John Keats

John Keats is unlike the other poets that we have read previously. Keats was not born wealthy, but rather to working-class parents from London. He was not inspired by fantastic views of the lakes in northern England or by his travels abroad - his main travelling consisting of a journey to Italy due to his ill health - but rather what was close to his heart, which is what makes his poetry so riveted with emotion. Also, unlike Byron and Coleridge, and even Wordsworth and Shelley, Keats did not write poetry as a hobby, but instead, poetry was his career, having given up his chosen medical path. So, thus, he supported himself and his wife financially and economically through his writing, which made success necessary for his survival. The two selections of Keats that we have in this packet reflect his rather melacholy lifetime. He was never wealthy, and at first his poetry was scorned, and faced sorrow of the acutest kind: the death of a beloved brother to tuberculosis, soon followed by his own realization that he had contracted the illness as well and his removal to Italy in the hopes of recovering under the influence of warmer weather. Unfortunately, Keats life was cut too short, a tragic story, really. He was so young, had only briefly been married to the love of his life, and had only just begun his promising poetic carerr.