JOHN KEATS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16359, 23 February 1921, Page 6

JOHN KEATS.

CENTENARY OF POET’S DEATH, (Contributed.) j . . . Burning through the inmost veil of I Heaven, | The Soul of Adonais, like a star, I Beacons from the abode where the Internal j It is one hundred years ago to-day : since John Keats died of consumption at Rome. He is buried in the Protestant Cemetery of that city, in surI roundings of romantic quiet and ! beauty, such as he himself would have chosen and desired. He had been I compelled to leave England in Scptemj ber, 182(b the condition of his health ' making it impossible for him to enI dure the rigours of an English winter. ! He left homo a broken man, under sentence of death, tortured in mind and body, knowing that the _ dearest and sweetest dream of his life would never he realised. He was forced to part with Fanny Brawne, the only woman he over loved. To Keats, love was terrible. It was consuming fire that burnt ail traces of a previous existence, that gave birth to a new anrl magnificent one. Fanny Brawne came into the young poet's life as a very goddess, weaving a spell about him. satisfying him and stimulating him to the composition of his finest poetry. Whether she reciprocated his passion or not, matters iittle ; but there does seem to be evidence that a definite understanding concerning an engagement existed. Whatever the circumstances were, one must acknowledge that Fanny Brawne was the dominant factor in Keat’s life. In later years, she was accustomed to refer to him as “ that foolish young poet who had been in love with me.” This seems to suggest that her regard for him was of a shallow and temporary nature, and considering that she married afterwards, an attitude of indifference was the only correct one for her to adopt. Inwardly perhaps, she was faithful to the lover of her youthbut he was dead—-and people might scorn her for living on a romance of memories. For poor Keats, Fannv was everything, and his last poem, a sonnet, one of the most superb in any language, is addressed to her. He wrote it off the coast of England on board the ship that was bearing him away to Italy. John Keats was born in October, 1795. His father was an assistant Tn a London Ijvery stable- He won the* affection of his master’s daughter— Fanny Jennings—and eventually married her, John being the first-born of the union. In his ninth year, Keats was sent to school at Enfield, where ho remained until he was fifteen. On leaving, it was decided that he should study medicine, and with this end in view, he was sent to walk the London hospitals. He had as yet shown no evidence of those talents which were one day to make him famous. It was not until his eighteenth year that he wrote those first lines of his, “Tn Imitation of Spenser.” Charles Cowden Clarke hncl loaned him a volume of “The Faery Queen,” and Keats was enraptured by it. From that time we | date the commencement of his literary' career. After a time he wearied of medicine and resolved to devote his whole life to poetry—an ambitious and perilous undertaking, demanding extraordinary qualities of spirit and veranceIn 1817 he published his first volume of poems. Thev were hardly noticed, save by a small circle of intimate acquaintances. In spite of many imperfections, they formed a powerful contribution to- the literature of the Romantic Revival. In them was no echo from the eighteenth century., but a new voice full of beauty and haunting i melody was speaking". The best known -?x)em in the volume is the sonnet “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer.” Keat'.s_ next great venture was the composition of “ Endymion ” —a poetic romance, dedicated to the memory of Chatterton. Classical mythology was holding away over his mind and into this magic poem he has fused the : stories of numberless legends. It. has l>een said that to appreciate “ Rndymion” is an infallible test of one’s fitness to appreciate poetic beauty. On publication, it was subject to the’ most scurrilous attacks at the hands of the leading Reviews of the dav : but there is an explanation of this which has to a large extent been overlooked. Two Reviews were essentially Tory, and the. fact that Keats was associated with Leigh Hunt, a Radical, would tend to mako him an object for abuse and scorn m their eyes. However, the hapless writer in “The Quarterly” has been sufficiently pilloried by Shelley in Adonais.

Lndynnon is a prroat norm—imperfect in parts, lint nevertheless full of pure gold, and the wanderer who ventures into the realms of nivthoWv as pictured by Keats, shall have his reward.

the fart volume—the crovrn of Keat’s poetm effort—was published. Iho poems in it were writterf after his meeting with Fanny Brawne, and some of them are the areate-t of the century. When we think that all this divine work was done by a rnnsinnntive before he had completed his twentvsixth w*nr, we are astounded. An immortality was sained. Johnnv Keats had hoped for it, but the possibilitv seemed remote.

Keats was the first of the " art for art s sake school. He stood for no fierce doctrines like Shelley. He did not preach the tedious morality of Wordsworth. He was not the ardent protagonist of a political Pause like xJyron. He was not saturated in metaphysics like Coleridge. Re wrote because the sjieer beauty of things dazzled him, and with that pen of his he could paint as vivid a picture as that of the master artist. The colour and luseious"fss „ hls P° etr y equalled only by that of Spenser. Perhaps even Spinser was not so _ wonderfully pictorial. Browning admitted in one of his poems that Keats had left an everlasting im press on English poetry. To follow Erowmng further one might ask: ‘What porridge had John Keats?” Unfortunately very_ little in his own day. but his fame is spread now, and with one, or maybe two. exceptions he 13 the greatest poet of the nineteenth century. Had he lived it is impossible to conjecture to what heights he might have i;isen.