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Read Ebook: L'oeuvre du chevalier Andrea de Nerciat (1/2) by Nerciat Andr A De Apollinaire Guillaume Editor
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Ebook has 928 lines and 79529 words, and 19 pages
PAGE PREFACE ii
LIFE OF KEATS v
ADVERTISEMENT 2
LAMIA. PART I 3
LAMIA. PART II 27
ISABELLA; OR, THE POT OF BASIL. A STORY FROM BOCCACCIO 47
THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 81
ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 107
ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 113
ODE TO PSYCHE 117
FANCY 122
ODE 128
LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 131
ROBIN HOOD. TO A FRIEND 133
TO AUTUMN 137
ODE ON MELANCHOLY 140
HYPERION. BOOK I 145
HYPERION. BOOK II 167
NOTE ON ADVERTISEMENT 201
INTRODUCTION TO LAMIA 201
NOTES ON LAMIA 203
INTRODUCTION TO ISABELLA AND THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 210
NOTES ON ISABELLA 215
NOTES ON THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 224
INTRODUCTION TO THE ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE, ODE ON A GRECIAN URN, ODE ON MELANCHOLY, AND TO AUTUMN 229
NOTES ON ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 232
NOTES ON ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 235
INTRODUCTION TO ODE TO PSYCHE 236
NOTES ON ODE TO PSYCHE 237
INTRODUCTION TO FANCY 238
NOTES ON FANCY 238
NOTES ON ODE 239
INTRODUCTION TO LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 239
NOTES ON LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 239
INTRODUCTION TO ROBIN HOOD 240
NOTES ON ROBIN HOOD 241
NOTES ON 'TO AUTUMN' 242
NOTES ON ODE ON MELANCHOLY 243
INTRODUCTION TO HYPERION 244
NOTES ON HYPERION 249
LIFE OF KEATS
Of all the great poets of the early nineteenth century--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats--John Keats was the last born and the first to die. The length of his life was not one-third that of Wordsworth, who was born twenty-five years before him and outlived him by twenty-nine. Yet before his tragic death at twenty-six Keats had produced a body of poetry of such extraordinary power and promise that the world has sometimes been tempted, in its regret for what he might have done had he lived, to lose sight of the superlative merit of what he actually accomplished.
The three years of his poetic career, during which he published three small volumes of poetry, show a development at the same time rapid and steady, and a gradual but complete abandonment of almost every fault and weakness. It would probably be impossible, in the history of literature, to find such another instance of the 'growth of a poet's mind'.
The last of these three volumes, which is here reprinted, was published in 1820, when it 'had good success among the literary people and . . . a moderate sale'. It contains the flower of his poetic production and is perhaps, altogether, one of the most marvellous volumes ever issued from the press.
But in spite of the maturity of Keats's work when he was twenty-five, he had been in no sense a precocious child. Born in 1795 in the city of London, the son of a livery-stable keeper, he was brought up amid surroundings and influences by no means calculated to awaken poetic genius.
He was the eldest of five--four boys, one of whom died in infancy, and a girl younger than all; and he and his brothers George and Tom were educated at a private school at Enfield. Here John was at first distinguished more for fighting than for study, whilst his bright, brave, generous nature made him popular with masters and boys.
Soon after he had begun to go to school his father died, and when he was fifteen the children lost their mother too. Keats was passionately devoted to his mother; during her last illness he would sit up all night with her, give her her medicine, and even cook her food himself. At her death he was brokenhearted.
The children were now put under the care of two guardians, one of whom, Mr. Abbey, taking the sole responsibility, immediately removed John from school and apprenticed him for five years to a surgeon at Edmonton.
Whilst thus employed Keats spent all his leisure time in reading, for which he had developed a great enthusiasm during his last two years at school. There he had devoured every book that came in his way, especially rejoicing in stories of the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece. At Edmonton he was able to continue his studies by borrowing books from his friend Charles Cowden Clarke, the son of his schoolmaster, and he often went over to Enfield to change his books and to discuss those which he had been reading. On one of these occasions Cowden Clarke introduced him to Spenser, to whom so many poets have owed their first inspiration that he has been called 'the poets' poet'; and it was then, apparently, that Keats was first prompted to write.
When he was nineteen, a year before his apprenticeship came to an end, he quarrelled with his master, left him, and continued his training in London as a student at St. Thomas's Hospital and Guy's. Gradually, however, during the months that followed, though he was an industrious and able medical student, Keats came to realize that poetry was his true vocation; and as soon as he was of age, in spite of the opposition of his guardian, he decided to abandon the medical profession and devote his life to literature.
If Mr. Abbey was unsympathetic Keats was not without encouragement from others. His brothers always believed in him whole-heartedly, and his exceptionally lovable nature had won him many friends. Amongst these friends two men older than himself, each famous in his own sphere, had special influence upon him.
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