Keats, John

Keats, John (1795-1821), poet, b. London.

John Keats became an orphan at the age of fourteen and, with two brothers and a sister, was afterwards brought up by a guardian.

He became an apprentice to a doctor and, at the age of twenty, began to study at Guy's Hospital. Then, to his guardian's dismay, he gave up his studies and tried to make a living writing poetry.

His first book of poems was published in 1817 but the poetry critics of that time did not like it.

In 1818, he published a long poem, Endymion, and they did not like that either.

But two years later he published a book, Lamia and other poems, and they hailed him as a great poet.

Meantime John's brother, Tom, had died of consumption and John knew that he himself had this disease. Friends and his publishers gave him money to travel to Rome. They hoped that the warm weather of Italy might save his life. But John Keats died at the age of twenty-five.

He is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.

Among his most famous poems are Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to a Grecian Urn, Ode to Autumn and The Eve of St. Agnes.

See John Keats Complete Poems and Selected Letters