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The Letters of John Keats. Maurice Buxton Forman. Oxford University Press. New York, 1935

Letters
WHAT manner of man was John Keats, and how did he live the life poetic?

The answer to these questions lies, it seems to me, within the pages of this volume of his letters. These letters provide the main source from which any adequate record of those few short years of poetic production and any sound appreciation of his personality must derive, and if it be contended that they give a one-sided view of his nature, it may fairly be claimed that he himself was the only person properly equipped to offer the material for a just estimate of his character. But Keats himself was making no such offer to the public--'a thing I cannot help looking upon as an Enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of Hostility' he says in a letter to Reynolds--he was writing freely and frankly to his kinsfolk and his friends, and without restraint to the girl he passionately loved, and nowhere in his correspondence can be found any suggestion of a pose to discount the value of his own unwitting evidence. To hold this view of the biographical importance of the letters is not to detract in any way from the achievements of his biographers. Sir Sidney Colvin and Amy Lowell produced lives of the poet of inestimable moment, and Mr. Middleton Murry in his 'Keats and Shakespeare' has perhaps plumbed greater depths than they in the mind and soul of Keats. Lord Houghton, in whose debt students of literature must ever remain, came nearest to Keats in point of time, having been born when Keats was in his fourteenth year, and he had the advantage of acquaintance with, and assistance from, the poet's friends and contemporaries; yet the stronger of the lights his pages shed upon the life of his subject emanate from the letters he presented rather than from the biographical apparatus in which they are set.

those authorities showed any decided inclination to 'place' Keats in relation to the other great letter-writers in the English language, and I must candidly avow myself incompetent to rush in where they have feared, or failed, to tread. As this present collection is based on the latest published work of my father, supplemented by the fruits of his subsequent research, as well as from other sources, it will not be out of place to quote the views he expressed in his edition of 1895--the first in which the letters to Fanny Brawne were mingled with those to other correspondents in chronological order--which views he repeated in his edition of 1901. 'If', said he, 'to be true, interesting, 'attractive, witty, humorous, idealistic, realistic, specu'lative, discursive, and gossipy in turns is the note of a good 'letter-writer, then indeed Keats was one. If to tell one's 'friends just what they want to know about one's doings 'and thoughts, and about the doings and thoughts of 'mutual friends, is to be a good letter-writer--that is where ' Keats, of all men of genius in the last century, excelled. 'If consideration for the feelings of others in the manner 'and degree of communicating misfortunes or disagree'ables be an epistolary virtue, Keats was largely dowered 'with that virtue. If to present a true picture of the essential 'qualities of one's personality is a valuable art, Keats 'manifested that art in a high form in his letters. And if, 'when wrung by disease and misery, it is better to leave 'some record for a pitying posterity than to carry a ghastly 'secret into the oblivion of the grave, then in this also Keats 'exceeded others who have made the world richer with 'their letters. Lastly, the man is not dissociated from the 'poet in them. Not only is the poetic mode of thought 'frequently the ruling mode in the prose fabric of these 'letters; but they are set with gems of verse of all waters, 'dashed in just as they were composed, a part of the man's 'life enacting and reflected throughout, and ranging in 'quality from the merest doggerel calculated to fatten by 'laughter ("Laugh and grow fat!") to the very master'pieces of poetic craft by which Keats has most blessed his 'race. It is a far cry from

Two or three Posies With two or three simples-- 'to O what can ail thee Knight at arms Alone and palely loitering?

'But true it is that, in reading Keats's letters with a fresh 'eye, one never knows whether the next precious stone 'one comes to, embedded in one of his racy, lively, in'imitably good-tempered and well-conditioned prose pages, 'will be of the one mood or the other.'

Colvin in a more succinct passage in the preface to his collection, written in May 1891, would apparently claim even greater merit for the letters when he says that 'if a 'selection could be made from those parts only of Keats's 'correspondence which show him at his best, we should 'have an anthology full of intuitions of beauty, even of 'wisdom, and breathing the very spirit of generous youth; 'one unrivalled for zest, whim, fancy, and amiability, 'and written in an English which by its peculiar, alert 'and varied movement sometimes recalls, perhaps more 'closely than that of any other writer (for the young ' Cockney has Shakspeare in his blood), the prose passages 'of "Hamlet" and "Much Ado about Nothing".' And in the preparation of such an anthology I venture to think that Sir Sidney would have been strongly tempted to go back on his expressed opinion of the love-letters and delve among them too for its enrichment.

