanding the historical and political contexts of Keats brief, stellar life is a passioned intresting read.
I have put the book down to attend a dinner with friends and found myself speeding back home to eagerly pick it up again!
It's almost appalling to think of the book ending so soon, not due to the number of pages that remain but Keat's impossibly early death.
August 21, 2016
I'm at a bit of a loss for words. This book has been somewhere on my person pretty much wherever I've gone for the past three months, and I feel like I've been put into close conversation with Keats and his contemporaries as if they were all people I really knew. Motion is such a good biographer that explaining how poignant and fair and strikingly detailed this life story is is almost impossible.
First, a little background: I spent my senior year of undergrad deeply immersed in Keats's poetry, its subsequent criticism, and the correspondence between Keats & his "set." By the time I came to this biography, I had snapshots of Keats the man interspersed with a pretty solid understanding of his work. I did not expect to have the privilege of so fully experiencing his everyday life--and we're talking about pretty much every week of his short 25 years. Because of faithful record-keeping on the part of Keats's circle and Keats himself, we know what their evening meal consisted of the day a certain idea was first discussed; we know shocking and intimate things, we know specific puns that Keats only shared with Severn.
Motion is protective of Keats as a strong, high-minded individual, but also refuses to refrain from thoroughly discussing his flaws and weaknesses (he was poor and short, as well as deeply ambivalent about women). In addition, he provides a thorough examination of Keats's works in context with his moods and the events that were taking place at the time he wrote them, both political and personal, also including fragments of popular criticism of these works.
In short, by the time Keats's lungs are disintegrating in a small room in the Piazza di Spania and he's raving about how lovely the violets will look over his grave, you feel like you're watching every second of it, and you feel like you're losing a dear friend. Motion uses the first 500 pages to establish the value of a life cut short, and then, like Dante, uses the last 50 pages to guide the reader slowly through hell. This isn't to say that the ending is necessarily bitter. In fact, it is quite redeeming to know that someone who swam against the current of bad fortune his whole life, and died thinking "[his] name is Writ in Water," has actually become immortal. And with ample justification.
First, a little background: I spent my senior year of undergrad deeply immersed in Keats's poetry, its subsequent criticism, and the correspondence between Keats & his "set." By the time I came to this biography, I had snapshots of Keats the man interspersed with a pretty solid understanding of his work. I did not expect to have the privilege of so fully experiencing his everyday life--and we're talking about pretty much every week of his short 25 years. Because of faithful record-keeping on the part of Keats's circle and Keats himself, we know what their evening meal consisted of the day a certain idea was first discussed; we know shocking and intimate things, we know specific puns that Keats only shared with Severn.
Motion is protective of Keats as a strong, high-minded individual, but also refuses to refrain from thoroughly discussing his flaws and weaknesses (he was poor and short, as well as deeply ambivalent about women). In addition, he provides a thorough examination of Keats's works in context with his moods and the events that were taking place at the time he wrote them, both political and personal, also including fragments of popular criticism of these works.
In short, by the time Keats's lungs are disintegrating in a small room in the Piazza di Spania and he's raving about how lovely the violets will look over his grave, you feel like you're watching every second of it, and you feel like you're losing a dear friend. Motion uses the first 500 pages to establish the value of a life cut short, and then, like Dante, uses the last 50 pages to guide the reader slowly through hell. This isn't to say that the ending is necessarily bitter. In fact, it is quite redeeming to know that someone who swam against the current of bad fortune his whole life, and died thinking "[his] name is Writ in Water," has actually become immortal. And with ample justification.
February 18, 2017
I never had the privilege of studying John Keats at school, so I came to him via a less expected path: reading the science fiction novel Hyperion by Dan Simmons. In that futuristic tale, the historical Keats has been cloned and augmented as a 'cybrid', and goes on an adventure with a detective named Brawne Lamia. I was intrigued enough to want to know more!
I soon stumbled across this biography by Andrew Motion, which has been my key text for years. I came to really love the feisty and engaged young man that Motion depicted - and while Keats was as fallible and conflicted as any human must be, I feel that he is one of the best and most interesting people who've ever lived.
