Keats: Poems Published in 1820

Transcriber's note: Words in italics in the original are surrounded by _underscores_. The one Greek word has been transliterated and placed between +plus signs+. Ellipses match the original. See the end of the text for a more detailed transcriber's note. KEATS POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1820 Edited with Introduction and Notes by M. ROBERTSON Oxford At the Clarendon Press 1909 PREFACE. The text of this edition is a reprint (page for page and line for line) of a copy of the 1820 edition in the British Museum. For convenience of reference line-numbers have been added; but this is the only change, beyond the correction of one or two misprints. The books to which I am most indebted for the material used in the Introduction and Notes are _The Poems of John Keats_ with an Introduction and Notes by E. de Selincourt, _Life of Keats_ (English Men of Letters Series) by Sidney Colvin, and _Letters of John Keats_ edited by Sidney Colvin. As a pupil of Dr. de Selincourt I also owe him special gratitude for his inspiration and direction of my study of Keats, as well as for the constant help which I have received from him in the preparation of this edition. M. R. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ii LIFE OF KEATS v ADVERTISEMENT 2 LAMIA. PART I 3 LAMIA. PART II 27 ISABELLA; OR, THE POT OF BASIL. A STORY FROM BOCCACCIO 47 THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 81 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 107 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 113 ODE TO PSYCHE 117 FANCY 122 ODE ['Bards of Passion and of Mirth'] 128 LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 131 ROBIN HOOD. TO A FRIEND 133 TO AUTUMN 137 ODE ON MELANCHOLY 140 HYPERION. BOOK I 145 HYPERION. BOOK II 167 HYPERION. BOOK III 191 NOTE ON ADVERTISEMENT 201 INTRODUCTION TO LAMIA 201 NOTES ON LAMIA 203 INTRODUCTION TO ISABELLA AND THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 210 NOTES ON ISABELLA 215 NOTES ON THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 224 INTRODUCTION TO THE ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE, ODE ON A GRECIAN URN, ODE ON MELANCHOLY, AND TO AUTUMN 229 NOTES ON ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 232 NOTES ON ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 235 INTRODUCTION TO ODE TO PSYCHE 236 NOTES ON ODE TO PSYCHE 237 INTRODUCTION TO FANCY 238 NOTES ON FANCY 238 NOTES ON ODE ['Bards of Passion and of Mirth'] 239 INTRODUCTION TO LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 239 NOTES ON LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 239 INTRODUCTION TO ROBIN HOOD 240 NOTES ON ROBIN HOOD 241 NOTES ON 'TO AUTUMN' 242 NOTES ON ODE ON MELANCHOLY 243 INTRODUCTION TO HYPERION 244 NOTES ON HYPERION 249 LIFE OF KEATS Of all the great poets of the early nineteenth century--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats--John Keats was the last born and the first to die. The length of his life was not one-third that of Wordsworth, who was born twenty-five years before him and outlived him by twenty-nine. Yet before his tragic death at twenty-six Keats had produced a body of poetry of such extraordinary power and promise that the world has sometimes been tempted, in its regret for what he might have done had he lived, to lose sight of the superlative merit of what he actually accomplished. The three years of his poetic career, during which he published three small volumes of poetry, show a development at the same time rapid and steady, and a gradual but complete abandonment of almost every fault and weakness. It would probably be impossible, in the history of literature, to find such another instance of the 'growth of a poet's mind'. The last of these three volumes, which is here reprinted, was published in 1820, when it 'had good success among the literary people and . . . a moderate sale'. It contains the flower of his poetic production and is perhaps, altogether, one of the most marvellous volumes ever issued from the press. But in spite of the maturity of Keats's work when he was twenty-five, he had been in no sense a precocious child. Born in 1795 in the city of London, the son of a livery-stable keeper, he was brought up amid surroundings and influences by no means calculated to awaken poetic genius. He was the eldest of five--four boys, one of whom died in infancy, and a girl younger than all; and he and his brothers George and Tom were educated at a private school at Enfield. Here John was at first distinguished more for fighting than for study, whilst his bright, brave, generous nature made him popular with masters and boys. Soon after he had begun to go to school his father died, and when he was fifteen the children lost their mother too. Keats was passionately devoted to his mother; during her last illness he would sit up all night with her, give her her medicine, and even cook her food himself. At her death he was brokenhearted. The children were now put under the care of two guardians, one of whom, Mr. Abbey, taking