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Keats

4.13 of 5 stars 4.13 · rating details · 116 ratings · 18 reviews

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...more

Paperback, 656 pages

Published April 15th 1999 by University Of Chicago Press (first published 1997)

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Jan 29, 2013 Meagan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, tbr-challenge

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.

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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,...more 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.

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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."(less)

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Dec 15, 2011 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

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, Mor...more

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Feb 21, 2010 Charlotte rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: abandoned

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...more

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May 09, 2013 Stacey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 s...more 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.(less)

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May 22, 2012 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition Recommends it for: undaunted Romantics and ninteenth-century Radicals

Shelves: biographical, british-isles, modern-history, poetry

At 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 and swallowing up villages whole for breakfast as it grew, would be writing so much about grottos and woodland bowers. My curiosity worked on me unt...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Paola rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biographies

"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...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Mark Bennett rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

The book that inspired Jane Campion to make her ripper and heart-rending film, "Bright Star."

A tome of a work, detailed and sensitive to the genius of Keats and his story.

Took me forever but it was oh so worth it. The last of the Keats cycle for me.

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Jul 09, 2012 S.S rated it 5 of 5 stars

It took me the better part of a month to finish this book and I still don't want to part with it! Don't let the length deter you, Motion makes Keats real. No wonder Jane Campion was inspired.

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Jan 08, 2010 Beth Bonini is currently reading it

Shelves: still-sitting-on-the-bedside-table

I 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!

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Apr 09, 2010 Carol marked it as to-read

Saw the movie Bright Star, loved it, now I want to read the book that inspired Jane Campion to make the movie.

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Dec 03, 2009 Sbaird rated it 4 of 5 stars

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.

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Aug 03, 2008 Madeline rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-books, biography, books-about-books, lit-crit, non-fiction, class, family, history, 2008

A dense, highly analytical look at Keats' life. I sometimes found Motion's style a little tough to follow (there were a couple of pages that my eyes kind of slid over and I had to go back), but it's a very fine biography of Keats.

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Aug 14, 2009 Catherine Siemann rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: romantics

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.

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Nov 03, 2008 Rachel marked it as to-read

Ah, just didn't have enough time to finish this before it needed to go back to the library. Will have to resume later...

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Mar 17, 2013 Liz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A highly detailed, insightful and honest account of the 19th century's most sensitive poet.

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Sep 24, 2011 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars

Super fantastic. I really enjoyed it. If you like Keats' poetry you will love this biography.

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Jan 29, 2010 Jacqueline Burns-Walters rated it 5 of 5 stars

Oh Keats!
Why did you have to die so young, with so many possibilities?
He is very inspiring.

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May 08, 2011 Stephanie marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, biography

library book. i ordered it after seeing a movie about him that was intriguing.

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May 16, 2013 Tatiana Rodrigues marked it as to-read

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May 15, 2013 Ebrill added it · review of another edition

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May 13, 2013 Cansu marked it as to-read · review of another edition

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May 08, 2013 Tamna marked it as intriguing · review of another edition

May 06, 2013 Mar marked it as to-read

Shelves: non-fiction, more-than-500-pages

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About Andrew Motion

Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL (born 26 October 1952) 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 tr...more Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL (born 26 October 1952) 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.[9]
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."[10] 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,[11][12] 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.[13] As laureate, he also founded the Poetry Archive an on-line library of historic and contemporary recordings of poets reciting their own work.[14]
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".[15] The appointment of Motion met with criticism from some quarters.[16] 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." [10][17] 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.(less)

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