Poems 1817

by John Keats

Poems 1817 John Keats Poems 1817 by John Keats COMPLETE ORIGINAL COLLECTION When Keats died at 25, he had been writing poetry seriously for only about six years, from 1814 until the summer of 1820; and publishing for only four. In his lifetime, sales of Keats's three volumes of poetry probably amounted to only 200 copies. His first poem, the sonnet O Solitude appeared in the Examiner in May 1816, while his collection Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and other poems was published in July 1820 before his last visit to Rome. The compression of his poetic apprenticeship and maturity into so short a time is just one remarkable aspect of Keats's work. Although prolific during his short career, and now one of the most studied and admired British poets, his reputation rests on a small body of work, centred on the Odes, and only in the creative outpouring of the last years of his short life was he able to express the inner intensity for which he has been lauded since his death. Keats was convinced that he had made no mark in his lifetime. Aware that he was dying, he wrote to Fanny Brawne in February 1820, "I have left no immortal work behind me - nothing to make my friends proud of my memory - but I have lov'd the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remember'd." Keats's ability and talent was acknowledged by several influential contemporary allies such as Shelley and Hunt.[69] His admirers praised him for thinking "on his pulses," for having developed a style which was more heavily loaded with sensualities, more gorgeous in its effects, more voluptuously alive than any poet who had come before him: 'loading every rift with ore'.[72] Shelley often corresponded with Keats in Rome, and loudly declared that Keats's death had been brought on by bad reviews in the Quarterly Review. Seven weeks after the funeral he wrote Adona�s, a despairing elegy, [73] stating that Keats' early death was a personal and public tragedy: The loveliest and the last, The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew Died on the promise of the fruit. John Keats (31 October 1795 - 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work having been in publication for only four years before his death. Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his life, his reputation grew after his death, so that by the end of the 19th century he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of poets and writers. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keats was the most significant literary experience of his life. The poetry of Keats is characterised by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analysed in English literature. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

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

66 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1985

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

[Hirdesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review soon.

[Wong Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

In between finishing the epistles section and starting on the sonnets two weeks ago, I was walking home in the evening when I caught a glimpse of two people sharing a lengthy embrace in the hallway of their home. In the biting cold, that scene was something of a surprise bonfire, as if the warmth and the light from that hallway was spilling out onto the dimly lit street I was on.

Then I thought of the walks which Keats made between Edmonton, where he was an apprentice of the local doctor, and Enfield, where he had developed his love for poetry and an ardent belief in liberal values while studying at the boy's academy there a few years earlier. It's one of those dainty pieces of autobiographical detail that seem to pass over as a "fun fact", but may eventually strike you with the weight of its timelessness when you least expect it to.

After shifts at the clinic, where Keats would witness the inadequacies of 19th century medicine, he would trek back to the academy at Enfield to read poetry with his former headmaster John Clarke and his son, Charles Cowden Clarke. To Keats, poetry possesses the unique potential to heal, "to sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man."

This collection of poems - Keats's first - inspires the same warmth of that surprise peek at affection between strangers. Keats constructs a kind of coterie here, threading schoolfriends, publishers, his brothers, and a pantheon of mythical and literary figures through his pages. It is a sociable book with seemingly social ends - ideas about love, indebtedness, beauty, nature, freedom, and the role of poetry in the world come to the fore. The voice is boyish, ambitious, self-conscious. The BBC's Reeta Chakrabti writes: "If Keats was a first love, then Shelley was a mature one". Even so, Keats to me feels more grounded and honest in his yearning and in his recognition of the ties that bind.

In his epistle "To Charles Cowden Clarke", Keats reminisces about the "shady lanes" he meandered through with Clarke and their "chat that ceased not / When at night-fall among our books we got." "What might I have been", Keats asks, if he had never met Clarke, never attended the academy, and never made those walks between Edmonton and Enfield? Keats would die just four years later, at the age of 25, and perhaps Clarke, who would live till he was 89, later flipped the question and wondered how things might have been different had his dear friend lived.

