In Our Time John Keats
Meiko O’Halloran, Romantic literature lecturer; Nicholas Roe, Wardlaw Professor of English; Fiona Stafford, Oxford literature professor. They trace Keats’s quick shift from medicine to poetry. They explore his 1818 creative surge, the making of the great odes, his classical influences, harsh contemporary reviews and the role of illness and travel in his short life.
48:07
Medical Training Informed Keats's Botanical Detail
- Keats's medical training influenced his poetic attention to plants and poisons, reflecting practical apothecary knowledge.
- Apprenticeship required knowing medicinal flowers, which appears in his specific botanical imagery.
Scotland Tour Sparked Keats's Sense Of The Sublime
- Keats toured Scotland in 1818 with Charles Armitage Brown, visiting Staffa, Iona, Ben Nevis and Fingal's Cave.
- The trip exposed him to mountains and the sublime, directly inspiring poems and sonnets like the Nevis sonnet.
Bereavement Fueled Keats's Creative Explosion
- The death of his brother Tom in December 1818 triggered an explosive creative period: the odes and many sonnets followed soon after.
- Grief, intimate nursing, and recent northern experiences combined to produce 1819's outpouring.
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Intro
00:00 • 2min
Keats’s family background and Cockney label
01:45 • 1min
Education and classical training
02:51 • 3min
Leaving medicine for poetry
06:01 • 2min
Early supporters and literary circle
08:08 • 3min
Scotland tour and landscape influence
11:37 • 3min
Brother Tom’s illness and creative outpouring
14:33 • 2min
Key odes and rapid composition
16:46 • 3min
Mortality theme and ‘When I Have Fears’
19:36 • 3min
Ambition: pastoral to epic (Hyperion)
22:43 • 4min
Keats’s love life and letters’ value
26:47 • 3min
Critical reception and the Cockney School attacks
29:34 • 4min
Endymion’s reputation and Hyperion attempt
33:22 • 2min
Illness, Rome journey, and final months
35:40 • 2min
Shelley’s Adonais and reactions to Keats’s death
37:22 • 2min
Canonization: biographies and Victorian fame
39:51 • 5min
Why Keats endures: poetic quality
44:22 • 43sec
Outro
45:04 • 6min
#3415
• Mentioned in 14 episodes
Hyperion
Dan Simmons
In 'Hyperion', Dan Simmons crafts a complex and engaging narrative that follows seven pilgrims as they travel to the enigmatic planet Hyperion.
Each pilgrim has a unique story to tell, which they share during their journey, revealing their connections to Hyperion and the Shrike, a metallic creature with the power to grant wishes.
The novel is structured similarly to 'The Canterbury Tales' by Geoffrey Chaucer, with a framing narrative that presents the tales of the pilgrims.
The story explores themes of religion, war, love, and the human condition, set against a backdrop of interstellar politics and technological advancements.
The novel is praised for its detailed world-building, character development, and literary references.
#31122
• Mentioned in 2 episodes
Complete poems
Emily Dickinson
This collection, compiled from the three-volume critical edition by Thomas H. Johnson, brings together the original texts of all 1,775 poems written by Emily Dickinson.
It was the first edition to accurately represent Dickinson's bold experiments in prosody, her tragic vision, and the range of her intellectual and emotional explorations.
The poems are arranged chronologically, providing a poetic biography of Dickinson's thoughts and feelings.
#84346
Keats and the Mirror of Art
Ian Robert James Jack
Published in 1967, this critical study examines how visual art influenced John Keats's poetry.
Jack investigates Keats's knowledge of and engagement with painting and sculpture, tracing how these artistic sources were transformed through his poetic vision.
The work is considered a landmark study in Romantic criticism and represents Jack's finest scholarly contribution to Keats studies.
#77374
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Clyde de L. Ryals
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical is Alfred Tennyson's first major poetry collection, published in June 1830, containing 56 poems from that year and additional ones from 1833.
It features experimental lyrical pieces with rich figurative language, such as 'The Kraken,' 'Mariana,' 'The Owl,' 'The Sea-Fairies,' and early drafts of 'The Lady of Shalott.
