Lucasta Miller

77. Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph by Lucasta Miller
OPD: 2021
format: 321-page hardcover
acquired: Library Loan read: Oct 26 – Nov 12 time reading: 13:43, 2.6 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: biography and literary analysis theme: Poetry
locations: England
about the author: English writer and literary journalist raised in London, born 1966

This is an accessible, enjoyable, and beautiful introduction to Keats. I read it because when I read about Emily Dickinson and Wilfred Owen, I show more kept seeing aspects of them described as Keatsian. I wanted to know what that meant, but I have never read Keats. Miller takes a single poem and writes a biographical essay around it. The goes to the next poem. It was a perfect take for me. I've now read his most famous stuff and read about them. It's rich. I learned Keats was a beautiful, a special writer who managed to put things down on paper that are so hard to describe (even for Miller), or pin down. This aspect leaves us only thinking about them more, and wondering about them more, and wondering about the spirit behind them. I'm not convinced there is another way to read these (I slightly exaggerate). He was also a prolific letter writer, who was free and playful and experimental and remarkably open in his letters. Apparently Regency era letter writing was a freer thing than letter writing at other times. And from his letters comes the concept and term 'negative capability' - which is merely an idea he wrote down once, briefly in a letter, and only once, this idea he mastered and that so many of our poets and creative writers strive to capture.

I think I knew before that Keats died young. He was born in 1795, never settled down, and tied of tuberculosis in 1821 (in Rome), age 26. All of his world changing writing happened roughly in 1818 to 1820, three years. He also was trained in medicine (and understood as well as anyone what his tuberculosis meant, both medically, and by having watched a brother die of it).

For those curious, the nine poems are "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (which has rebellious aspect I wasn't aware of), the 4000 line "Endymion", which opens "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever", "Isabella; or the Pot of Basil", "The Eve of St. Agnes", "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode to a Grecian Urn", "To Autumn", and "Bright Star" (this last is also the name of a movie about him that Miller more or less shreds)

I adored this and I'm so happy to have it. I can't think about Keats without a sense of joy shining now. I highly recommend this to anyone not already a Keats scholar. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, and Keats matches his line.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/365030#8681269 show less

I came to this biography when, during the frustrations of Covid-19 lockdown, I looked through an old copy of the "Literary Review". A compelling analysis of the life, work and reputation of an English writer I'd never heard of, it is the story of a young woman of talent and originality whose creativity and person were abused and exploited - the book both vivid and disturbing. Despite the biography's rather recherché title, I am grateful that Lucusta Miller has introduced me to Letitia show more Landon, and hope that the Letitias of the 21st century may be nurtured not exploited. show less

Lucasta Miller has written a creatively designed biography of Keats. I am not a poetry fan, but I am a fan of biographies of artists. I was intrigued by the format of using one of his poems to focus each of nine chapters. I think it worked very well.

Keats died at 25, but managed to write enough poetry during his short life to convincingly enter "the canon". His poems are still read and studied almost 200 years after his death. What I learned, ultimately, is this is because of his fluid, show more ambiguous language, use of imagery, and how he drew on Classical and early English ideas and forms. He is considered one of the great Romantic poets.

To be honest, though, I still didn't connect with the actual poetry. I'm just not practiced in reading it and always find my eyes glazing over. (except for the one where the young woman digs up the head of her murdered lover and plants it in a pot of basil to continue loving it - that was memorable). But, nevertheless, I loved this book. I learned so much about Keats. I was fascinated by his medical training and how it informed his writing. I was interested in his family relationships. I was intrigued by his friendships and his relationships with women.

I love a good biography and this was an excellent one. show less

The fascinating story of the big splash made by a very young female poet in England in the 1820s, and her later demise. The author manages to make an arcane slice of literary history into an ejoyable read.
The abiding under-story is role of gender in life of the times. The young protagonist was sponsored, and controlled, and thrown to the wolves by her first promoter -an older male in the publishing world.
The central events in her doomed life is her sexual relationship, outside marriage, with show more her sponsor. Her career is doomed when this becomes more widely know. The career of her sponsor is unaffected. An unmarried woman who has sex outside marriage is totally at fault, and wears all the consequences. Her sexual partner is mildly disparaged, and carries on with his life and business. Go figure! show less