Motion gives the appropriate weight to Keats' gift for friendship, to the power of his love for Fanny Brawne (cause of both ardent joy and deathly despair), and to his deeply felt vocation as a poet. I can't recommend this tome highly enough.
I soon stumbled across this biography by Andrew Motion, which has been my key text for years. I came to really love the feisty and engaged young man that Motion depicted - and while Keats was as fallible and conflicted as any human must be, I feel that he is one of the best and most interesting people who've ever lived.
Motion gives the appropriate weight to Keats' gift for friendship, to the power of his love for Fanny Brawne (cause of both ardent joy and deathly despair), and to his deeply felt vocation as a poet. I can't recommend this tome highly enough.
January 5, 2020
Keats — pretentious, overbearing, hyper-enthusiastic, self-hating misogynist. Produced long narrative poems that all mostly suck (w flashes of total genius), a handful of sonnets (mostly great w a few immortals), and a smattering of perfect odes. (And the letters!) Then he just keeled over. Keats had just shaken off most of his juvenilia when he died. When you realize Mozart lives a full decade longer you start to realize the sheer loss.
August 14, 2009
An excellent, thorough biography interspersed with solid readings of the poems -- Keats died at age 26, and somehow Motion's biography runs to nearly 600 pages without ever seeming unnecessarily detailed.
February 21, 2010
The full disclaimer is, I have not read this whole book, and I'm never going to. I just watched the movie Bright Star, about Keats & Fanny Brawne, and it was great, so I thought, maybe I'll finally read more of that massive Keats biography I bought back in the day when I had a plan of reading all his letters and poems and a bio & a critical study (HA!) and I did read the first 100 pages, and they were...not very interesting. This is really a book for Keats scholars, not post-grad school people who think they maybe could dabble in Keats scholarship. But I read the last 30 pages or so the other day (it gets MUCH more interesting after he meets Fanny and gets consumption, so sad--is that a spoiler?) but there are a good 700 or so pages in between. Maybe sometime, Andrew Motion, but probably not.
Currently reading
January 8, 2010I spent about an hour today with my Keats. By age 15, Keats was an orphan -- and apprenticed to a doctor. I have a 15 year old, and we worry about her riding the train on her own!
February 21, 2024
Ashamed it’s taken me five years (on and off) to finish reading this. But glad I powered through - it is incredibly thorough and I strongly admire the work and dedication that has gone into this. I’ve come away even more fascinated by Keats’ life.
For an academic biography, it’s also very engaging. So many fascinating little stories - from the time Keats beat up a butchers boy for tormenting a kitten to him meeting the celebrated poet William Wordsworth (who was disappointingly rude). Keats is often described as being a bit feeble and weak (not helped by those fake rumours he died because of poor reviews!) but it shows a lot of courage and determination to give up a steady career in medicine to become a poet with barely an income. He felt things so strongly - maybe too much - but he had a gift for putting this into words too. The highly charged prose of his love letters to me even challenge his very own poetry.
I was also moved by the strength in his friendships. According to Fanny Brawne, Keats had “some spell that attaches his friends to him.” So many of them rallying round him when he needed it, and then even after his death they remained fiercely loyal in defending his character and promoting his work. I watched the film Bright Star over 10 years ago, but I think it’s high time we had another biopic of Keats’ life. I’d love to see him celebrated again but this time putting a spotlight on his journey and how intensely he lived and felt things and how that intersected with his work.
For an academic biography, it’s also very engaging. So many fascinating little stories - from the time Keats beat up a butchers boy for tormenting a kitten to him meeting the celebrated poet William Wordsworth (who was disappointingly rude). Keats is often described as being a bit feeble and weak (not helped by those fake rumours he died because of poor reviews!) but it shows a lot of courage and determination to give up a steady career in medicine to become a poet with barely an income. He felt things so strongly - maybe too much - but he had a gift for putting this into words too. The highly charged prose of his love letters to me even challenge his very own poetry.
I was also moved by the strength in his friendships. According to Fanny Brawne, Keats had “some spell that attaches his friends to him.” So many of them rallying round him when he needed it, and then even after his death they remained fiercely loyal in defending his character and promoting his work. I watched the film Bright Star over 10 years ago, but I think it’s high time we had another biopic of Keats’ life. I’d love to see him celebrated again but this time putting a spotlight on his journey and how intensely he lived and felt things and how that intersected with his work.
