Keats:A Romantic poet

Extract:

A ‘life of thoughts’

At the same time as he was producing these great poems, Keats was also writing letters to friends and loved ones that clarify the theoretical thinking that lay behind them. They cover an extraordinary amount of ground, and show an equally extraordinary amount of wisdom, but they converge on a few central convictions. One of these is the idea that large theoretical concerns will only be comprehensible to people if they are rehearsed in very physical language. ‘Axioms in philosophy’ he says, using an image that refers back to his medical days, ‘are not axioms unless they are proved upon our pulses’ (3 May, 1818). This is where the sensuality of his writing is so important. It is not merely a form of delighted and delightful engagement with things-in-themselves, but a way of thinking. His ‘life of sensation’ is also a ‘life of thoughts’.

It is a notion that every poet writing after Keats has had to negotiate, and that most have shared. From the very small base of his early readership, he has become one of the most influential poets, as well as one of the most beloved.