John Keats

1
John Keats

• His Life and Work

2
Keats Family Background

• October 31, 1795, John Keats is born, the first
  child of Thomas and Frances Keats.
• Brother George is born in 1797
• Brother Tom is born in 1799
• 1803 Sister Fanny is born

3
Keatss Education

• 1803 enters John Clarkes School at Enfield
• Becomes friends with Charles Cowden Clarke
• Clarke encourages Keatss interest in reading
• Becomes an avid reader after death of mother

4
Medical Career

• After death of father, mother, and grandmother,
  Richard Abbey, guardian, takes Keats out of
  school and in 1810, he is apprenticed to the
  apothecary Dr. Hammond of Edmonton
• Continues to visit Clarke several times a month
  to read and discuss literature.
• 1815 trains at Guys Hospital
• 1816 begins work as a dresser
• Continues to read poetry and publishes his first
  poem, O Solitude

5
Summer 1816

• Keats goes on vacation to Margate with his
  brother Tom
• Begins writing letters to his friends
• Ideas in letters helped shape his views on poetry

6
On First Looking Into Chapmans Homer

• Written October 1816 after spending evening with
  Clarke reading Chapmans translation of Homer
• Keats begins to meet the group of friends known
  as the Hunt Circle who will influence him for
  the rest of his life
• Keats decides to abandon medicine for poetry

7
1817

• March 1817 Haydon takes Keats to view the Elgin
  Marbles
• Keats writes two Elgin Marbles sonnets
• Vision of artistic greatness
• Keats publishes his first volume Poems
• Meets Wordsworth for the first time

8
Endymion

• March 1817 Keats begins poem
• Considered a trial of invention
• Begins work on the poem at Isle of Wight
• Finishes poem in November

9
1818

• Crisis year for Keats
• July-August Keats takes walking tour of Lake
  District and Scotland with Charles Brown
• Becomes ill on carriage ride home
• Returns home to nurse his brother Tom
• Tom dies of consumption
• Begins Hyperion

10
1819

• January writes Eve of St. Agnes
• April-May writes La Belle Dame sans Merci and
  the great Odes.
• Keats moves to Wentworth place
• Meets and falls in love with Fanny Brawne
  becomes engaged to Fanny
• Experiences first signs of tuberculosis
• Begins and abandons The Fall of Hyperion

11
1820

• Keats has a severe haemorrhage and is confined to
  his house
• Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and other
  poems published and well-reviewed
• September sails for Italy with Joseph Severn
• November 30 writes his last known letter

12
1821

• February 23 Keats dies at 26 Piazza di Spagna,
  Rome
• February 26 Keats is buried in the Protestant
  Cemetery in Rome