Life of John Keats: His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics and After-Fame

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Transcriber's notes:

(1) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.

(2) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
      inserted.

(3) The following typographical errors have been corrected:

    Page 39: "The shield and helmet of Diomed, with the accompanying
      simile, in the opening of the third book; and the prodigious
      description of Neptune's passage to the Achive ships, in the
      thirteenth book:" 'Achive' amended to 'Argive'.

    Page 146: "And his references to this passage are frequent in his
      letters.--But in those exquisite stanzas," 'references' amended from
      'reference'.

    Page 478: "Many of them, considered in any other character than
      that of authors, are, we have no doubt, entitled to be considered
      as very worthy people in their own way." 'considered' amended from
      'considerd'.

    Page 480: "... or no regard to truth. It is, in truth, at least is
      full of genius as of absurdity; and he who does not find a great
      deal in it to admire and to give delight ..." 'of' amended from
      'af'.

    Page 490: "... we are like a Quartett of fighting cocks this
      morning." 'Quartett' amended from 'Quratett'.




[Illustration: PL. I]


  JOHN KEATS

  HIS LIFE AND POETRY
  HIS FRIENDS CRITICS
    AND
  AFTER-FAME


  BY
  SIDNEY COLVIN




  MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
  ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
  1917


  COPYRIGHT

  GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
  BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.


  S. C.
   TO
  F. C.




PREFACE


To the name and work of Keats our best critics and scholars have in
recent years paid ever closer attention and warmer homage. But their
studies have for the most part been specialized and scattered, and there
does not yet exist any one book giving a full and connected account of
his life and poetry together in the light of our present knowledge and
with help of all the available material. Ever since it was my part, some
thirty years ago, to contribute the volume on Keats to the series of
short studies edited by Lord Morley, (the _English Men of Letters_
series), I have hoped one day to return to the subject and do my best to
supply this want. Once released from official duties, I began to prepare
for the task, and through the last soul-shaking years, being over age
for any effectual war-service, have found solace and occupation in
carrying it through.

The following pages, timed to appear in the hundredth year after the
publication of Keats's first volume, are the result. I have sought in
them to combine two aims not always easy to be reconciled, those of
holding the interest of the general reader and at the same time of
satisfying, and perhaps on some points even informing, the special
student. I have tried to set forth consecutively and fully the history
of a life outwardly remarkable for nothing but its tragic brevity, but
inwardly as crowded with imaginative and emotional experience as any on
record, and moreover, owing to the open-heartedness of the man and to
the preservation and unreserved publication of his letters, lying bare
almost more than any other to our knowledge. Further, considering for
how much friendship counted in Keats's life, I have tried to call up the
group of his friends about him in their human lineaments and relations,
so far as these can be recovered, more fully than has been attempted
before. I believe also that I have been able to trace more closely than
has yet been done some of the chief sources, both in literature and in
works of art, of his inspiration. I have endeavoured at the same time to
make felt the critical and poetical atmosphere, with its various and
strongly conflicting currents, amid which he lived, and to show how his
genius, almost ignored in its own day beyond the circle of his private
friends, was a focus in which many vital streams of poetic tendency from
the past centred and from which many radiated into the future. To
illustrate this last point it has been necessary, by way of epilogue, to
sketch, however briefly, the story of his posthumous fame, his after
life in the minds and hearts of English writers and readers until
to-day. By English I mean all those whose mother language is English. To
follow the extension of Keats's fame to the Continent is outside my aim.
He has not yet, by means of translation and comment in foreign
languages, become in any full sense a world-poet. But during the last
thirty years the process has begun, and there would be a good deal to
say, did my scheme admit it, of work upon Keats done abroad, especially
in France, where our literature has during the last generation been
studied with such admirable intelligence and care.

In an attempt of this scope, I have necessarily had to repeat matters of
common knowledge and to say again things that others have said well and
sufficiently already.