John Keats
Wrote his greatest poetry in the final two years of his life, before dying of tuberculosis at twenty-five.
Biography
Keats was a trained medical student who gave up surgery for poetry. He published his first book at twenty-one and was savagely reviewed; the critics' cruelty may have accelerated his decline.
He fell in love with Fanny Brawne in 1818 and became engaged to her shortly before leaving London for Rome, hoping the warmer climate would cure his tuberculosis. He died there, aged twenty-five, and is buried in the Protestant cemetery with the epitaph 'Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water'.
Writing Style
- Synesthesia: experiences are described through multiple senses at once — 'heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter'.
- The 'negative capability' — a phrase he coined for the poet's ability to hold uncertainty without trying to resolve it.
- Long vowels and sibilants in his odes, creating a music that feels both luxurious and fragile.
- Shakespearean sonnets in his early work; odes and long poems in his maturity.
Influence & Legacy
The patron saint of poets who die young. Keats's reputation grew dramatically in the twentieth century, and his odes are now considered among the greatest lyric poems in English.
Famous Poems
Other England Poets
About This Entry
This is a brief, opinionated introduction to John Keats — not a comprehensive biography. For detailed scholarship, consult the volumes listed in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography or the relevant collections of letters and criticism. The goal here is to give you enough context to read the poems with fresh eyes.