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Born on Hallowe'en day, 1795 near London to a stable-keeper and his wife, the first seven years of Keats's life were happy. The beginnings of his troubles occurred in 1803, when his father died from a fractured skull after falling from his horse. His mother remarried soon afterwards, but as quickly left the new husband and moved herself and her children to live with Keats' grandmother. There, Keats attended a school that first instilled in him a love of literature. In 1810, however, his mother died of tuberculosis, leaving him and his siblings in the custody of their grandmother.
The grandmother appointed two guardians to take care of her new charges, and these guardians removed Keats from his old school to become a surgeon's apprentice. This continued until 1814, when, after a fight with his master, he left his apprenticeship and became a student at a local hospital. During that year, he devoted more and more of his time to the study of literature.
His introduction to the work of Edmund Spenser, particularly The Faerie Queene, was to prove a turning point in Keats' development as a poet; it was to inspire Keats to write his first poem, Imitation of Spenser.
He befriended Leigh Hunt, a poet and editor who published his first poem in 1816Events March 25 Friedrich Karl Ludwig, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck dies and is succeeded by the later Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, his son and founder of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg.. In 1817Events March 4 James Monroe succeeds James Madison as the President of the United States of America April Earthquake in Palermo, Italy April 3 Princess Caraboo appears in Almondsbury in Gloucestershire, England July 4 At Rome, New York, construction on th, Keats published his first volume of poetry entitled simply Poems. Keats' Poems was not well received, largely due to his connection with the controversial Hunt.
Keats moved to the Isle of WightThe Isle of Wight is an island off the south coast of England opposite Southampton. Colloquially, it is known as 'The Island' by residents. Its population was 132,731 in the 2001 census (and 126,600 in 1991). The Island has a single MP (currently Andrew T in the summer of 1817.
Working on his writing, he soon found his brother, Tom Keats, entrusted to his care. Tom was, like their mother, suffering from tuberculosis. Finishing his epic poem " EndymionIn Greek mythology, Endymion was a handsome shepherd (or, more rarely, a king or a hunter) from Asia Minor. Endymion is also a play by John Lyly. Endymion is also the title of poems by John Keats and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Endymion is also the name o," Keats left to hike in ScotlandScotland or in Scottish Gaelic, Alba is a country and former independent kingdom of northwest Europe, and one of the four nations comprising the United Kingdom. Scotland occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. Scotland took part in a p and IrelandThe island of Ireland ire in Irish, Airlann in Ulster Scots) is the third-largest island in Europe. It lies on the west side of the Irish Sea, close to the island of Great Britain. It is composed of the Republic of Ireland in the south and Northern Irelan with his friend Charles Brown. However, he too began to show signs of tuberculosis infection on that trip, and returned prematurely. When he did, he found that Tom's condition had deteriorated, and that Endymion had, as had Poems before it, been the target of much abuse from the critics.
In 1818, Tom Keats died from his infection, and John Keats moved again, to live in Brown's house in London. There he met Fanny Brawne , who with her mother had been staying at Brown's house, and he quickly fell in love. The later (posthumous) publication of their correspondence was to scandalise Victorian society.
Keats produced some of his finest poetry during the spring and summer of 1819: Ode to Psyche , Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale. Ode to Psyche is a tribute to a goddess who apparently failed to arouse any religious devotion among the Greeks of antiquity. Keats promises to build her a shrine. In the Ode on a Grecian Urn he attempts to speak to an urn he discovers in a museum, receiving from the urn the response: "Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, -that is all... ye need to know." In the Ode to a Nightingale he attempts to fly into the trees to meet a hidden bird and confront the Moon-Queen.
This relationship was cut short, however, when by 1820 Keats began to show worse signs of the disease that had plagued his family. On the suggestion of his doctors, he left the cold airs of London behind and moved to Italy with his friend Joseph Severn invited by Shelley. For one year, this seemed to help his condition, but his health finally deteriorated. He died on February 23 1821 and was interred in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. His last request was followed, and thus he was buried under a tombstone reading "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."
Perhaps an even greater tribute to this mercurial and wayward genius is contained within one of the finest works of the poet himself:
And an even greater came from Wallace Stevens, who jokingly described Keats as the "Secretary for Porcelain" in Extracts from Addresses to the Academy of Fine Ideas .