the sole responsibility, immediately removed John from school and apprenticed him for five years to a surgeon at Edmonton. Whilst thus employed Keats spent all his leisure time in reading, for which he had developed a great enthusiasm during his last two years at school. There he had devoured every book that came in his way, especially rejoicing in stories of the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece. At Edmonton he was able to continue his studies by borrowing books from his friend Charles Cowden Clarke, the son of his schoolmaster, and he often went over to Enfield to change his books and to discuss those which he had been reading. On one of these occasions Cowden Clarke introduced him to Spenser, to whom so many poets have owed their first inspiration that he has been called 'the poets' poet'; and it was then, apparently, that Keats was first prompted to write. When he was nineteen, a year before his apprenticeship came to an end, he quarrelled with his master, left him, and continued his training in London as a student at St. Thomas's Hospital and Guy's. Gradually, however, during the months that followed, though he was an industrious and able medical student, Keats came to realize that poetry was his true vocation; and as soon as he was of age, in spite of the opposition of his guardian, he decided to abandon the medical profession and devote his life to literature. If Mr. Abbey was unsympathetic Keats was not without encouragement from others. His brothers always believed in him whole-heartedly, and his exceptionally lovable nature had won him many friends. Amongst these friends two men older than himself, each famous in his own sphere, had special influence upon him. One of them, Leigh Hunt, was something of a poet himself and a pleasant prose-writer. His encouragement did much to stimulate Keats's genius, but his direct influence on his poetry was wholly bad. Leigh Hunt's was not a deep nature; his poetry is often trivial and sentimental, and his easy conversational style is intolerable when applied to a great theme. To this man's influence, as well as to the surroundings of his youth, are doubtless due the occasional flaws of taste in Keats's early work. The other, Haydon, was an artist of mediocre creative talent but great aims and amazing belief in himself. He had a fine critical faculty which was shown in his appreciation of the Elgin marbles, in opposition to the most respected authorities of his day. Mainly through his insistence they were secured for the nation which thus owes him a boundless debt of gratitude. He helped to guide and direct Keats's taste by his enthusiastic exposition of these masterpieces of Greek sculpture. In 1817 Keats published his first volume of poems, including 'Sleep and Poetry' and the well-known lines 'I stood tiptoe upon a little hill'. With much that is of the highest poetic value, many memorable lines and touches of his unique insight into nature, the volume yet showed considerable immaturity. It contained indeed, if we except one perfect sonnet, rather a series of experiments than any complete and finished work. There were abundant faults for those who liked to look for them, though there were abundant beauties too; and the critics and the public chose rather to concentrate their attention on the former. The volume was therefore anything but a success; but Keats was not discouraged, for he saw many of his own faults more clearly than did his critics, and felt his power to outgrow them. Immediately after this Keats went to the Isle of Wight and thence to Margate that he might study and write undisturbed. On May 10th he wrote to Haydon--'I never quite despair, and I read Shakespeare--indeed I shall, I think, never read any other book much'. We have seen Keats influenced by Spenser and by Leigh Hunt: now, though his love for Spenser continued, Shakespeare's had become the dominant influence. Gradually he came too under the influence of Wordsworth's philosophy of poetry and life, and later his reading of Milton affected his style to some extent, but Shakespeare's influence was the widest, deepest and most lasting, though it is the hardest to define. His study of other poets left traces upon his work in turns of phrase or turns of thought: Shakespeare permeated his whole being, and his influence is to be detected not in a resemblance of style, for Shakespeare can have no imitators, but in a broadening view of life, and increased humanity. No poet could have owed his education more completely to the English poets than did John Keats. His knowledge of Latin was slight--he knew no Greek, and even the classical stories which he loved and constantly used, came to him almost entirely through the medium of Elizabethan translations and allusions. In this connexion it is interesting to read his first fine sonnet, in which he celebrates his introduction to the greatest of Greek poets in the translation of the rugged and forcible Elizabethan, George Chapman:-- _On first looking into Chapman's Homer._ Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.