Possibly there is more behind Colvin's attitude towards the letters to Fanny Brawne than simple criticism or innate delicacy, but in the case of certain other distinguished men of letters, no reason is apparent save personal conviction. And that is difficult to understand. Matthew Arnold, who admits the signs of disease and the seeds of consumption, can overlook those ever-present harassments when he writes of the love-letters, naïvely professing not to judge the letters written when he 'was near his end, under the throttling and unmanning grasp of mortal disease'. Surely, he had forgotten Keats's medical knowledge and insight, had forgotten that 'haunting sore throat, and had not realized

the possibility of what some of us to-day believe, that practically the whole of Keats's poetic life was passed under the shadow of death. May he not be forgiven for this on account of the true things he said of Keats? The oft-quoted 'He is; he is with Shakespeare' will be remembered long after his harsh judgement of the Fanny Brawne letters is forgotten.

If the opinion of Arnold is perplexing, what is to be said of the deductions of Coventry Patmore after reading the letters for the first time in 1888? He who believed himself to be, and doubtless was, 'the sweetest-tempered and least savage of men', could 'find nothing in these letters that 'deserves a much better name than "lust"', and grudgingly he allows that 'with a man of splendid imagination like ' Keats the feeling would not express itself in vulgar forms, 'but would assume the singing robes of love, as far as that 'is possible in the absence of the true passion.' 'But that 'possibility', he adds, 'even for such a man as Keats, is very 'limited, and I fancy I detect artifice and cold self-con'sciousness in his most rhapsodical out-pourings.' A friend who has afforded me generous help while this book was passing through the press, urged me to hit out: he holds with me that Patmore was entirely wrong, and, again with me, he holds in high esteem the poet of 'The Angel in the House'. But is it worth while? Is there anything in the general impression Patmore expressed in his short letter to my father that one can counter? And may it not be that on later consideration he modified his views? If he could not see that Keats was seeking, and seeking passionately, to establish for himself a pure and beautiful ideal in the person of his lady love, it is too late now to convince him. Let it suffice to regard his interpretation with 'wonder and bedazement', to use his own words, and look upon it, as he himself suggested, as 'a psychological curiosity'.

With regard to the actual publication of Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne, my father, upon whom the burden of that responsibility rests, died in the belief that in giving them to the world he was performing an act of justice to the poet's memory; he looked upon them as essential to any picture of the true Keats, and he thought, as he said, Keats's letters without those to Fanny Brawne very much like 'Hamlet' without the Prince of Denmark. What seems to me to be an unanswerable justification for their publication, if one is needed at this late date, is given by Mr. Middleton Murry in his 'Keats and Shakespeare' when he declares that 'those who cannot understand Keats's love, 'will never understand his poetry, for these two things 'spring from a single source'. Can any man understand his love until he has read those letters 'which pierce the sense and live within the soul'? Were yet another justification for my father's action required, it could be found in the fact that those thirty-nine living documents, once for a while together in his keeping, came by force of circumstances. under the disintegrating sway of the auctioneer's hammer and are now scattered over the face of the earth. Those who care to examine the table of contents, in which the source of each letter and, where traced, the present owner of the original are given, may see that of the series to Fanny Brawne I have succeeded in tracing only nineteen; eighteen are in America, one in the Keats Museum at Hampstead. It is to be regretted that they did not share' the fate of the letters to that other Fanny, his sister, which at her death passed from my father's care, all save six, into the hands of the nation.

