With scholarly elegance, this latest biography of Keats finds fresh links between the poet's work and his life. His five years as a medical student are considered in the formation of his thought, as are his political radicalism and philosophical ideas of life as a 'vale of soul-making' and of the 'three chambers' of the creative imagination. Keats is seen as more heavily indebted to Renaissance writers than were his contemporaries. R. S. White tactfully probes Keats's emotional entanglements with Fanny Brawne and other women, and the shifting relationships within his literary coterie. The much loved Odes, The Eve of St Agnes and narrative poems are considered alongside his playwrighting ventures and many other rich poems that are not so well known. This powerful book will excite students, scholars and all readers who love Keats's poetry and are drawn to the moving story of his brief life.

By:   R.S. White
Imprint:   Macmillan
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 15mm,  Width: 215mm,  Spine: 137mm
Weight:   348g
ISBN:  

9781137030474

ISBN 10:   113703047X
Series:   Literary Lives
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   August 2012
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly ,  ELT Advanced ,  A / AS level
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock at Abbey's Bookshop
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Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations 'He could not quiet be' 'Aesculapius' 'Was there a poet born?' 'Fraternal souls' and Poems (1817) 'That which is creative must create itself: 1817 and Endymion '- Things real - things semireal - and no things -': 1818: January to June Walking north and the death of Tom: 1818: July to December 'A Gordian complication of feelings': Love, Women and Romance 'Tease us out of thought': May 1819: Odes Playwright Autumn in Winchester 'A frog in a frost': the Final Journey Poems (1820) Bibliography Index

R.S. WHITE has taught at the University of Newcastle on Tyne, UK, and is now Australian Professorial Fellow and Winthrop Professor of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia. He has published books on Shakespeare, Keats and Hazlitt. Natural Law in English Renaissance Literature (1996) was followed by Natural Rights in Romanticism of the 1790s (Palgrave, 2005) and Pacifism and English Literature: Minstrels of Peace (Palgrave, 2008).

'A great strength of this impressive biography is the way it accompanies Keats's life narrative with critical and interpretative passages on the poetry - there is much in these pages that will provoke thought for students and more experienced Keatsians. Keats's childhood, school years and medical career are exceptionally well done, and among many highlights the account of Keats's plays, letters, and Endymion are especially rewarding.' - Professor Nicholas Roe, University of St. Andrews, UK '... makes significant contributions at the most advanced level of research and, at the other end of the scale, would be an excellent introduction for college undergraduates and general readers... a fine piece of research and writing...' - Jack Stillinger, New Books Online '... White's John Keats: A Literary Life allows us to see Keats as an active/creative agent, forging an identity between the competing demands of the actual and the imagined. This places Keats firmly within his own time, but it also brings his life into fascinating dialogue with the present. The book, a most welcome addition to the literature on John Keats, is certain to draw a wide and appreciative audience.' - Peter Otto, Australian Book Review

'A great strength of this impressive biography is the way it accompanies Keats's life narrative with critical and interpretative passages on the poetry - there is much in these pages that will provoke thought for students and more experienced Keatsians. Keats's childhood, school years and medical career are exceptionally well done, and among many highlights the account of Keats's plays, letters, and Endymion are especially rewarding.' - Professor Nicholas Roe, University of St. Andrews, UK '...makes significant contributions at the most advanced level of research and, at the other end of the scale, would be an excellent introduction for college undergraduates and general readers... a fine piece of research and writing...' - Jack Stillinger, New Books Online '...White's John Keats: A Literary Life allows us to see Keats as an active/creative agent, forging an identity between the competing demands of the actual and the imagined. This places Keats firmly within his own time, but it also brings his life into fascinating dialogue with the present. The book, a most welcome addition to the literature on John Keats, is certain to draw a wide and appreciative audience.' - Peter Otto, Australian Book Review 'R.S. White has written a focused, concise and perceptive biography of John Keats for Palgrave Macmillan's Literary Lives, which will stand readers of the poetry in good stead for years to come! As a Renaissance scholar, White brings a thorough understanding of other literary periods to bear on the Romantics, and as a result offers some original commentary demonstrating the influence on Keats of Edmund Spenser, John Donne and, above all, William Shakespeare. He is also sensitive to the sense in which Keats regarded his second profession, poetry, as a continuation of his first - that of medicine. Both were concerned with the healing of mind and body, and that goes some way towards explaining Keats' change of career'. - Duncan Wu, Times Higher Education 'Elegantly written and expertly crafted, R. S. White's John Keats: A Literary Life aims to redress just this kind of imbalance between biography and critical commentary, not only managing to synthesise the most innovative current criticism on Keats's life and work in less than 300 pages, but also establishing a fresh set of contexts with which to read them! Indeed, it is the insightful commentary that White repeatedly brings to apparently well-established events, ideas, and contexts that makes this book so valuable! Academic readers will be glad that White has chosen to incorporate so much new material into his concise Life, but this is nonetheless one of those rare books that will appeal to both the general and the specialist reader: students requiring either a short biography of Keats or a critical overview of his major works will still find this book an invaluable starting point for further study. Considering the amount of material already published on Keats, it is a major achievement that White's Life is both accessible to students and an essential addition to our knowledge of Keats's life and work.' - Porscha Fermanis, British Association for Romantic Studies 'Students and scholars alike will find that White's discussion of contextual material about the Hunt circle and Keats's medical training, along with the author's extensive knowledge of Shakespeare's works, will enrich their understanding of specific passages in both letters and poems.' - Grant F. Scott, The Keats-Shelley Review