The archetype of Romantic writers - John Keats

John Keats was born in 1795 at Moorgate in London where his father was a stableman. Keats lived happily for the first seven years of his life. Year 1804 marked the end of his peaceful life when his father died after falling from his horse.

His mother remarried but only for a brief period and moved to Keat's grandmothers where his love for literature was first instilled at school. But when his mother died of tuberculosis the guardians who were appointed took him out of school to be make him a surgeon apprentice.

He later discovered that he and his brother were suffering from tuberculosis. He briefly fell in love with Fanny Brawne when he went to Hampstead. But the romance was short lived due to deterioration of his health. Later he moved over to Italy on doctors' suggestions where he died in 1821.

Shelley and Byron blamed his death on an article which appeared shortly before his demise in the Quarterly Review, with a contemptuous attack on Keats's Endymion, which was believed to have been written by John Wilson Croker. Keats' death inspired Shelley to write the poem Adonais. William Butler Yeats was intrigued by the contrast between the "deliberate happiness" of Keats's poetry and the sadness that characterised his life.

An English lyric poet, the archetype of the Romantic writer Keats was determined to do well to the rest of the world while in good health. Keats produced some of his finest poetry during the spring and summer of 1819; in fact, the period from September 1818 to September 1819 is often referred to among Keats scholars as the Great Year, or the Living Year, because it was during this period that he was most productive and that he wrote his most critically acclaimed works.

It's believed that significant events such as the death of his brother, the meeting of Fanny Brawne and the manner in which he was treated at the hands of critics caused him to be more productive in writing poetry, at this particular period. Some critically acclaimed poems written at the time, that are still enjoyed by literature students around the world are Ode to Psyche, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on Melancholy, and To Autumn.

In his letters to family and friends he has claimed that he wishes to be a "chameleon poet" and to resist the "egotistical sublime" of Wordsworth's writing. His poems like Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn suggest his regret at having to leave the world too early. An up close study of these poems prove that he seeks immortality.

One of England's greatest poets, Keats was a key element in the Romantic Movement. Known especially for his love of the country and sensuous descriptions of the beauty of nature, well exhibited in poems like To Autumn, his poetry also resonated with deep philosophic questions.