“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.” So said John Keats who, for all of his twenty-five years, lacked neither wisdom, talent, or taste for good wine. Born in London in 1795, Keats lived a life imbued with tragedy and poetry. Despite the tragedies that fell on Keats’ young shoulders, his poetry and letters maintained a tender appreciation for the wonders life has to offer. He sought solace in imagination, which in turn gave rise to one of the most influential poets of the British canon.
Though largely defined within the framework of the British Romantic period, Keats cannot fairly be classified under the genre, for he himself was not entirely at ease with the association. Indeed, Keats’ style was one that transgressed the rigid borders of genre: he experimented with an array of poetic forms, from the sonnet, to the Spenserian romance, to the Miltonic epic. Keats’ infatuation with Fanny Brawne produced perhaps some of his most powerful and prominent work. Despite his conviction that solitude is of utmost importance for creativity, Keats’ letters to Brawne further illuminate his mastery over language: My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet — You have ravish’d me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often “to reason against the reasons of my Love.”
Though his life was cut short by tuberculosis, Keats was one of the most influential and prolific poets of the 19th-century. From melancholy to love to reimaginings of Greek tragedies, his thematic breadth and visionary style proves difficult to resist.