' Though initially met with mixed reviews, including some scathing criticism that affected Tennyson deeply, it received favourable notices from critics like Arthur Hallam and laid the groundwork for his later masterpieces.
#54848
John Keats
John Keats in Context
John Barnard
This volume presents a comprehensive selection of writings by John Keats (1795-1821), the influential English Romantic poet.
Edited by John Barnard, a preeminent Keats scholar, the collection brings together Keats's major poems, prose works, and correspondence.
The selection showcases Keats's literary development and includes works such as 'The Eve of St. Agnes,' 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' and 'Hyperion,' alongside his letters and critical writings.
#97386
John Keats: A New Life
Nicholas Roe
This definitive biography explodes myths of Keats as a delicate, tragic figure, portraying him instead as a flesh-and-blood man driven by ambition, sexual desire, jealousy, and struggles with alcohol and opium.
Nicholas Roe draws on original research to detail Keats's early life at his family's livery stables, family tragedies, medical training, political leanings, doomed love for Fanny Brawne, and final battle with tuberculosis at age 25.
It reassesses key turning points, locations in his poems, and influences like Leigh Hunt, offering fresh insights into the Romantic poet's imaginative quest.
#91718
Keats's Poetry and Prose: A Norton Critical Edition
John Keats
Jeffrey N. Cox
This Norton Critical Edition presents a comprehensive selection of John Keats's poetry and prose, designed to situate the poet within his cultural and historical context.
It includes an introduction, headnotes, explanatory annotations, and critical essays to aid readers in appreciating Keats's work and legacy.
The edition tracks Keats's emergence as a major voice in English Romanticism.
#60426
Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph
Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems
Lucasta Miller
In this brief life, Lucasta Miller examines nine of John Keats's best-known poems—including 'Endymion,' 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer,' and 'Ode to Autumn'—along with his epitaph.
For each poem, Miller excavates its backstory by exploring the circumstances of its composition, Keats's living situation, his relationships, and the influences that shaped his work.
The book combines a mini-anthology of Keats's poetry, critical readings of those poems, and a well-written biography that resurrects the real Keats: a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic family whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to become a central figure in English literature.
#51015
Keats's Places
Richard Marggraf Turley
This volume brings together essays that explore how places in Keats's poetry serve as comforting, familiar, and grounding sites, while also functioning as shifting, uncanny, and paradoxical spaces.
Edited by Richard Marggraf Turley, it delves into the spatial imagination in Keats's work, revealing the multifaceted nature of location in Romantic literature.
#46596
John Keats in Context
Michael O’Neill
This edited volume by Michael O’Neill offers thirty-four short chapters organized into six parts: 'Life, Letters, Texts'; 'Cultural Contexts'; 'Ideas and Poetics'; 'Poetic Contexts'; 'Influence'; and 'Critical Reception'.
It surveys subjects ranging from education, relationships, and religion to art, genre, and film, enriching understanding of Keats's multifaceted achievement.
Leading scholars examine Keats against the backdrop of his influences, contemporaries, and reception, with succinct essays ideal for analysis and appreciation.
#15012
• Mentioned in 3 episodes
Selected poems
Zbigniew Herbert
Zbigniew Herbert's "Selected Poems" offers a diverse collection of his poetic works, showcasing his mastery of language and profound insights into the human condition.
His poems often engage with historical events and philosophical questions, exploring themes of memory, loss, and the search for meaning in a complex world.
Herbert's style is characterized by its intellectual depth, precision, and subtle irony.
He frequently employs allusions to mythology and classical literature, enriching his poems with layers of meaning.
His work continues to resonate with readers for its enduring relevance and profound exploration of the human experience.
#103037
Walking North with Keats
Walking North with Keats
Carol Kyros Walker
In 1818, when Keats was 22 years old, he and his friend Charles Brown embarked on a 46-day walking tour through northern England, Ireland, and Scotland.
The book by Carol Kyros Walker explores this journey, drawing on Keats's letters and experiences during the trip.
Published in 1992 by Yale University Press, it provides insights into the poet's travels and inspirations.
#82623
Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats
Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats
Richard Monckton Milnes
This pioneering 1848 publication, edited by Richard Monckton Milnes, gathers John Keats's personal letters, biographical elements, and previously unpublished literary pieces to reveal the true character and genius of the Romantic poet.
