English Literature

John Keats remains to this day a distinguished  poet of the Romantic movement, but in his time he was snubbed by literary critics and other poets; viewed as a simpleton, with his “lower-middle class social status, limited education, early association with  the “Cockney School” of poetry, and poor health” (enotes.com). The “Cockney School” was named for a group of  London poets in the early l9th century.  The term came to be synonymous with hostile reviews, whose primary aim was poet Leigh Hunt, but included Keats.  

John Keats was born on October 31, l795 in London, England.  His parents died when he was young, and his grandmother appointed two London merchants, Richard Abbey and John Rowlan Sandell as his guardians.  Abbey, a tea broker, took on most of the responsibility of raising young John, Sandell played a minor role in Keats life. He was educated at the progressive Clarke’s School in Enfield. Keats and was known not for  his academics, but for fighting. “ My mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it,“ he wrote (john-keats.com).

When he was fifteen years old, he became an apprentice to an apothecary-surgeon, and to study medicine at a London hospital. In l816 he earned a license from the Society of Apothecaries, but never practiced, to become a poet.  Keats first writings were completed in l814, there were four stanzas called, “Imitation of Spenser,” inspired by the poem, ‘Faire, Queen,’ by Edmund Spenser.

He then met editor Leigh Hunt of the leading liberal magazine, the Examiner, who published his sonnets; ‘On First Looking into Chapmans Homer,’ and ‘O Solitude.’ Hunt also introduced Keats to poets like , Percy Shelley and William Wadsworth;  their influence encouraged Keats to publish his first volume; Poems by John Keats, in l817. Shelly tried to mentor Keats, and continuously offered, sometimes unwanted, advice.  One point he advised Keats to do was to “develop a more substantial body of work before publishing it” ( poets.org).  Keats didn’t listen, and published a four book collection, called Endymion,

Keats started writing Endymion from April to December  of l817, and published it in May l818.  It was four thousand lines, based on a Greek myth about  Latmian shepherd’s love for the moon goddess Cynthia.  Keats takes the hero through the ends of the earth, bottom of the sea, and across the sky, with his exuberant imagination. At the end, the hero realizes that you can only realize your vision through humble acceptance of your own limitations, and of the sufferings you must endure.

Critics found fault with Endymion’s structure, but it still created rich imagery and color. The first line is one of the most well known to all poetry lovers: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” so even though it was critically bashed, it is been widely read for decades.  The tale was originally sung by Sappho, an ancient Greek poet, and  several writers before Keats, attempted to retell the myth, but its length deterred them; while Keats took it as a challenge. The visions that haunt Latmian, in his dreams, is symbolic to Keats; meaning beauty in its purest sense - the human soul”  (john-keats.com).  

While writing Endymion, Keats said, “I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, it will be a test, a trial of my powers of imagination, and chiefly of my invention, which is a rare thing indeed - by which I must make 4000 lines of one bare circumstance and fill them with poetry” (john-keats.com).  Endymion is a compellation of rhythm with Keats deliberately keeping sentences independent of the meter, putting complete phrases anywhere in his lines, rather than at the end, negating any regular beat.  Leigh Hunt thought Keats took his method to the extreme.

Some critics likened Endymion to the writings of Pharonnida, “a fourth rate poet, for two reasons; extricable trailing involution of his sentences, and a perverse persistence in ending his heroic lines with the lightest syllables - prepositions-adverbs- conjunctions” (john-keats.com). Keats gave himself the best self-criticism, which he wrote six months later stating,  “It is a good as I had power to make it by myself” (john-keats.com)  This  quote is confusing, because Keats never collaborated with other poets, so all his works were done by himself.  

Two critical magazine articles, one from the Quarterly Review, the other from Blackwood’s Magazine gave the nastiest reviews of Endymion.  Blackwood’s article was written by  John Crocker and John Lochard  It declared that Endymion was nonsense and that  Keats should give up writing poetry.  Crocker also attacked Keats for being part of the “Cockney School” of poetry.  This marked a turning point for him; now he had
to examine his works more closely, and eliminate some of the influence Hunt had on his works.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
The article continued stating,  “it has just as much to do with Greece as it has with, Old Tartary the Fierce,” no man whose mind has ever been imbued with the smallest knowledge of feeling of classical poetry or classical history, could have stooped to profane and vulgarize every association in the manner which has been adopted by this ‘son of promise’ (tekiija).”  The  worst part of the article was the personal comments about Keats, - “so back to the shop, Mr. John, stick to ‘plaster, pills, ointment boxes,’ and that Keats mind was “reduced to a state of insanity.” (Haney. 141)

Most critics who reviewed Endymion discussed his work, not his personal life. Keats staunch supporters were his  friends, some of them publishing their own review;  John Reynolds in a west-country paper, The Alfred,  John Scot in the Morning Chronicle, and Hunt reprinted Reynold’s letter in the Examiner.

