John Keats

Who Could Stay In The Uncertainty · Poet · 1795–1821

The apothecary's apprentice who gave up medicine, wrote the odes in a single year, and was dead at twenty-five.

Who was Keats?

John Keats was born in London in 1795, the son of a stablekeeper who died in a fall when Keats was eight. His mother died of consumption when he was fourteen, and he nursed his brother Tom through the same disease until Tom died in December 1818. He was apprenticed to an apothecary, trained as a dresser at Guy's Hospital, qualified to practise, and gave it up for poetry — which meant that he understood, better than any of his friends, exactly what the blood he later coughed onto his pillow meant. Endymion was savaged by the Quarterly and Blackwood's in 1818. Then came 1819, the most productive year any English poet has had: La Belle Dame sans Merci in April, the great odes through the spring and summer, the Hyperion fragments, and the letters in which he named negative capability — the capacity of being in uncertainties, mysteries and doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. La Belle Dame is a ballad in twelve stanzas built on the old four-line form with its last line cut short, so that every single verse runs out of breath: a knight is found alone and palely loitering, tells of a woman he met in the meads, and wakes on a cold hillside among the pale kings and warriors who were there before him. He was in love with Fanny Brawne and could not afford to marry her. He died in Rome in February 1821, aged twenty-five, and asked for a gravestone with no name on it.

Major achievements

• La Belle Dame sans Merci and the great odes, all written in 1819
• Named negative capability in a letter of December 1817
• Qualified as an apothecary at Guy's Hospital before giving it up
• The letters, which are among the finest in English
• Changed what English poetry could do with the senses

Life in brief

• 1795 — Born in London: Son of a stablekeeper at the Swan and Hoop.
• 1810 — His mother dies: Of consumption; he is fourteen.
• 1815 — Guy's Hospital: Trains as a dresser and qualifies to practise.
• 1818 — Endymion attacked: Savaged by the Quarterly and Blackwood's.
• 1818 — Tom dies: Nursed through consumption by his brother.
• 1819 — The great year: La Belle Dame in April, then the odes.
• 1820 — Coughs arterial blood: A trained medical man; he knows what it means.
• 1821 — Dies in Rome: Aged twenty-five; buried under a stone with no name.

Explore the life of Keats — five chapters

1. The Stablekeeper's Son — Two parents dead before he was fifteen
2. The Dresser at Guy's — A qualified medical man who walked away
3. Being In Uncertainties — A savaging, a brother's death, and an idea in a letter
4. 1819 — The most productive twelve months an English poet has had
5. The Stone With No Name — Rome, February 1821

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