It is proper to state that the present collection of Keats's letters is based primarily on the fourth and fifth volumes of 'The Complete Library' edition prepared by H. Buxton Forman for Messrs. Gowans and Gray in 1901. The editor of that edition never regarded any of his work on Keats and Shelley as final, and no sooner had he put into print his latest acquisitions, than he resumed his watch for anything by or relating to them, so that when he passed on in 1917 he left an interesting assortment of new and revised material in his working copies. All appropriate matter from that source, together with a considerable quantity of material from other sources, was included in my previous edition. The 1917 collection referred to above contained

Dates
CHRONOLOGY OF PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF JOHN KEATS Coleman Street, April 23. George's, Hanover Square. Edmonton. March 20. Begins translating 'The Aeneid'. Finishes 'The Aeneid'. buried at St. Stephen's, Dec. 19. appears in 'The Examiner'. a bunch of roses. Writes the Chapman's Homer Sonnet. writes 'I stood tip-toe upon a little hill'. Meets Shelley and Horace Smith at Leigh Hunt's cottage. Spring. Meets Taylor, Hessey, Woodhouse, and Bailey. Begins 'Endymion'. Oct. Visits Stratford-on-Avon and returns t0 Hamp- stead. in 'The Champion' of December 1. 1817-18. Winters at Hampstead. Shelley and Leigh Hunt. 'Endymion', copying finished. America, accompanied to Liverpool by Keats and Brown. catches violent cold in Isle of Mull, with throat ulcers. Sept. Begins 'Hyperion'. comes engaged to Fanny. 'The Eve of St. Agnes'. throat. April 11. Meets Coleridge at Hampstead. Psyche', 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'. Writes 'Lamia', Part I. the Fine Arts'. Sonnet. 'Otho the Great' finished. chester. periodicals. Agnes'. minster. food. 1820. Jan.  'Ode on a Grecian Urn' published in 'Annals of the Fine Arts'. Indicator'. and Miss Brawne. 'The Indicator'. the Snooks at Bedhampton.
 * 1795. Oct. 31.  Birth in Finsbury.
 * Dec. 18. Christened at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate.
 * 1797. Feb. 28.  Birth of his brother George.
 * 1799. Nov. 18.  Birth of his brother Thomas.
 * 1801. Apr. 28.  Birth of his brother Edward. (Died in infancy.)
 * 1803. June 3.  Birth of his sister Frances Mary (Fanny).
 * 1804. Apr. 16.  Death of his father: buried at St. Stephen's,
 * June 27. His mother marries William Rawlings at St.
 * 1804-10.  Living with his grandmother, Mrs. Jennings, at
 * 1810.  Death of his mother: buried at St. Stephen's,
 * 1803-11.  Educated at Clarke's School, Enfield.
 * 1811. Summer.  Apprenticed to Thomas Hammond, Surgeon.
 * 1812.  Writes 'Imitation of Spenser'.
 * 1813.  Introduced to Severn.
 * 1814. Dec.  Death of his grandmother, Alice Jennings:
 * 1815. Feb. 2.  Writes Sonnet on the day Leigh Hunt left prison.
 * Oct. 1. Entered at Guy's Hospital.
 * Nov. Writes 'Epistle to George Felton Mathew'.
 * 1816. May 5.  First published poem, Sonnet, 'O Solitude!',
 * June 29. Addresses a Sonnet to Charles Wells on receiving
 * July 25. Takes the Apothecaries' Society's Certificate.
 * Aug. Writes 'Epistle to George Keats', at Margate.
 * Sept. Writes 'Epistle to Charles Cowden Clarke'.
 * Nov. Introduced to Haydon and writes Sonnet to him.
 * Dec. 1. Calls on Leigh Hunt with Cowden Clarke.
 * Dec. Contemplates the subject of 'Endymion' and
 * 1817. Mar. 3.  First book of 'Poems' published.
 * Apr. 15. At Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight.
 * May. At Margate, where Tom Keats joins him.
 * May 16. Goes to Canterbury.
 * June 10. Back at Hampstead.
 * 1817 Sept.  With Bailey at Oxford.
 * Nov. 28. Draft of 'Endymion' finished at Burford Bridge.
