Realms of Gold: Letters and Poems of John Keats

by John Keats, Samuel West (Read by), Matthew Marsh (Read by)

The letters of Keats between 1816 and 1821 are passionate, revealing and sensitive. It was within the context of these letters that many of his poems first appeared. AUDIE AWARD-WINNER FOR BEST POETRY

Genres: Poetry, Classics

Audio CD

First published January 1, 1816

About the author

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

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

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

Wikipedia page of the author

Reviews

[Lorna · Rating 5 out of 5]

To me this was a perfect combination of sensitive reading, by Samuel West, careful curation of letters and poems combined to tell this too-brief history with simplicity and beauty. The perfect introduction to Keats. Highly recommended.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read Keats after Virginia Woolf mentioned him in A Room of One's Own. Then I found Benedict Cumberbatch reading Keats’ poem, “Ode to a Nightingale," to music. It was so beautiful I had to hear more. I didn't know how an audiobook would work, but this version was perfect. One narrator share biographical information and background while another narrators reads the poems and letters, back and forth. It worked well.

My favorite poems were "Ode on Melancholy" and "To Autumn"

Some quotes:

"Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced. Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it."
——
[This is a longer treatise in a letter, on how souls are made. Enchanting.]

The common cognomen of this world among the misguided and superstitious is ‘a vale of tears’ from which we are to be redeemed by a certain arbitary interposition of God and taken to Heaven – What a little circumscribe[d] straightened notion!

Call the world, if you please, "the Vale of Soul Making". Then you will find out the use of the world....

There may be intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions -- but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself.

Intelligences are atoms of perception -- they know and they see and they are pure, in short they are God. How then are Souls to be made? How then are these sparks which are God to have identity given them -- so as ever to possess a bliss peculiar to each one's individual existence. How, but in the medium of a world like this?

This point I sincerely wish to consider, because I think it a grander system of salvation than the Christian religion -- or rather it is a system of Spirit Creation...

I can scarcely express what I but dimly perceive -- and yet I think I perceive it -- that you may judge the more clearly I will put it in the most homely form possible. I will call the world a school instituted for the purpose of teaching little children to read. I will call the human heart the hornbook used in that school. And I will call the child able to read, the soul made from that school and its hornbook.

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? A place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways....

As various as the lives of men are -- so various become their souls, and thus does God make individual beings, souls, identical souls of the sparks of his own essence.

This appears to me a faint sketch of a system of salvation which does not affront our reason and humanity...

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to rate. Some passages were so beautiful and powerful while others were too flowery for my tastes. I think collections of poetry from many different poets tend to be more pleasing to me overall since the different works create contrast that helps me appreciate each poem more. I guess I'm less interested in the evolution of a poet than in my personal enjoyment of their work.

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to the audio over a couple commutes.

This was a good but grueling read. Keat's reflections as he nursed his dying brother brought tears to my eyes. Later, listening to him grapple with his own mortality, was torturous in an entirely different way. Some of those letters seemed uncomfortably personal to be reading as a stranger, yet what an extraordinary thing that we have them.

[John Zorko · Rating 4 out of 5]

... so, so beautiful. Whatever words that were floating in my head performed a very hasty exit to make room for more of these.

[William Bookman III]

Shit, I'm a Romantic. I'm a fan.

[Matthew Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a cute little man he was. But I preferred his prose over his poetry which I found quite boring

[Jamey Boelhower · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick and enjoyable read. His letters were powerful and poetic. It got me thinking about how we are losing this talent of writing letters.