John Keats Leaves for Italy
"John Keats Leaves for Italy" marks a significant chapter in the life of the renowned English Romantic poet John Keats, who embarked on a journey to Italy on September 17, 1820, in hopes of alleviating the symptoms of tuberculosis. Born on October 31, 1795, in London, Keats faced early personal tragedies, including the loss of his mother to the same disease that would ultimately claim his life at age 25. Before focusing on poetry, he trained as an apothecary, but his passion for literature led him to abandon medicine to pursue a writing career.
During his short but impactful life, Keats produced celebrated works such as "Endymion," "The Eve of Saint Agnes," and various odes that explore themes of beauty, love, and mortality. Despite his struggles with health and the loss of loved ones, including his brother Tom, Keats's literary output in 1819 was particularly prolific. His deteriorating condition forced him to seek a milder Italian climate, where he was accompanied by the painter Joseph Severn. Although initially optimistic, Keats's health declined, leading to his death on February 23, 1821. He is now remembered for both his poetry and the deep insights expressed in his letters, which reflect his profound understanding of the human experience.
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John Keats Leaves for Italy
John Keats Leaves for Italy
John Keats, one of the great poets of the English Romantic movement, sailed for Italy on September 17, 1820, in an attempt to relieve the effects of tuberculosis. Although he would die in Rome a few months later, at the age of 25, Keats had already written poems likely to endure as long as the language.
Keats was born on October 31, 1795, in London, England. His father, who managed a livery stable, died in a riding accident in 1804. His mother remarried, briefly and unhappily, and died in 1810 of tuberculosis, the same disease that would take the lives of her three sons.
Following the death of his mother, Keats, the oldest of the children, apprenticed himself to an apothecary-surgeon named Hammond. In 1814 Keats left Dr. Hammond and relocated to London, where he continued his training at Guy's Hospital, completing his medical education and passing his examinations in 1816. He became a licensed apothecary but chose instead to pursue his childhood love of books and letters. That same year his first published poem, a sonnet called “O Solitude,” appeared in The Examiner, a liberal journal. The enthusiastic editor, Leigh Hunt, was quick to introduce Keats to other poets, including Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. By the end of 1816, Keats had abandoned medicine altogether to devote himself to poetry.
Either late in 1816 or early in 1817, Keats published his first book, Poems, but sales were poor. Between April and November 1817, he worked on his first long poem, “Endymion,” the story of a shepherd and his love for the moon-goddess Diana, published in 1818. For the latter part of that year, Keats was occupied with the painful task of nursing his brother Tom, who was ill with tuberculosis and would die in December. While he was caring for his brother, Keats met 18-year-old Fanny Brawne and fell in love. They became unofficially engaged a year later.
The year 1819 was a time of stunning achievement for Keats, when he wrote the narrative romance “The Eve of Saint Agnes,” the haunting ballad “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” and the great odes, including “To Psyche,” “On a Grecian Urn,” “To a Nightingale,” and “To Autumn.” Beauty in nature and art, love, and inevitable mortality are themes in his mature work. During this period he also reworked “Hyperion,” a poem about the Greek Olympian gods and the titans they overthrew that he had begun when his brother was dying, but this second version also remained unfinished. In February of 1820 he began coughing up blood, evidence that he too was infected with tuberculosis. His third book, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, was published in July, to mixed reviews. His health continued to worsen and his doctor warned him to leave England before winter.
Keats sailed for Rome on September 17, 1820, in the hope that the milder climate would improve his health. The young painter Joseph Severn, a great admirer, accompanied him. On November 15 they arrived in Rome, where Keats's publisher John Taylor, of the firm Taylor and Hessey, had secured the services of the Scottish physician James Clark, a kind man with an office in the Piazza di Spagna, to treat the ailing poet. Clark had arranged rooms for the two men next to the staircase of the Church of the Trinita dei Monti, now known as the Spanish Steps, close to his office. Although the change of climate and the doctor's care seemed to have a positive effect on Keats at first, his condition gradually worsened, to the point where he attempted suicide to avoid a death like his brother Tom's. Severn prevented his suicide and cared for him devotedly.
Keats died on February 23, 1821, and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, near the ancient pyramid of Caius Cestius, before dawn on February 26. He had told Severn that he wanted his tombstone to read simply, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water,” but his friend Charles Brown, feeling that this was too brief, added some introductory flourishes. Keats is remembered not only for his poems but for his extraordinary letters, including some in which he worked out an aesthetic credo: “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination.”