John Keats: Early Life
John Keats son of Thomas keats, a livery stable-keeper, was born at Moorfields, London on 29th October 1795. His father died in 1804. His mother married again and died six years later. Keats had his early education in a private school at Enfield. There he learned some Latin and got interested in classical myths though he knew no Greek. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a surgeon named Thomas Hammond at Edmonton.
Life and Works of John Keats
In 1814 he went to London to continue his medical studies there. He passed his examination with credit and appointed as a dresser. But the medical profession could not attract him. Soon he gave it up and began to write poetry. Since 1818 keats had to experience a series of shocks. The first is the emigration to America of his brother George and his wife. The next was the break down of his health through fatigue and exposure during a walking tour through the English lakes and the South Scotland. The third was the death of his brother Tom from consumption. To seek relief from the burden of sorrow and bereavement he left home and went to live with his friend Brown in Hampstead. Here he becomes a sad victim of his passion Fanny Brawne. Towards the end of the year 1819 he made journey to the Isle of wight and Winchester. But soon he returned to London and wanted to take to journalism. But his closed contact with Fanny proved his undoing. Misfortune and ill health were drawing his career to a close. The hereditary disease of consumption was upon him. He was advised to go to Italy to recover his health.
John Keats Poems
All the crowing works of Keats in the field of poetry were written between 1818 and 1819.His first volume of poems containing among others, the sonnet “To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent” and “Sleep and poetry”, appeared in 1817. In 1818 was published Endymion which was savagely attacked by the “Quarterly Review” and “Blackwood’s Magazine”. He also He also started writing Hyperion this year. In 1820 came out Lamia; Isabella, or the pot of Basil; and the Eve of St. Agnes. His great odes were written mostly in 1819.
John Keats Death
In September 1820 he sailed for Naples. From there he went to Rome in November and died there on 23rd February 1821. He was buried in the protestant cemetery at Rome. The epitaph we find on his tomb was composed by the poet himself: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”