January 28, 2012
"To John Keats - Whose Name Was Writ in Eternity' -quoting Dan Simmons' dedication at the start of his Keats' inspired novel 'The Fall of Hyperion'.
My own review written for Amazon UK:
I approached Andrew Motion’s biography of John Keats with some apprehension - I am no expert, academic or poet. Having read and struggled through Richard Ellmann’s biography of Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde a few years ago, I did wonder if I was going to enjoy Motion’s book at all.
I really need not have worried. This is a really approachable text, obviously within the parameters of its subject matter. Yes, it will probably help if the reader is already familiar with Keats’ work, but I am sure that it would equally serve very well as introducing a new reader to the poet. I’m certainly not a Keats’ scholar and although I was familiar with some of his work, mainly the sonnets, I hardly knew the longer poems, such as Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion and Endymion. Motion amply discusses these poems within a biographical context. Those predominantly ‘literary’ chapters are the hardest to get through, but they are certainly worth the effort, as I feel that I have now gained a general understanding of Keats’ poetry and I feel ready to read them for pure enjoyment.
As for telling the story of John Keats, the man, Motion does a really amazing job, painting a thoroughly modern picture of Keats as a strong, independent young man, rather than the effeminate, delicate dreamer who, as Byron wrote shortly after Keats’ death, ‘let himself be snuffed out by an article’. I am sure that the Keats described by Motion is the real John Keats; a man whose name was not, as his self-penned epitaph reads, ‘writ in water’, but in eternity.
My own review written for Amazon UK:
I approached Andrew Motion’s biography of John Keats with some apprehension - I am no expert, academic or poet. Having read and struggled through Richard Ellmann’s biography of Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde a few years ago, I did wonder if I was going to enjoy Motion’s book at all.
I really need not have worried. This is a really approachable text, obviously within the parameters of its subject matter. Yes, it will probably help if the reader is already familiar with Keats’ work, but I am sure that it would equally serve very well as introducing a new reader to the poet. I’m certainly not a Keats’ scholar and although I was familiar with some of his work, mainly the sonnets, I hardly knew the longer poems, such as Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion and Endymion. Motion amply discusses these poems within a biographical context. Those predominantly ‘literary’ chapters are the hardest to get through, but they are certainly worth the effort, as I feel that I have now gained a general understanding of Keats’ poetry and I feel ready to read them for pure enjoyment.
As for telling the story of John Keats, the man, Motion does a really amazing job, painting a thoroughly modern picture of Keats as a strong, independent young man, rather than the effeminate, delicate dreamer who, as Byron wrote shortly after Keats’ death, ‘let himself be snuffed out by an article’. I am sure that the Keats described by Motion is the real John Keats; a man whose name was not, as his self-penned epitaph reads, ‘writ in water’, but in eternity.
December 15, 2011
John Keats perhaps is my favorite of the Romantic poets. I favor Keats for the poetry and Chopin for the music- although they perhaps each alone bookmark the era. I see there are some similarities between him and Jim Morrison from our own era- however, differences perhaps outweigh the similarities.
Both men died young too young- Keats at 25, Morrison at 27. Both died foreign deaths, due to natural causes. Both were perhaps (arguably) the most talented of their peers, (and here I would argue, Morrison the lesser power.) Lines such as "what have we done to the earth, what have we done to our fair sister?" evince a love of nature which is comparable to that found in Keats' Ode To A Nightingale.
There perhaps the similarities end. While Morrison represented a rebellion against traditions, Keats only seemed to hearken to a more refined Classicism. And while Morrison walked up easily into his crown of laurels, with mass popularity and gold albums, Keats struggled hard for his brief life to earn both acceptance and love- neither of which found him in time. A tragically noble and nobly tragic figure, John Keats did a lot in his short time, and for 'one whose name was writ in water', achieved in poetry at the very least a place amongst the heroic.
This is a very good and scholarly book, perhaps not for the general public, maybe more for the academe, but the initiate and devotee of Keats will be quite satisfied by it.
