Table Of Content%
g %
I
* V
Copyright0 by Aitecn Ward. AH rights reserved
first published in by The [’iking Press, hit..
6 Madison Avenue, hiew York ;ar X.Y,
Published jinmiiaijfou.fty m Canada by The Macmiiian Companyof Canada Limited
Library of Cangreit m/ndtfj) card FLUPMhe.tr fiÿ.-15,?1-6
SfTtJnd Printing /niquan iry6j
Third Printing July itr$f
MBr,
Fet ir[ DasSterville and Bnimer types
Printed in the LLS.A. by I'ail-Kaltou Prcu.Ine.
To MARJORIE HOPE NICOLSON
A N D THE ME M Q R Y OF
VICTORIA LOUISE Sen EAGER
-
r
'
_
Contents
Preface IX
.
1 Close to the Source
i J . TheWideningStream =3
in. The Dark City 47
IY. The Green Shore 77
v. A Leap into the Sea US
Vi. Soundings and Quicksands 147
VII, Mist and Crag 102
VI J1 - TheShores of Darkness 210
i x. The Melancholy Storm if!8
x. The Temple of Delight 2f>fi
x1, Between Despair and Energy «9S
xn. Unmeridian’d and Objectless 3*5
XIII. A Wrecked Life 348
xiv. End of the Voyage 374
Epilogue
403
Notes t(i
SelectiveBibliography
-Hi
Index
443
PI
tiles
Fro>1tiipircr
I JOHN KEATJ, I0IG Lite mast by n. ft. Hayden
F<tll<iiL'h\g pfifcc 386
II CumcF Ki:Aia Miniature by JosephScvetrt
Ill TOM Itr.VIS Drawing by Joseph Severn.
IV BENJAMIN It-OLEltT IlAVDON Bortrait by Georgians M, 7.ornliit
V LEIGJ! HUNT Portrait l>y H, It. Haydnn
VI JOSEPH SEVEHW After 3 drawing bySeymour Kirknp
VII C”AHl.K5 HkyWiS Bust by Aridftw Wilson
VIII JOILN KEATS, iSafr Drawing by Joseph Severn
IX JOHN KEATS., )8I(> Brawiiig by Charles Brown
X Manuscript dralt of "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
XI FAVSV BHAWWE From A silhouette cm by Auguste Edouard
XII Wentworth Place, Hwptteihl
XIII Letter to Fanny Brawne. October iBrr>
XIV Jotis KEATS, IS--21 Drawing by Joseph Severn
XV Piurrii tli Spatrij Rome
Plans r aml VII jut photograph* by Christopher Oxford bom (he collection in
Reals Memorial House, icpiculiicsvl hn Mirmiitloii of [he iltinjtneiu! Rr>ti>ugli Court’
dt.The soLiice of cad) of rhe oilier plates appears with (he plane.
Prelace
«<-
A
NEW LiF£ or KEATS requires n T.voirrt of explanation. ThE
story has been told many times before and will be told agoin, as new
facts about Ills life continue to be brought to light and critical re¬
valuation clarifies and redefines his place in English poetry. But a new
biography of Keatsshould attempt inorc than to present new informa¬
tion or synthesize recent criticism: it should try to convey a tietv sense
of the meaning of Iris life, Keats's life has in fact meant somethirtg
new to each generation that has reflected on it, for it was an extraor¬
dinary life, both in the intensity with which lie lived it and in the
unconscious eloquence with which he recorded It. Indeed, it has that
represenLalive quality, that fullness of significance, of which Keats
himself was thinking when he wrote, "Shakespeare led a life of Alle¬
gory: his works arc the comments on it," As Lionel Trilling lias sug¬
gested, rt was a life cast in the herorc mould, A dose reading of Kerns's
poems and letters reveals the allegory that lie himself sensed in it; Itis
recurrent image for his own endeavour in poetry is a voyage of ex¬
ploration across uneliarted seas, lie [lied {hinting fie had not reached
hisgoal; yet in spile of the interruption of his work just asfic attained
—
maturity, his life shows a sigridLeant completion the achievement of
identity, the self-making which, according to Otto Rank, is the most
important act of any ail1st's career. Keats's own remark on Milton may
then be applied to him: "There was working in him as it were that
same sort of thing as operates in the great world to the end of a
Prophecy's being accomp]iijjed
In our time Keats has been regarded increasingly as the man of Ills
letters: so tnucEt so that F. R. Leavis has hail to remind usSharply that
our final concern must be with his poetry. Ire my view of Keats Ids
greatness as a man is something distinct from, >e: at the same lime
stgifjjficamly related to, his greatness as a poet; his life was essentially
a process of integrating these two aspects of E;is mutire. The profound
anti delighted and ultimately tragic insight inm Initnau life which
Keats uimmiiniiaied so iminedlately and directly in his letters was
x ijRi:rA ot:
something he jcHfUodi only sLd!i||y to express in ELL.'. t>ociry LLS lie re¬
shaped his poetic medium to convey it, Slowly—that is., Eit tlnce ycart
of die most concentrated cllori in our litcnUird, My account of his
life, therefore, is conceÿipti primarily witli the developiufcm ol his
—
diaratler ns a poet that audacious net of sdhcreiuioiL which lie de¬
scribed in eonnettion with the writing of.lifitlymiofl,. Where Ids previ¬
ous biogippliers have viewed him against ihc tom; itidiiicni id English
poetry or his day-to-day study of [be poets from whom be teamed bis
art, or against ilie wide backdrop of Regency society or the minutiae
of ids daily existence, 1 h:tve tried to convey something of the inner
drama of liis creative life ui it is recorded in bis poems and tetters.
