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traits from the start; but he was equally distinguished by a generous spirit, physical vigor (though he was
very short in build), and courage.
Keats' first little volume of verse, published in 1817, when he was twenty-one,-contained some
delightful poems and clearly displayed most of his chief tendencies. It was followed the next year by his
longest poem, 'Endymion,' where he uses, one of the vaguely beautiful Greek myths as the basis for the
expression of his own delight in the glory of the world and of youthful sensations. As a narrative, the poem
is wandering, almost chaotic; that it is immature Keats himself frankly admitted in his preface; but in
luxuriant loveliness of sensuous imagination, it is unsurpassed. Its theme, and indeed the theme of all
Keats' poetry, may be said to be found in its famous first line--'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.' The
remaining three years of Keats' life were mostly tragic. 'Endymion' and its author were brutally attacked in
'The Quarterly Review' and 'Blackwood's Magazine.' The sickness and death, from consumption, of one of
Keats' dearly-loved brothers was followed by his infatuation with a certain Fanny Brawne, a commonplace
girl seven years younger than himself. This infatuation thenceforth divided his life with poetry and helped
to create in him a restless impatience that led him, among other things, to an unhappy effort to force his
genius, in the hope of gain, into the very unsuitable channel of play-writing. But restlessness did not
weaken his genuine and maturing poetic power; his third and last volume, published in 1820, and including
'The Eve of St. Agnes,' 'Isabella,' 'Lamia,' the fragmentary 'Hyperion,' and his half dozen great odes,
probably contains more poetry of the highest order than any other book of original verse, of so small a size,
ever sent from the press. By this time, however, Keats himself was stricken with consumption, and in the
effort to save his life a warmer climate was the last resource. Lack of sympathy with Shelley and his poetry
led
him
to
reject
Shelley's
generous
offer
of
entertainment
at
Pisa,
and
he sailed with his devoted friend the painter Joseph Severn to southern Italy. A few months later, in 1821,
he died at Rome, at the age of twenty-five. His tombstone, in a neglected corner of the Protestant
cemetery just outside the city wall, bears among other words those which in bitterness of spirit he himself
had dictated: 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.' But, in fact, not only had he created more
great poetry than was ever achieved by any other man at so early an age, but probably no other influence
was to prove so great as his on the poets of the next generation.
The most important qualities of his poetry stand out clearly:
1. He is the great apostle of full though not unhealthy enjoyment of external Beauty, the
beauty of the senses. His use of beauty in his poetry is marked at first by passionate Romantic
abandonment and always by lavish Romantic richness.
2. Keats is one of the supreme masters of poetic expression, expression the most beautiful, apt, vivid,
condensed, and imaginatively suggestive. It is primarily in this respect that he has been the teacher of later
poets.
3. Keats never attained dramatic or narrative power or skill in the presentation of individual
character. In place of these elements, he has the lyric gift of rendering moods. Aside from ecstatic delight,
these are mostly moods of pensiveness, languor, or romantic sadness, like the one so magically suggested
in the 'Ode to a Nightingale,' of Ruth standing lonely and 'in tears amid the alien corn.'
4. Conspicuous in Keats is his spiritual kinship with the ancient Greeks. He assimilated with eager
delight all the riches of the Greek imagination, even though he never learned the language.
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