John Keats Biography

John Keats devoted his brief life to the pursuit of poetic perfection, characterised by vivid imagery, strong sensual appeal, and an attempt to articulate a philosophy through classical legend. He went on a walking trip to the Lake District in 1818. On that excursion, his exposure and overexertion triggered the first indications of TB, which ultimately claimed his life. In this John Keats biography, we will get to know about John Keats life and the brief life history of John Keats.

John Keats Short Biography

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About John Keats

On October 31, 1795, John Keats, the eldest of Thomas and Frances Jennings Keats' four children, was born in London. Keats had possibly the most amazing career of any English poet, despite dying at the age of twenty-five. In three tiny collections and a few publications, he published only fifty-four poems. However, over the course of his brief career, he took on the challenges of a wide range of poetic forms, from the sonnet to the Spenserian romance to the Miltonic epic, redefining their possibilities with his own distinct fusion of earnest energy, control of conflicting perspectives and forces, poetic self-consciousness, and, on occasion, dry ironic wit.

In 1803, Keats was transferred to John Clarke's school in Enfield, which was close to his grandparents' home and offered a more innovative and modern curriculum than similar schools. His interest in classical studies and history was cultivated by John Clarke. The headmaster's son, Charles Cowden Clarke, became a mentor figure for Keats, introducing him to Renaissance writers Torquato Tasso, Spenser, and George Chapman's works. Young Keats was a temperamental child who was both indolent and combative, but starting at the age of 13, he concentrated his energies into the pursuit of scholastic success, to the point where he earned his first academic medal in midsummer 1809.

When Keats' mother died of TB when he was 14, the children's guardians were appointed: Richard Abbey and Jon Sandell. In the same year, Keats left John Clarke to work as an apprentice to Thomas Hammond, a surgeon and pharmacist on his mother's side of the family. Until 1813, he lived in the attic above Hammond's practice.

Keats was betrothed to Fanny Brawne, the love of his life, but they never married. This was due to Keats' desire to solidify his position as a poet and earn money before he and Fanny married. However, Keats developed TB and the marriage was never consummated.

Let’s know more about Keats background

At the age of 19, Keats composed his first poem, "An Imitation of Spenser," in 1814. In October 1815, Keats enrolled as a medical student at Guy's Hospital after completing his apprenticeship with Hammond. He began aiding senior surgeons at the hospital during surgeries while he was there, which was a role with a lot of responsibility. His job took up a lot of time and limited his creative output, which caused him a lot of stress. He aspired to be a poet and admired poets such as Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron.

In 1816, he got his apothecary licence, which permitted him to work as a professional pharmacist, physician, and surgeon, but he told his guardian that he wanted to pursue poetry instead. The sonnet "O Solitude," published in Leigh Hunt's periodical The Examiner, was his first published poetry. While on vacation with Charles Cowden Clarke in the town of Margate in the summer of 1816, he began work on “Caligate.” He continued his studies to become a member of the Royal College of Surgeons after the summer was finished.

Publication of Endymion

Endymion: A Poetic Romance, Keats' next work, was published in May 1818. Endymion, a mythical shepherd, became an allegory (a story in which abstract ideas are portrayed by humans) of the passionate yearning to transcend the bounds of ordinary human experience for Keats. Endymion understands that achieving ultimate identification with transcendence (rising beyond the universe) requires modest acceptance of human limits and the pain inherent in man's predicament. Several of Keats' friends were sick at the time, according to his letters. His brother was ill, and he worried, prophetically (foretelling), that "I shall never be secure in Robustness (health and strength) again" following a terrible cold in October 1817.

Isabella, based on a storey by Boccaccio (1313–1375), was published in early 1818, and Keats returned to a simple narrative. Its focus was the beauty and greatness of tragic love, which was linked to Keats' more philosophical preoccupations (inquiry into the source and nature of human knowledge).

Information About John Keats

In September 1818, Keats began work on Hyperion. Its primary goal was to depict the transformation of the Greek god Apollo into a true poet as a result of a growing acceptance and awareness of change and grief. However, Keats was unable to complete it due to a variety of factors, including his deteriorating health, a critical rejection of Endymion, and the death of his brother, Tom.

In the spring of 1819, Keats returned to poetry storytelling. In purposeful repulsion (great disgust), he first created the magnificent "Eve of St. Agnes" in response to what he now viewed as Isabella's "mawkish" (sickly sentimental) romanticism. The poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," a simple narrative poem about the mysterious seduction of a mediaeval knight by another of Keats' elusive, enigmatic (mysterious), half-divine ladies, was followed by "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," a simple narrative poem about the mysterious seduction of a mediaeval knight by another of Keats' elusive, enigmatic (mysterious) half-divine ladies. Each poem exemplifies a recurring theme in Keats' poetry: a longing for something beyond human mortality combined with fear and trepidation (lack of self-confidence).

The first of his major odes, "Ode to Psyche," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and "Ode to a Nightingale," were written in the spring and summer of 1819. These, along with the subsequent "Ode on Indolence" and "Ode on Melancholy," are vivid depictions of the complicated (complex) relationship between grief and happiness, life and dream.

Otho the Great, Keats' only drama, was written in the second half of 1819. In The Fall of Hyperion, he also made his final attempt to define the role of the poet. It was never completed, as was the older Hyperion, and remains an intriguing (fascinating) fragment of cryptic (mystery) beauty.

Final Years and Death

Keats contracted TB in 1819. His health quickly deteriorated. He went to Italy with his close friend, the painter Joseph Severn, soon after his last volume of poems was released, on the recommendation of his doctor, who said he needed to be in a warmer climate for the winter.

His romance with Brawne came to an end during this trip. Their hopes of ever getting married had been hindered by his health concerns and his own goals of becoming a renowned writer.

When Keats landed in Rome in November of that year, he began to feel better for a short while. But, after a month, he was back in bed with a high temperature. For the poet, the last few months of his life were exceptionally difficult.

To reduce the flow of blood to the stomach, his doctor in Rome put Keats on a strict diet consisting of a single anchovy and a piece of bread per day. He also made Keats suffer from a lack of oxygen and food as a result of the excessive bleeding.

"How long is this posthumous existence of mine going to go on?" Keats urged his doctor at one point, asking, "How long is this posthumous existence of mine going to go on?"

On February 23, 1821, John Keats died. At the moment of his death, he was said to be gripping the hand of his companion Severn.

John Keats is one of the most prominent writers of the Romantic era, despite dying at the early age of 25 and only having been publishing poems for four years. Only about 200 copies of Keats' poetry books were sold during his lifetime, but his popularity and impact rose significantly after his death in 1821. Keats' highly thoughtful poetic endeavours to investigate and grasp beauty as it appears in all things inspired a generation of poets to follow in his footsteps In 1848, twenty-seven years after Keats's death, the autobiography of John Keats was published by Richard Monckton Milnes, which helped place Keats within the canon of English literature.