JOHN KEATS
(1795-1821)

Vita e opere

He’s a poet of the second generation, he’s a bit different from Shelley and Byron.
The first difference is for his humble origins.
He was born in London in 1795. Through his life there’s an experience that he made over and over: the death.
In 1804 his father died, in 1805 his mother died of tubercholosis, in 1818 his brother died he too for tubercholosis.
Keats hadn’t an happy life and it was dominated by death; Keats died young.
Death is dominant in his life, one of the characteristics of the poets of the second generation died soon, instead the poets of the first generation lifed over the poets of the second.
Keats wasn’t conservative at all.
In 1810, after leaving school, he was apprenticed to an apothecary surgeon, but he remained a passionate reader.
In 1815 he became student at Guy’s Hospital. In 1816 he didn’t continue his studies, he abandoned the profession of medicine for poetry. It’s when one of his friends took him to the british museum to see the Elgine Marbles and he was deeply impressed by greek plastic art, he was overwhelmed. He was amazed by greek art, he get to know classical art, not by studying but by his personal experience, he get to know an intense sensory experience that enchanted him.
From that moment he decides that poetry and art will be his life.
The golden year of his literary production is 1819.
He fell in love with Fanny Brawne, but he wasn’t reciprocated.
In this period he wrote a great amount of poetries including “Ode on a grecian urn”, “To autumn”, “Ode on melancholy”, “The eve of St. Agnes”, “La belle dame sans merci”, “Ode to a nightingale”.
In 1820 when he was very ill with tubercholosis, he moved to Italy, to Rome, in this point he his very similar to the others romantic poets.
In 1821 he was called the cockney poet, to make fun of him (for his language – cockney = dialetto volgare londinese).
He died for tubercholosis in 1821.