 * Dec. Sees Kean return to the public and criticizes him
 * Dec. 28. Haydon's 'immortaldinner': Keats, Wordsworth, Lamb, Kingston, &c., present.
 * 1818. Jan. 3.  Calls on Wordsworth in Mortimer Street.
 * Jan. Book I of 'Endymion' sent to press.
 * Jan.-Feb. Attends Hazlitt's Lectures.
 * Feb. 4. Writes Sonnet to the Nile in competition with
 * Feb. 5. Book II of 'Endymion', copying finished.
 * Feb. 27. Book III of 'Endymion', copying finished.
 * Mar. 14. Joins Tom Keats at Teignmouth: Book IV of
 * Mar. 21. Book IV with first preface and dedication sent to Taylor and Hessey.
 * Apr. 10. Sends second preface for 'Endymion' to Reynolds.
 * Apr. 26-May 3. 'Endymion' published.
 * Apr. 27. 'Isabella, or the Pot of Basil' finished.
 * Mid-May. Back at Hampstead with Tom.
 * May 19. 'Endymion' entered at Stationers' Hall.
 * June 22. George Keats and his bride leave London for
 * Visits the Lakes with Brown.
 * July. Scotch tour with Brown: flying visit to Ireland:
 * July 2. Writes 'Meg Merrilies'.
 * July 10. Writes 'A Galloway Song'.
 * Aug. 7. At Inverness waiting for smack for London.
 * Aug. 18. Reaches Hampstead.
 * Sept.-Dec. At Well Walk, Hampstead.
 * Sept. 1. 'Cockney School' attack published in 'Blackwood's Magazine' for August. Attack published in 'Quarterly Review' (April and Dec.).
 * Return of sore throat.
 * First meeting with Fanny Brawne.
 * Dec. 1. Death of Thomas Keats.
 * Agrees to live with Brown at Wentworth Place.
 * Dec. 7. Burial of Thomas Keats at St. Stephen's, Coleman Street.
 * Dec. 25. Spends Christmas Day at Mrs. Brawne's: be-
 * 1819. Jan.  Stays at Chichester and Bedhampton: writes
 * 1819. Feb.  Returns to Wentworth Place: persistent sore
 * Feb. 13-17. Writes 'The Eve of St. Mark'.
 * Apr. Writes 'La Belle Dame sans Merci', 'Ode to
 * May. Writes 'Ode to a Nightingale'.
 * June-July. Throat still sore.
 * July. Visits the Isle of Wight with Rice.
 * Is joined by Brown and begins 'Otho the Great'.
 * 'Ode to a Nightingale' published in 'Annals of
 * July 25. (Sunday night). Probably wrote the 'Bright Star'
 * Aug. 12. Removes with Brown to Winchester.
 * Sept.-Dec. Working on 'The Fall of Hyperion'.
 * Sept. 5. 'Lamia' finished.
 * Sept. 10-15. Hurried visit to London and return to Win-
 * Reads Ariosto and resolves to work for
 * Writes 'Ode to Autumn': revises 'The Eve of St.
 * Oct.-Nov. Writing 'The Cap and Bells'.
 * Oct. 8. Leaves Winchester for 25 College Street, West-
 * Oct. 15 or 16. Returns to Hampstead: leaves off animal
 * Dec. Throat in threatening state again.
 * Feb. 3. Fatal illness begins.
 * May 7. Keats and Brown finally part at Gravesend.
 * May 10. 'La Belle Dame sans Merci' published in 'The
 * June-July. Stays at Kentish Town near and with Hunt.
 * June 22. Fresh attack of blood-spitting.
 * July. 'Lamia, Isabella, &c.' published.
 * Aug. 12. Returns to Hampstead to be nursed by Mrs.
 * Aug. 23. Four stanzas of 'The Cap and Bells' printed in
 * Sept. 13. Leaves Hampstead for the last time.
 * Sept. 17. Goes aboard the 'Maria Crowther' in the London Docks.
 * Sept. 18. Sails from Gravesend with Severn. Contrary winds in Channel.
 * Sept. 28. Puts into Portsmouth. Keats and Severn visit

-xxxi- Goes ashore at Lulworth Cove, Dorset.
 * 1820. Sept. 29.  Leaves Portsmouth. Contrary winds again.
 * Oct. 21. Reaches Naples: detained in quarantine.
 * Nov. 1. Goes ashore at Naples.
 * Nov. 4 or 5. Sets out for Rome in a hired carriage.
 * Nov. 12. Reaches Terracina.
 * Nov. 17 (?). Enters Rome by the Lateran Gate.
 * Nov. 30. Writes his last letter.
 * Dec. 10. Has a serious relapse.
 * 1821. Feb. 23.  His death.
 * Feb. 25. His burial near the tomb of Caius Cestius.