John Gibson Lockhart was the editor of the Quarterly Review when he wrote a “detailed account of the literary society in Edinburgh and London”(Lockhart) He actually called himself “the scorpion which delighted to sting the faces of men” (Lockhart). If you were one of the Romantic poets he, your review went accordingly - but Keats didn’t fall into that category.  Lockhart tarnished Leigh Hunts reputation, taking Keats down with him. He wrote, “the calm, settled, imperturbable driveling idiocy of Endymio. Lockhart somehow learned that Keats said to his friend Reynolds, “If I die you must ruin Lockhart” (Lockhart). In fairness to Lockhart he was one of the few literary critics in the l9th century to look at Keats in a different light after his Endymion article.

The Quarterly Review admitted they did not read Endymion when they reviewed it, they said they tried, but it was too cumbersome and lengthy; the critics couldn’t get past a few chapters of the first book. So why did this harsh review get so much attention, and merit? William Gifford wrote the article saying: “It is not that Mr. Keats (if that be his real name, for we almost doubt that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a rhapsody)” - it continues with the observation that Keats was “writing for his own sake,” alluding to the fact that Keats did write to please his readers or his critics (Haney. 135).

The article reads that Keats created Endymion under unusual circumstances, Quoting Keats: “it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public; what manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and a very error denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished: (Haney. 135).  Gifford made a cruel personal remark that “the rhymes in Endymion have no meaning as does the author” (Haney 136).

Gifford’s article noted that the author “has not powers of language, rays of fancy, and gleams of genius, he has all these; but he is unhappily a disciple of the new school of what has been somewhere called ‘Cockney Poetry,’ which may be defined to consist of the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language…” (Haney.136). The lines are randomly scattered and don’t follow the accompanying line,  but what is suggested by the rhyme at the end.  There is hardly a complete couplet enclosing a complete idea in the whole book. “He wanders from one subject to another, from the association, not of ideas, but of sounds …” (Haney.136).

Keats responded to an encouraging letter from his friend and mentor Richard Woodhouse, saying “I am ambitious of doing the world some good, if I should be spared that may be the work of mature years - in the interval, I will assay to reach to as high a summit in poetry as the nerve bestowed upon me will suffer”  “Endymion proved that personal gratification is to overcome barriers of ordinary human experience” (john-keats.com).

What was Keats reaction to the critics?  His friends commented  that, “Keats demeanor under the lash, such as could make his friends support him particularly hurt” (john-keats.com).  He was proud, and modest; and “rather despised than courted such success as he saw some of his contemporaries enjoy, - “I have,” he says, “a mawkish popularity” (john-keats.com).  Keats admitted to his own weaknesses, similarly as his critics.  He took the criticism in stride, with dignity, and “treated the annoyance as one merely temporary, indifferent, and external” (john-keats.com).

Author Stephen Hebron, wrote an interesting book titled, “John Keats: A Poet and His Manuscripts.  It includes a brief chapter on Endymion where Hebron states that Endymion is “a long and fairly unsuccessful poem”(32)  yet it took just a short period of time for Keats to bounce back from the negative criticism. Hebron includes surviving manuscripts - some illustrated in their entirety; giving his readers an insightful, new look at Keats amazing imagination.  It is noted in the book that these manuscripts were protected after Keats death for years, before they were finally published.  This is another instance that shows how the harsh criticism of Endymion didn’t stop this prolific poet, and his works from being literary masterpieces (Hebron 32-40)

Why was Endymion the basis for such consistently poor reviews?  Was Keats just, “of his game,” because he was physically ill and emotionally distressed, with his brother’s death and surmising his illness was more serious?  The vast majority of critics focused on Keats weakness in his use of words, form, rhythm, and style in Endymion. It was not what Keat’s readers were accustom to, the words were too fluid and randomly scattered, he seemed to set the English language back two hundred years using, “active verbs as passive, and passive verbs as active; and in not only reviving archaic participial forms (‘dight,’ ‘flight,’ ‘raft,’ etc.) but in giving currency to participles of the class Coleridge denouced as demoralizing to the ear…” (Colvin). Was Keats simply a product of his youth? This was his first attempt at a substantial body of work, but he was destined for success beyond his realization.

Other faults that negatively affected Endymion are spiritual; failures of taste and feeling due “ partly because of his inexperience, partly because of excessive intensity, and partly due to second rate social contact.” (Colvin).  Keats treatment of love as an actuality, is found by some critics as being distasteful. “From flaws or disfigurements of one or other of these kinds the poems is never free for more than a page or two, and rarely for so much, at a time” (Colvin).  There were some critics who wrote a fair review, including, not only the weaknesses in Keats work, but what “a power of poetry is in Endymion: what evidence, unmistakable, one would have said, to the blindest, of genius” (Colvin).