Both men died young too young- Keats at 25, Morrison at 27. Both died foreign deaths, due to natural causes. Both were perhaps (arguably) the most talented of their peers, (and here I would argue, Morrison the lesser power.) Lines such as "what have we done to the earth, what have we done to our fair sister?" evince a love of nature which is comparable to that found in Keats' Ode To A Nightingale.
There perhaps the similarities end. While Morrison represented a rebellion against traditions, Keats only seemed to hearken to a more refined Classicism. And while Morrison walked up easily into his crown of laurels, with mass popularity and gold albums, Keats struggled hard for his brief life to earn both acceptance and love- neither of which found him in time. A tragically noble and nobly tragic figure, John Keats did a lot in his short time, and for 'one whose name was writ in water', achieved in poetry at the very least a place amongst the heroic.
This is a very good and scholarly book, perhaps not for the general public, maybe more for the academe, but the initiate and devotee of Keats will be quite satisfied by it.
December 4, 2009
Jane Campion on Charlie Rose said that when she turned 50 she felt that she needed to revisit and really understand poetry-referring to poetry as planting a garden in the mind. Keats being her focus and this biography being her first foray into understanding the poet.
This is a biography well worth delving into.
This is a biography well worth delving into.
Read
November 1, 2014A wonderful poet once you read his poems you discover the plagiarism committed by the Arabian so called poet "ADONIS".
July 9, 2025
"Oh, fuck me, I love Keats."
--Daniel Cleaver
--Daniel Cleaver
July 27, 2024
It's difficult to imagine a more comprehensive biography of John Keats than this one by Andrew Motion. Keats died aged 25 and three months and little is known about his childhood so the almost-600 pages of this biography are focused on about 8 years of life. Furthermore Motion for the most part ignores the risk of spending many pages focusing on background to the times and other miscellaneous page filler. This really is a biography that is packed with Keats and little beside Keats.
What this means is that the biography gives as much information as can be imagined about Keats' life and his circle of friends but the detail can be a little overwhelming. Oddly, given that the biography was written by a poet, I could have done with a little more on the poems themselves, especially the famous odes of 1819. I had rather hoped that each of them might have warranted a short chapter by themselves but instead they are crammed into two chapters. I am, like many, guilty of limiting Keats to Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to a Grecian Vase and To Autumn, and reading a little bit more about Lamia and Hyperion has increased my knowledge (but not my appreciation) of them. Even so something a little more about what makes the later poems just so good would have been appreciated.
But, it seems, that would have been out of keeping with Keats' own perceptions of his work and the importance, chronologically, of the other big poems. Endymion, which I found utterly tedious, dominates the book because of the effort that he put into it and the scabrous attacks that he received after publication (attacks that appear as much political as literary). Motion does make the neat point that as To Autumn depicts the season as both a completion and a transition, perhaps that poem does for Keats as well. Who knows what he might have gone on to write? If Wordsworth and Coleridge are anything to go by the answer is not that encouraging. Keats may have died with the promise of more, and still more, but turning to another poem and image, perhaps it was also case that the harvest was done.
What this means is that the biography gives as much information as can be imagined about Keats' life and his circle of friends but the detail can be a little overwhelming. Oddly, given that the biography was written by a poet, I could have done with a little more on the poems themselves, especially the famous odes of 1819. I had rather hoped that each of them might have warranted a short chapter by themselves but instead they are crammed into two chapters. I am, like many, guilty of limiting Keats to Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to a Grecian Vase and To Autumn, and reading a little bit more about Lamia and Hyperion has increased my knowledge (but not my appreciation) of them. Even so something a little more about what makes the later poems just so good would have been appreciated.
But, it seems, that would have been out of keeping with Keats' own perceptions of his work and the importance, chronologically, of the other big poems. Endymion, which I found utterly tedious, dominates the book because of the effort that he put into it and the scabrous attacks that he received after publication (attacks that appear as much political as literary). Motion does make the neat point that as To Autumn depicts the season as both a completion and a transition, perhaps that poem does for Keats as well. Who knows what he might have gone on to write? If Wordsworth and Coleridge are anything to go by the answer is not that encouraging. Keats may have died with the promise of more, and still more, but turning to another poem and image, perhaps it was also case that the harvest was done.