Originally issued in two volumes with illustrations including a portrait by Joseph Severn, it played a key role in establishing Keats's posthumous reputation.
The work includes intimate correspondences and poems like 'To Fanny,' offering insights into Keats's life, relationships, and creative process.
#15739
• Mentioned in 3 episodes
Endymion
John Keats
Endymion, a science fiction novel by Dan Simmons, is the fourth book in the Hyperion Cantos series.
It follows the journey of Raul Endymion, a young man who becomes embroiled in a complex conflict between humanity and the enigmatic Shrike.
The story unfolds across various planets and dimensions, exploring themes of faith, sacrifice, and the nature of reality.
Endymion's encounters with Aenea, an enigmatic woman with extraordinary abilities, and the enigmatic Shrike, a powerful and terrifying entity, shape his destiny.
The novel delves into philosophical questions about the meaning of life and the nature of existence, while maintaining a fast-paced and engaging narrative.
#90712
Keats and Embarrassment
Keats and Embarrassment
Christopher B. Ricks
In this acclaimed book, Professor Ricks argues for the importance of embarrassment in human life and for the value of works of art which help us deal with embarrassment by recognizing and refining it.
As a poet and a man, Keats was especially sensitive to, and morally intelligent about, embarrassment.
This study demonstrates the particular direction of his insight and moral concern to acknowledge embarrassability and its involvement in important moral concerns.
#44703
Adonais
Percy Shelley
'Adonais' is an elegy by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in memory of John Keats after his death.
The poem laments the loss of Keats and condemns the critics who Shelley believed contributed to his demise.
Shelley employs rich imagery and classical allusions to express grief and celebrate Keats's poetic genius.
The poem is divided into stanzas, each contributing to the overall sense of mourning and reverence.
'Adonais' is considered one of Shelley's finest works, showcasing his lyrical skill and passionate defense of artistic expression.
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the short life and lasting works of Keats (1795-1821), who in one year wrote some of the most loved poems in English. Among these are Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode on Melancholy. That most productive year began in autumn 1818, when Keats had been stung by some reviews labelling him an uncouth Cockney who should go back to his former work as an apothecary, work he had left for poetry only two years before with the encouragement of enthusiastic friends. Just over two years later, Keats was dead in Rome from tuberculosis, before his work found fame, though some who knew him, including Shelley, believed his true killer was the critics.
With
Fiona Stafford Professor of English Language and Literature and Tutorial Fellow at Somerville College, University of Oxford
Nicholas Roe Wardlaw Professor of English Literature at the University of St Andrews
And
Meiko O’Halloran, Senior Lecturer in Romantic Literature at Newcastle University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
John Barnard, John Keats (Cambridge University Press, 1987)
Katie Garner and Nicholas Roe (eds), John Keats and Romantic Scotland (Oxford University Press, 2022)
Ian Jack, Keats and the Mirror of Art (Oxford University Press, 1967)
John Keats (ed. John Barnard), John Keats: Selected Writings (Oxford University Press, 2020)
John Keats (ed. John Barnard), John Keats: Oxford 21st-Century Authors (University Press, 2017)
John Keats (ed. John Barnard), Selected Poems (Penguin, 2007)
John Keats (ed. John Barnard), The Complete Poems (Penguin, 2nd edition, 1977)
John Keats (ed. Jeffrey N. Cox), Keats’s Poetry and Prose: A Norton Critical Edition (W. W. Norton & Company, 2008)
Carol Kyros Walker, Walking North with Keats (Edinburgh University Press, 2021)
Richard Marggraf Turley (ed.), Keats’s Places (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
Lucasta Miller, Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph (Jonathan Cape, 2021)
Michael O’Neill (ed.), John Keats in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
Christopher Ricks, Keats and Embarrassment (Oxford University Press, 1974)
Nicholas Roe, John Keats: A New Life (Yale University Press, 2012) Helen Vendler, The Odes of Keats (Belknap Press, 2004)
Susan J. Wolfson, Reading John Keats (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Susan J. Wolfson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Keats (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production
Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.