Nicholas Roe

Keats's "outer" life was not rich enough in incident to sustain a 400-page biography on its own, and Keats's "inner" (intellectual/artistic) life is not done justice here. The readings of the poems are simplistic (mainly biographical or glossing allusions), the discussion of Keatsian ideas about mutability, etc., little more than perfunctory. The only thing I really enjoyed about this biography was the chance to reread so many of Keats's poems, since a good number of them (mainly sonnets) are reprinted in full (though often in earlier and unfamiliar versions)… (more)