JOHN KEATS - THE YOUNG ENGLISH POET

                                                                    John Keats
                                                                            by 
                                                      Keshab Chandra Mandal

John Keats was born in London on October 31, 1795. He was the coursebred son of a livery stable keeper. He had a very insignificant schooling at the Clark School, Enfield for eight years.

Keats’ father died when he was eight and his mother when he was fifteen. Keats was under the care of his grandmother for three years and then came under his unsympathetic legal guardian. His guardian apprenticed him to a surgeon and apothecary. A fellow apprentice described him as ‘an idle-loafing’ fellow, always quoting poetry. On November 4, 1813 when he was eighteen, he wrote his first poem and called it, ‘Limitation of Spenser.’ Spenser was a great influence on Keats and we find this influence in his longer poems like The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion, Ednymion and Lamia. His early verses are an attempt to recapture the Elizabethan splendor. Keats contributed his share to the revival of the genre ‘Sonnet’ which had almost been extinct in the age of Pope. In December 1814, he wrote three sonnets of which the Sonnet to Byron is still remembered for its artistic beauty.

Keats was intoxicated with the vision of greatness. He knew his lofty purpose and understood that poetry was his calling. ‘Poems’, his first volume of verse was published on March 3, 1917 and his long and ambitious Endymion in November of the same year.

The year 1818 was a year of great creative activity. He met fellow Romantic poets like Wordsworth and his circle of friends enlarged. In this year he met and fell in love with Fanny Browne. In his letter of 13^th October, we see Keats’ attitude towards love: ‘Men could die martyrs for religion. I could be martyr’d for my religion. Love is my religion. I could die for that.”

The year 1819 was another significant year in Keat's life personally as well as career-wise. He laid aside ‘Hyperion’ without completing it and sent the manuscript to his friend Woodhouse. His affair with Fanny grew cold and he wrote his classical ballad “La Belli Dame Sans Merci” in April 1819. In May 1819, Keats was staying at Wertworth-Place and here he wrote the great odes, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on Melancholy and Indolence. He began the second section of Hyperion :  The Fall of Hyperion in August 1819 and once again in September gave it up. His Ode to Autumn was written in September 1819 and the year ends with his sonnet : I cry Your Mercy.

The next two years of Keats’ life were miserable. His engagement with Fanny was broken off in February, 1820 and he grew ill. Most of his poems were published in 1820 and his ill-health caused him a lot problems and to escape the English cold he went to Italy and there he died on 23^rd February 1821 at the age of 26.