December 31, 2017
This is a fascinating, incredibly detailed biography. Motion offers extensive historical context for Keats’ life and work, along with thoughtful analysis of his poetry. Much of his analysis reframes the political and social commentary of Keats’ writing, a fresh approach to work that is often viewed as “outside of time” or purely sensual.
I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about Keats, his circle, and his family. Despite the length, Motion’s writing is engaging and approachable. I could have done with a little less about Keats’ circle of friends and a little more on Fanny Brawne or Georgiana Keats, but obviously the men have larger historical records. For those interested in Fanny Brawne, Motion is a bit condescending towards her at first but he is generally balanced in his approach to her (unlike the vast majority of biographers before him).
In that vein, Motion spends a great deal of time exploring Keats’ complex thoughts on women. His poetry and letters are often at odds on first glance, and Motion draws insightful connections and explanations. As someone who loves Keats’ work, I often wince at how he talks about women (and how much of the classic virgin/whore dynamic he internalized). It’s important that Motion gives these less palatable views attention alongside Keats’ more “modern” political theories, tracing the growth of his thoughts throughout his life.
I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about Keats, his circle, and his family. Despite the length, Motion’s writing is engaging and approachable. I could have done with a little less about Keats’ circle of friends and a little more on Fanny Brawne or Georgiana Keats, but obviously the men have larger historical records. For those interested in Fanny Brawne, Motion is a bit condescending towards her at first but he is generally balanced in his approach to her (unlike the vast majority of biographers before him).
In that vein, Motion spends a great deal of time exploring Keats’ complex thoughts on women. His poetry and letters are often at odds on first glance, and Motion draws insightful connections and explanations. As someone who loves Keats’ work, I often wince at how he talks about women (and how much of the classic virgin/whore dynamic he internalized). It’s important that Motion gives these less palatable views attention alongside Keats’ more “modern” political theories, tracing the growth of his thoughts throughout his life.
January 16, 2018
It's rare when a biography can make you feel attached to the subject. I don't mean as in an emotional attachment, which certainly was part of it for me, but I mean attached to their world as if you were there with them, seeing it for yourself instead of just reading about it. That is exactly what Andrew Motion has done with this biography of Keats. Through literary analysis, accounts of those who knew Keats, and through Keats' own letters, Motion makes Keats feel very real. While reading this I felt acutely aware of Keats' few triumphs as well as his despair, his passion, and his final agonies as he lie dying in Rome. Keats was more than just one of the great Romantic Poets, Keats was a complex young man having to face the world's trials at an early age. As the oldest sibling, losing both parents early on, he was burdened with constant worry over money and the wellbeing of his younger siblings. He sought shelter in poetry, creating worlds of myth, urns, and nightingales. Keats never swayed from his beliefs even under fierce criticism. Keats was a man looking for his place in the world and Andrew Motion does a stunning job of allowing us to search with him. I would recommend to anyone new to Keats, to read this book first before reading his poetry. Having insight into the "one whose name was writ in water," will make reading his poetry all the more meaningful.
October 22, 2025
If your job is bashing ignorant literary critics over the head with ‘obviously Keats was a liberal, he repeatedly turned to camera and said “I am a liberal now” then specified what kind of liberal he was, you idiots’, then I could maybe be willing to forgive derivative and somewhat-shallow social and cultural history: you’re taking the ‘baby’s first’ approach. But Motion seemingly failed to get Keats critics to internalise ‘Keats was a liberal’, maybe because of the crudeness and shallowness of much of his analysis. (Helen Vendler was one who failed to grasp Keats’ liberalism, smugly declaring in her review of Motion’s biography that Keats was after ‘transhistorical truth’; but for God’s sake she was right about the fucking bees!) And anyway, I came to this not mainly for the poetry, but because I’m interested in late–eighteenth / early–nineteenth century liberalism, and I thought Motion’s focus might translate into relevant lessons. Keats was articulate and intelligent, and left a lot of stuff in writing, so he could be a rich case study of how people who were not politicians or political theorists arrived at and conceptualised liberalism. For this purpose, shallow cultural and social history is fatal.