Inevitably itiis has limited my critical focus. The interpret:!tion of
Kcnts'.s poetry in die following pages is offered not os die detailed anti
rounded criticism which can alone do justice to Lite individual poem,
but tis a study, ehicily through Ids imagery, of the process by which
bis goal in poetry became deer to linn, in ihaL mirarnlons unfolding
which Jolhii Middleton Murry has cttlletl the mystery of Keats, The
ptyitery remains beyond analysis in [be end. and fortunately so: for
it is the compelling reason for ns to continue reading Keats,
It is a pleasure to record the obligations incurred in writing this
boot. My first thanks arc due to Elizabeth Ames and the Yaddo Cor¬
poralion, for hospitality of the most constructive sort in the early
stages of my work. I am also grateful to the American Association of
University Women for the award of a Shirley Farr Fellowship which
helped me tocontinue it.
The staffs of the New York Public Library, [he Pierpont Morgan
Library, the Skidmore College Library, tbe 1larvaid University Li¬
brary, the Cambridge University Library, the British Museum, and
the Keats Memorial Library of tfie PlbnipsLejid Borough Council have
extended mo many courtesies. For permission to examine manuscripts
andotherdocuments relating to Keats, I owe especial [hanks toSignora
Vera Cactiatore, Curator of the Keats-Sheliey Memorial House in
Rome; Mr,J. H, Preston,formerCuratorof the Keats Memorial House
and Museum lit Hampstead;and mosLof all to Miss Mabel A, E.Steele,
Curator of the Keats Collection of the Harvard University Library,
who has generously and knowledgeably answered countless quesLions
about the Keats documents in her charge, f am also grateful to all the
present owners and custodians of Keats's letters for answering my in¬
quiries regarding them.
The Keats Memorial Library of die Hampstead lS-orough Council has
kindly granted permission to use cm the tide page a drawing aficr that
by JosephSeven!, found in Charles brown's copy of fltrriyrm'on, of the
PRY,FA CZ X i
Greek lyre which Keats asked m haveengraved on his tombstone. For
permission tu reproduce die ilfnsirations hi this book i am grateful to
the Houghton Library of Harvard University, the Keats Memorial
House in Hampstead, the Kents-She[ley Memorial House in Rome, the
Radio Tillies Htilton Picture Library of Loudon, lire Victoria and Al¬
bert Js-fctseTiiti, and the National Portrait.Gallery, Lundyu,
In my effort to work as completely as possible from Keats's own
writings and those nf his friends, I am profoundly indebted to KenLs's
editors -Harry Ruxton Forman, Maurire Tiuxtoti Forman, M. W. Gar-
rod, and tlyder Edward Rollins, l am also keenly aware of what1owe
lo the researches of many scholars in the field of Keats and ids circle,.
espetially to Keats's previous biographers, Sir Sidney Col\'in,. Miss
Amy Lowell, Miss Dormhy Hewlett, and Mi'- Robert Gitiings. On
several earlier occasions I haveexpressed my disagreement with certain
aspects of Mr. timings' interpretation of Keats's life, particularly
Keats's relations with Isabella Jones and [he influence of Horton's
An/iinmy e>f Alclan'tfioly on his work. 1 would like to take [his op¬
portuney to record my admiration of many other aspects oE Mr, Gsi¬
tings' research and of the manner in which he lias set it forth.
In theinterest oi general readability, I base kept (Etc documentation
of this book to a minimum, it is assumed (hat students of Keats will
befamiliar with his poems and letters in the editions of H. W. Garrod
and H. E. Rollins and with the documents collected by Professor
Rollins in 77jc Keais Circle and More f.eUers «nd Papers oj{tic Kean
Circle, Therefore, except where a reference is obscure or a point con¬
troverted, I base not given notes to these primary' sources i:i the life
of Keats. I hope tEial my general indebtedness to l!tc previous hiog-
raphes of Kcai.s and his friends evil[ also be immediately apparent
to Students of Lite period and will be sufficiently acknowledged in the
bibliography. Again for thesake of a readable narrative, f have quoted
freely from Keats's letters without indicating omissions and base some¬
times transposed 'he order of sentences; 1 have taken care, however,
not to distort Keats's meaning in the process, and J trust that the dose
reader of Keats will rccognbc and accept these occasional condensa¬
tions of the text, Wherever I have departed from the established te*:
in my quotations, iho emendations are indicated in
Miss Dorothy Hewlett graciously answered a number of questions
I asked Iter concerning Keats's liTe. and Mr. A. j. Lidding provided
some valuable information about hosing in die nineteenth century.
For OLIKT information I am indebted to Mr. W. R LeFauu. Librarian
of the Royal .Society of Surgeon* of 1’rigHmh Mr. William I.iclilen-
wangor, Assistant Hoad of rhr I’cferenre Section; Librarv'.-ot Congress}
Mr- Cyril E. R. Flatten. Town Clerk of the Uormigb of Enfield: Miss