With Keats, as with a walk home in the night, you sometimes get more than you bargain for.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems 1817, by John Keats
Worthy of the huge respect he has gained. A truly tragic romantic. **** Includes:

“Dedication to Leigh Hunt” – ‘Glory and loveliness have pass’d away ..’
Opens his “POEMS (1817)”.
.

“I Stood Tip-Toe” – a 242 lie poem. “He was a Poet, sure a lover too..” (line 193).
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“To Hope” – splendid poem, example:
"... Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moonbeams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof! .."
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“To George Felton Mathew” – Expressive! ‘Yet that is vain - O Mathew!’
"... Some flowery spot, sequester’d, wild, romantic,
That often must have seen a poet frantic; ...
... With reverence would we speak of all the sages
Who have left streaks of light athwart their ages:
And thou shouldst moralize on Milton’s blindness,
And mourn the fearful dearth of human kindness
.... While to the rugged north our musing turns
We well might drop a tear for him, and Burns...."
.

“Sonnet 1 - To My Brother George (poem) -
".. But what, without the social thought of thee,
Would be the wonders of the sky and sea?"
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“Sonnet VII [O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell]” – full of energy!
"O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,—
Nature’s observatory—whence the dell, ..."
{Although personally I must say there is beauty in abandoned buildings!}
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“Sonnet X [To one who has been long in city pent]” – Here is a cool line!
"... Watching the sailing cloudlet’s bright career,
He mourns that day so soon has glided by:.."
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“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” - He must have been moved by emotional sentimentalism ***
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“Sonnet XII: On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour” - Just like David Tennant's The Doctor, he doesn't want to go! "... For what a height my spirit is contending! / 'Tis not content so soon to be alone."
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“Grasshopper and Cricket” - ‘The poetry of earth is never dead.’ ***
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“Sonnet 17 - Happy is England!” – Longing for more than just home
".. Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment / For skies Italian, and an inward groan / To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,.." But he still wants to get away!
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“Sleep and Poetry” – 404 line poem.
“.. Some precious book from out its snug retreat, To cluster round it when we next shall meet.” That’s delightful.
“And up I rose refresh’d, and glad, and gay, / Resolving to begin that very day / These lines; and howsoever they be done, / I leave them as a father does his son.”

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure if you're knowledgeable about poetry it would be a lot higher rating but I guess I'm really just not into it I don't know much so I didn't really care for it but I wouldn't wanna discourage anybody else from reading him in after all he is one of the great poets

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first foray into Keats beyond the Odes which I studied in college. "To Hope" was my favorite from this volume. Going to be honest, I'm not much of a fan of the Romantics' writing style. Might not continue with his other works.

[MJD · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the poems vary in subject, there is enough poetry able appreciation for nature to appease anyone who is a nature lover.

[Stewart Lindstrom]

Keats' great long poem "Sleep and Poetry" is one I will be rereading for years to come.

[Stanzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Upon second reading Keats appear to be somewhat... endearing.

[James Dempsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully read on Librivox by Peter Tucker.

Poor Keats, fated muse.

“Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”

[ZaRi]

Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell
No God, no demon of severe response
Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell
Then to my human heart I turn at once:
Heart, thou and I are here, sad and alone,
Say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O darkness! darkness! Forever must I moan
To question heaven and hell and heart in vain?
Why did I laugh? I know this being's lease
My fancy to it's utmost blisses spreads
Yet would I on this very midnight cease
And all the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds
Verse, fame and beauty are intense indeed
But death intenser, death is life's high meed.

[Abrar Alnaseri · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always Keats took his life events and people who are friends, lovers and foes and left to the world of gods and heavenly lands to draw pictures that cant be compared to any other artistic works.
Keats the boy who showed me how to live adventures by a piece of paper and a restless pen! And a love of nature that can never be defeated.

[Mark Nenadov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent poems by John Keats.

[Paul Servini]

Keats' language is sublime. That's the main reason I love reading him so much. He inspires me so. But this is the first time I've actually read a whole anthology of his.