November 5, 2024
An interesting, very long and exhaustive biography. I've loved Keats' big Odes since schooldays, and knew the basics of his short life, but this does flesh it out and makes a real person out of it. My main reason for wanting to read this was to try and understand how someone so young could create work as profound as Ode On A Grecian Urn, and Ode To A Nightingale. I didn't find Motion's critiques of these great classics particularly new or insightful - he seemed to spend a lot more time discussing Endymion and Hyperion, which no-one reads these days. However, the accounts of Keats' great tribulations was illuminating - tragic and sad. He had quite a hard,short life, full of anxiety and disappointment. There's quite a bit of speculation -"he must have thought....." etc which I deplore in an authoritative biography, and in discussing the line "as though of hemlock I had drunk" from Ode To A Nightingale he says this refers to the suicide of Socrates - no it doesn't because he didn't commit suicide.
Still enjoyed the book though, and it gives a really strong impression of life in London in the Regency period, and I love the character portraits of people like Leigh Hunt,Hazlitt,Wordsworth and Haydon. Keats did seem to move in culturally exciting circles.
Still enjoyed the book though, and it gives a really strong impression of life in London in the Regency period, and I love the character portraits of people like Leigh Hunt,Hazlitt,Wordsworth and Haydon. Keats did seem to move in culturally exciting circles.
September 11, 2024
This is a really excellent book. It covers not only the known facts of Keats life, but puts those facts into context by describing the politics and nature of the time. It also does what I love in a biography about a poet or writer, it follows and explores Keats developing creativity. By the end I felt like one of Keats friends and will miss reading about him very much. Fortunately I still have his letters to read and of course his poems are eternal.
I loved the section about the walking tour of Scotland very much… that was probably my favourite part. Before Keats became so very unwell.
No spoilers, but I think his life is known enough to say that the end is very traumatic and heartbreaking.
Although this is non fiction it almost reads like a novel. What I mean is, Keats life and times are incredible and the book is written so well you can’t really put it down. I felt I could trust Motion to stick to facts that are known and not to sneak in supposition… it treats the reader to honesty and an incredibly well researched insight.
If I had to say anything against it.. it would be that sometimes it says ‘he’ and I didn’t know or couldn’t work out which ‘he’ was meant.
I loved the section about the walking tour of Scotland very much… that was probably my favourite part. Before Keats became so very unwell.
No spoilers, but I think his life is known enough to say that the end is very traumatic and heartbreaking.
Although this is non fiction it almost reads like a novel. What I mean is, Keats life and times are incredible and the book is written so well you can’t really put it down. I felt I could trust Motion to stick to facts that are known and not to sneak in supposition… it treats the reader to honesty and an incredibly well researched insight.
If I had to say anything against it.. it would be that sometimes it says ‘he’ and I didn’t know or couldn’t work out which ‘he’ was meant.
April 13, 2023
This book has fuelled my Keats obsession. I had no idea that a 600 page account of someone’s life could enthuse me so much but it’s been one of the best reads this year. I turned over so many pages to go back to and cried at the last few chapters. I honestly feel like I know him now and have such a deeper understanding of his thought, his poetry and how misunderstood he is! I also learned some of my favourite anecdotes about his life such as him fighting a butchers boy who was being mean to a kitten as a child and going on a vegetarian diet to suppress his sexual urges around Fanny. I’m now on a mission to read as much as possible about Keats and hopefully this will help me slay my a level english exams. If anyone ever refers to me as their bright star i will fall full in love immediately. John Keats fan girl for life 💗⭐️.
April 26, 2018
"It surprised me that the human heart is capable of containing and bearing so much misery."
I love John Keats even more after having read this, and am more saddened than ever by the fact that we'll never know what he would have gone on to write, had he survived.
I love John Keats even more after having read this, and am more saddened than ever by the fact that we'll never know what he would have gone on to write, had he survived.
December 14, 2017
Way too much literally criticism. If you just have a casual interest in Keats but would like to understand the man and it’s time this book is not for you.
July 20, 2014
Continuing with my Keatsian summer, I became absorbed in this wonderful biography. I found it to be moving, insightful and extremely detailed. Andrew Motion is not a cold, detached biographer, but a fellow poet who reflects with sentiment about the experiences and achievements of Keats.
