Biography of John Keats:

  • Born: 31 October 1795
  • Birthplace: Near London, England
  • Died: 23 February 1821 (tuberculosis)
  • Best Known As: Romantic poet who wrote “Ode to a Nightingale”

John Keats was born in Finsbury Pavement near London on October 31st, 1795. The first son of a stable-keeper, he had a sister and three brothers, one of whom died in infancy. When John was eight years old, his father was killed in an accident. In the same year his mother married again, but little later separated from her husband and took her family to live with her mother. John attended a good school where he became well acquainted with ancient and contemporary literature. In 1810 his mother died of consumption, leaving the children to their grandmother. The old lady put them under the care of two guardians, to whom she made over a respectable amount of money for the benifit of the orphans. Under the authority of the guardians, he was taken from school to an be apprentice to a surgeon. In 1814, before completion of his apprenticeship, John left his master after a quarrel, becoming a hospital student in London. Under the guidance of his friend Cowden Clarke he devoted himself increasingly to literature. In 1814 Keats finally sacrificed his medical ambitions to a literary life.
He soon got acquainted with celebrated artists of his time, like Leigh Hunt, Percy B. Shelley and Benjamin Robert Haydon. In May 1816, Hunt helped him publish his first poem in a magazine. A year later Keats published about thirty poems and sonnets printed in the volume “Poems”.

John Keats is considered one of the greatest English poets of the 19th century, the author of Romantic classics such as “Endymion” and “Ode to a Nightingale.” Keats began his career as a surgeon’s apprentice, but gave up medicine for literary pursuits in 1814. With the help of Percy Shelley, Keats published his first collection in 1817. His productive years between 1818 and 1820 yielded some of his best-known poems, including “Lamia,” “the Eve of St. Agnes” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” In 1821 he left England and went to Italy for health reasons, but died a few months later, leaving his epic poem “Hyperion” unfinished. In his short life he influenced many English poets, and his vivid imagery and sensual style later had an impact on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of painters that included Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Keats’s greatest works were written in the late 1810s, among them Lamia, The Eve of St. Agnes, the great odes and two versions of Hyperion. He worked briefly as a theatrical critic for The Champion, spent summer of 1818 touring the Lakes, Scotland and Northern Ireland. During his journey, which he made with his friend Charles Brown, a businessman, he vowed: “I shall learn poetry here and shall henceforth write more than ever.” After returning to London he spent the next three months attending his brother Tom, who was seriously ill with tuberculosis and died in 1818.   

After Tom’s death in December, Keats moved to Hampstead to live with Charles Brown. Soon he fell in love with Fanny Brown, the daughter of a widowed neighbor, and they were betrothed. He had a love affair with Fanny Brown but could never get married to her. Keats’s passionate love for Fanny Brawn seems to have begun in 1818. Fanny’s letters to Keats’s sister show that her critics’ contention that she was a cruel flirt was not true. Only Keats’s failing health prevented their marriage. He had contracted tuberculosis, probably from nursing his brother Tom, who died in 1818.

 An unmistakeable sign of consumption in February 1820 however broke all his plans for the future, marking the beginning of what he called his “postmumous life”. He could not enjoy the positive resonance on the publication of the volume “Lamia, Isabella &c.”, including his most celebrated odes. In the late summer of 1820, Keats was ordered by his doctors to avoid the English winter and move to Italy. His friend Joseph Severn accompanied him south – first to Naples, and then to Rome. His health improved momentarily, only to collapse finally. Keats died in Rome on the 23rd of February, 1821. He was buried on the Protestant Cemetary, near the grave of Caius Cestius. On his desire, the following lines were engraved on his tombstone: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”

   

 Keats’ Grave in Rome

 

 

Keats’ House in Rome