Keats context

Question 1

Keats’ early life

Answer 1

Father died in 1804, mother died after by TB.
Lower-middle class, couldn’t afford to be a full time poet.

Question 2

Keats’ historical background

Answer 2

Born during French Revolution (1789-1799).
George III was reigning monarch.
A time of social change - Industrial Revolution (1760-1840).

Question 3

Keats’ education

Answer 3

Went to Clarke’s school, London for his love for literature, however gave this up to be an apprentice for a surgeon after his mum died.
Trained as a surgeon at Guy’s hospital in 1815, then gets side-tracked by writing.
Clarke’s was a protestant and non-conformist school with a liberal ethos.

Question 4

Keats’ private life

Answer 4

1818 - developed early TB symptoms.
Autumn 1818, met Fanny Brawne, and engaged to her in 1819 in secret (would be wrong if public as he was too ill and financially unstable).
Died in Feb 1821 of TB .
Didn’t get on well with Shelley.

Question 5

Keats’ poetry and its reception

Answer 5

Early poetry (1818) had been criticised in many magazines.
1816 - William Hazlitt called it “cockney poetry”. Editor Leigh Hunt praised Keats.
Only support from Romantics, poems became more popular after his death. Victorians loved hihs poetry.

Question 6

What did Romanticism placed a primary focus on?

Answer 6

Imagination - cultural reaction to the 18th century emphasis on reason as the highest human quality.
Believed imagination was unpredictable but Godlike in its workings.

Question 7

What did Romantics focus on in their work?

Answer 7

Large focus on emotion - emotional and personal fulfilment were considered most important.

Question 8

What were the main focuses of Romanticism?

Answer 8

Preference for imagination and it’s power to extend society.
A need to commune with nature and blend boundaries between humans and nature.
Focus on the individual / importance of the child.
Thirst for gender, race & class equality.
Experimenting with poet forms to stimulate readers’ minds.
Elevated nature - delighted in the sublime.