This biography is also a great introduction to the literary life of the times. I have been particularly interested in the relationships between all the different artists and writers who became Keats's friends, and who were successful to a varying degree. Not many of the names were familiar to me before (maybe Leigh Hunt), and I have been fascinated by all their meetings, correspondence and amateur literary competitions, not dissimilar to the one that gave way to the creation of Frankenstein in Lake Geneva. A favourite anecdote has been the painting of "Christ's Entry", where Keats features in a crowd of artists and thinkers that surround Jesus in his entry to Jerusalem: this was a very lengthy and convoluted process that keeps being mentioned during the book, with which I think Andrew Motion had some ongoing fun. The reputation of this painting languished eventually and it now resides in a seminary in the USA.
At points the biography seemed to turn travel book, and this was very enjoyable too, as we followed Keats to Margate, Canterbury (where I live), the Isle of Wight, Oxford, Winchester, and other places he took himself to in order to get inspiration and work hard on his poems. The best part was the walking tour of Scotland, and a visit to Burns's house that filled him with foreboding.
On one of of his visits he went on pilgrimage to Stratford. I was informed once that his signature can be found in the visitors' book, where he wrote as his place of abode "everywhere". It was very interesting to see him composing dramas in collaboration with his friend Brown, and after the example of Shakespeare: I understand that he was not the only romantic poet to try to write for the theatre, but often the plays of these poets did not work well for the stage, and Otto was not produced until the 1950's. I would still have been keen to see it!
And finally, I was extremely interested in the parts dealing with Keats's illness. His love for Fanny, and their unfulfilled relationship, is of course a key part of this biography, and the story is always moving and extremely sad. Andrew Motion adds a dimension to this that helps us to understand better Keats's letters and attitude towards Fanny. It transpires that consumption was associated in people's minds to extreme sensibility and sexual desire; this explains why doctors and friends separated Keats and Fanny during his illness, and why it contributed negatively to the view that the public had of Keats as a feeble poet who allowed himself to be affected by bad reviews.
However, I am not sure I am conveying how much this biography affected me during this month of July. Thoughts of illness, in general, inevitably entered my mind: not always something we wish to think about, but an unavoidable part of human existence nevertheless. Also, I have stood under the oriental plane tree in West Gate Gardens, believed to be over 200 years old. I have stood under and I have looked up to wonder about the poems that Keats could have written about it; because he couldn't have passed by, and not felt inspired.
This biography is also a great introduction to the literary life of the times. I have been particularly interested in the relationships between all the different artists and writers who became Keats's friends, and who were successful to a varying degree. Not many of the names were familiar to me before (maybe Leigh Hunt), and I have been fascinated by all their meetings, correspondence and amateur literary competitions, not dissimilar to the one that gave way to the creation of Frankenstein in Lake Geneva. A favourite anecdote has been the painting of "Christ's Entry", where Keats features in a crowd of artists and thinkers that surround Jesus in his entry to Jerusalem: this was a very lengthy and convoluted process that keeps being mentioned during the book, with which I think Andrew Motion had some ongoing fun. The reputation of this painting languished eventually and it now resides in a seminary in the USA.
At points the biography seemed to turn travel book, and this was very enjoyable too, as we followed Keats to Margate, Canterbury (where I live), the Isle of Wight, Oxford, Winchester, and other places he took himself to in order to get inspiration and work hard on his poems. The best part was the walking tour of Scotland, and a visit to Burns's house that filled him with foreboding.
On one of of his visits he went on pilgrimage to Stratford. I was informed once that his signature can be found in the visitors' book, where he wrote as his place of abode "everywhere". It was very interesting to see him composing dramas in collaboration with his friend Brown, and after the example of Shakespeare: I understand that he was not the only romantic poet to try to write for the theatre, but often the plays of these poets did not work well for the stage, and Otto was not produced until the 1950's. I would still have been keen to see it!