It was these liberties which “scandalized conservative critics” (Colvin).  We now that Keats self-criticized Endymion, because when the drafts of the poem were compared to the published text, the revisions before going to press excluded more meters, and “worse passages in this vein than he left in” (Colvin).  Disregarding the reviews, it is noted that for all Endymions weaknesses, it was an empowering collection for a twenty-two year old poet

Keats next work immediately following Endymion, in l819,  was a straightforward narrative called Isabella, based on an operetta by Boccaccio, its theme focuses on the philosophical beauty of tragic love.  Did Keats purposely give his readers, a standard, logically assembled piece of work?  Isabella was praised by several critics as being very structured and enjoyable to read.  Keats knew what he was doing, re-establishing his work with the powers that be.  His second volume of collected poems, received the same type of  praise.                                                                                                                                            John Keats wrote, and published his third and final volume of poems, in l820.
The title is, “Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems.  The collection
also included three of his most famous works; Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Melancholy, and Ode to a Nightingale.  Numerous critics gave reviews praising this volume, including Blackwood Magazine.  Lamia is probably Keats most serious and successful poetry romance.

Charles Lamb, literary critic for the New York Times reviewed Lamia; saying that it had charm and the authority of a genius.  He begins by quoting four famous stanzas - “Like the radiance, which comes from those old windows upon the limbs and garments of the damsel, is the almost Chaucer-like painting, with which this poet illumes every subject he touches” (Colvin).  Lamb continues by saying that society has nothing like it in present time.  “The finest thing,”  he continues, “in the volume is The Pot Basil” (Colvin).

Keats enjoyed more positive reviews about Lamia.  In the New Monthly Magazine,  the editor, Cyrus Redding declares, “these poems are very far superior…to any which the author has previously committed to the press.” “They have nothing showy, or extravagant, or eccentric about them; but are pieces of calm beauty, or of lone and self-supported grandeur” ( Colvin).

The British Critic, who wrote an even more horrific review of Endymion than Blackwood or The Quarterly wrote of Lamia, “Mr. Keats is a person of no ordinary genius and prophesying that if he will take Spenser, and Milton for models instead of Leigh Hunt he need not despair of attaining to a very high and enviable place in public esteem”(Colvin).

Stanley Plumly, author of  “Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography,” chronicals Keats last nine months before his death in 1821, at only twenty-five years old.  He was living in Italy, with Leigh Hunt and his family.  Keats “Lamia,” was reviewed as one of his best, and would “make his reputation.” “It was a measure, however, of how far removed he was from any sense of the literary value of the moment - a moment he had struggled his whole life to reach.”   Keats good friend, Italian painter, Joseph Severn
sketched him on his deathbed.   Plumly makes an insightful statement, “the place in his poetry that Keats has come to in his final days as a writerr, is a practice of form in which the eye and ear are indistinguishable.”

On July 27, l821, five months after Keats death, the Morning Chronicle printed an article titled; “John Keats, the Poet.”  An extended letter written by someone identified as
“Y,” claiming to be a “school-fellow and friend,” of Keats.  He mentioned personal talkes he had with Keats about the “hostile reviews of Endymion,” and how sensitive Keats was about them, which was never mentioned in any biography.  In the letter is also an account
of Keats lying awake, “through the whole night,” discussing “sensitive-bitterness,” about  Endymion’s bad reviews. If thi is true, it dispels the other accounts that the reviews did not affect him.
    Forty years later, in 1861 Charles Cowden Clarke, a longtime friend of Keats, was identified as being “Y.”  He had published a book titled, “Recollections of Keats,” retelling about the night he spent listening to him.  Clarke said, “He felt the insult, but more the injustice of the treatment he had received; he told me so, as we lay awake one night, when I slept in his brothers bed” (Bardnard).  The letter written iin the Morning
Chronicle was very poetical, and praises Keats and his contributions to society.  It is signed “Quiet consummation have, and renowned by thy Grave. Y” (Bardnard).
  
In Conclusion, critically Keats was not only juged for his language structure in
Endymion, but for his association with Leigh Hunt.  The Blackwood and Quarterly Magazines, especially lumped him as a “Cockney Poet,” and personally assaulted his character.  A very unprofessional review, but one Keats took with a grain of salt.  He didn’t give up his friendship with Hunt, and actually had a closer relationship.  Keats was living with Hunt, in Italy when he died.  What Keats, did do, is take the portion of review that revolved around his structure, and with his next poem created a standard, narrative.
This showed the critics his flexibility, and that he wasn’t a “Cockney Poet.”  The                                                                                                                    
reviews on his last work, Lamia, were all positive, geared strictly towards his framework, except for the  British Critic who still mentioned poets Keats was associated with.
     
John Keats remains one of the most influential English poets.  He was a noble, generous, and passionate individual, who accomplished more inhis short lifetime than most.  Keats accepted his critics, and in spite of they’re blasphemy, he flourished, and gave society a body of work that is indescribably beautiful.