Author Description
This book sets out to recover the lively and unsettling voices of Keat's poetry, and seeks to trace the complex ways in which his poems responded to and addressed their contemporary world. It offers new research about Keats's early life opening valuable new perspectives on his poetry. Two chapters explore the dissenting culture of Enfield School, showing how the school exercised a strong influence on Keats's imaginative life and his political radicalism. Imagination and politics intertwine through succeeding chapters on Keats's friendship with Charles Cowden Clarke; his medical career; the 'Cockney' milieu in which Keats's poems were written; and on the immediate controversial impact of his three collections of poetry. The author deftly reconstructs contexts and contemporary resonances for Keat's poems, retrieving the vigorous challenge of Keats's verbal art which outraged his early readers but which was lost to us as Keats entered the canon of English romantic poets.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates the extent to which John Keats's poetry was shaped by the radical political and dissenting cultural environment of his formative years. Nicholas Roe, a scholar of Romantic literature, utilizes archival research and historical context to argue that Keats was not merely an aesthetic poet, but a figure deeply engaged with the volatile social and political climate of early nineteenth-century England. By examining Keats's education, medical training, and social circles, the author reconstructs the intellectual framework that informed the poet's most provocative works.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- An analysis of the dissenting culture at Enfield School and its influence on Keats's political radicalism.
- A detailed examination of Keats's medical career and its intersection with his creative output.
- Historical documentation regarding the 'Cockney' literary milieu and its reception by contemporary critics.
- A re-evaluation of Keats's three poetry collections within the context of their original, often controversial, reception.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars and literary historians frequently cite this work as a significant contribution to the study of Romantic-era political contexts. Experts highlight the text for its rigorous archival research and its success in stripping away later canonized interpretations to reveal the poet's original, more radical intent.
Page Count:
340
Publication Date:
1997-04-10
Publisher:
Clarendon Press
ISBN-10:
0198183968
ISBN-13:
9780198183969
Poetry
History
Biography
Criticism history
Romanticism
Literary Criticism
Radicalism
Community Tags
Similar Books