And finally, I was extremely interested in the parts dealing with Keats's illness. His love for Fanny, and their unfulfilled relationship, is of course a key part of this biography, and the story is always moving and extremely sad. Andrew Motion adds a dimension to this that helps us to understand better Keats's letters and attitude towards Fanny. It transpires that consumption was associated in people's minds to extreme sensibility and sexual desire; this explains why doctors and friends separated Keats and Fanny during his illness, and why it contributed negatively to the view that the public had of Keats as a feeble poet who allowed himself to be affected by bad reviews.
However, I am not sure I am conveying how much this biography affected me during this month of July. Thoughts of illness, in general, inevitably entered my mind: not always something we wish to think about, but an unavoidable part of human existence nevertheless. Also, I have stood under the oriental plane tree in West Gate Gardens, believed to be over 200 years old. I have stood under and I have looked up to wonder about the poems that Keats could have written about it; because he couldn't have passed by, and not felt inspired.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2017
This is a very comprehensive biography, with the density I associate with college textbooks. I think it includes everything you could possibly want to know about his life and also a great deal of textual analysis. Keats is a fascinating person and it's both interesting and somewhat disturbing to look so closely at his life and genius. I'm glad I read it even though it is a much more academic book than I generally read.
January 17, 2019
This is one of my favourites! I used this heavily when I was writing my dissertation as it was one of the most recently published book on the poet available to me. I used Gittings, Bloom, Hunt and Plumly (and others I can't remember) obviously, but Motion was like a breath of fresh air. His understanding of Keats came from an entirely different direction. He seemed to be free of political bias and created a Keats that wasn't just a poor boy whom nobody loved. Motion's Keats was astounding and raw and the young man I really believed him to be. He had me hooked instantaneously, his literary criticism was also quite along the lines of my own thoughts so I felt ever more at ease with his deep study of Keats' character and life.
The Romance of Keat's life wasn't dealt with negatively as some previous critics have done, it was handled delicately and pragmatically. Yes Keats was dealt a poor hand at almost every turn of his short life but what he accomplished was beyond conjecture. Motion encapsulated this not by romanticising his life but with gratitude for Keats' genius.
Even though I purchased this book to learn and to aid my studies I thoroughly enjoyed it and would have easily read it for pleasure.
The Romance of Keat's life wasn't dealt with negatively as some previous critics have done, it was handled delicately and pragmatically. Yes Keats was dealt a poor hand at almost every turn of his short life but what he accomplished was beyond conjecture. Motion encapsulated this not by romanticising his life but with gratitude for Keats' genius.
Even though I purchased this book to learn and to aid my studies I thoroughly enjoyed it and would have easily read it for pleasure.
August 19, 2014
I love Keats' poetry but I found this biography dull and the picture it gives of Keats is frustrating. There is too much analysis of the poetry for an easy flowing biography. And Keats' improvidence annoyed me. Why ever would he expect to live on poetry writing alone? Even the wonderful Odes are not enough to sustain a lifetime's income, even for so short a life as Keats'. His refusal to earn by other means and his frustration at bad reviews and poor sales seem to be just not facing up to reality. I shouldn't have been thinking this. I should have been involved in his real struggles with family poverty and illness, his relationships and his creativity. But that is not the Keats that I find in this book. I was looking forward to this book but I loved the Gittings biography of Keats more.
October 10, 2014
Spoiler: Keats achieves his dearest dream of becoming one of the great English poets in the end. About thirty years after his death.
This is a detailed and well written biography of the seminal "poet who died too young." One might think that a man who lived only 25 years would have a short bio, but Motion puts Keats in context with his times and politics. Every detail of the poet's short life is examined, and the poetry is critiqued closely. Safe to say that when you have finished thus book, you will have a different idea of Keats the man--a young man who threw over Medicine to focus exclusively on poetry. (It wasn't till William Carlos Williams came along 100 years later and showed that you could do both.).
This is a detailed and well written biography of the seminal "poet who died too young." One might think that a man who lived only 25 years would have a short bio, but Motion puts Keats in context with his times and politics. Every detail of the poet's short life is examined, and the poetry is critiqued closely. Safe to say that when you have finished thus book, you will have a different idea of Keats the man--a young man who threw over Medicine to focus exclusively on poetry. (It wasn't till William Carlos Williams came along 100 years later and showed that you could do both.).
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