John Keats was one of the greatest poets of the Romantic Era. He wrote poetry of
great sensual beauty and had a unique passion for details. In his lifetime he
was not recognized with the senior poets. He didn’t receive the respect he
deserved. He didn’t fit into the respected group because of his age, nor in
the younger group because he was neither a lord nor in the upper class. He was
in the middle class and at that time people were treated differently because of
their social status. John Keats was born in London on October 31, 1795. He was
educated at Clarke’s School in Enfield. He enjoyed a liberal education that
mainly reflected on his poetry. His father died when he was eight and his mother
died when he was fourteen. After his mother died, his maternal grandmother
granted two London merchants, John Rowland Sandell and Richard Abbey,
guardianship. Abbey played a major roll in the development of Keats, as Sandell
only played a minor one. These circumstances drew him extremely close to his two
brothers, George and Tom, and his sister Fanny. When he 15, Abbey removed him
from the Clarke School, as he became an apothecary-surgeon’s apprentice. Then
in 1815, he became a student at Guy’s Hospital. He registered for a six- month
course to become a licensed surgeon. Soon after he decided he was going to be a
doctor he realized his true passion was in poetry. So he decided he would try to
excel in poetry also. His poetry that he wrote six years before his death was
not very good. As his life progressed his poetry became more mature and amazing.
He looked up to Shakespeare and Milton. He studied a lot of there poetry and
imitated these two writers. His work resembled Shakespeare. Soon after medical
school, he returned to London and met Leigh Hunt. They began to write the
Examiner, which was love poetry. In his lifetime he published three books of
verse: Poems (1817), Endymion (1818), Lamia Isabella and other poems including
two famous poems “Odes” and “Hyperion.” Hunt then introduced him to a
circle of literary men, including Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Wordsworth.
These men influenced him to create his first volume of verses, called Poems by
John Keats. Shelly persisted that he needed to develop a stronger body of work
before publishing. Keats was not fond of Shelley and did not take his advice,
but ironically Shelley was very fond of Keats and they were later compared to be
very similar. Keats died at age twenty- six. He became too ill and was unable to
finish “The Fall of Hyperion.” He died of turberculosis, just as his mother
did, before the poem could be completed. Most believe that if he had lived a
full life and not died at age twenty- six he would have been equal to
Shakespeare, because of his beauty and creativity.