by riverborn » Fri May 29, 2009 1:46 am
I received the book as a Xmas present and it is quite good if you are a Keats fanatic. the first half or so deals with the history of his reputation after his death, and the second part is a very heart-felt and heart rendering renditon of his wasting and death. The biographer draws some interesting parallels to his death to his art (very late 1819?) and his physical death in 1821. I think this is a great quote from the book: "To Autumn," the perfection of Keats mode of disappearance into the text, is not only his last great lyric, it is what we would call the "apotheosis" of elemental conversion- of the earth harvest, yes; of the ending of the fire of the sun; of the arcing anticipation of the spring rain; but mostly of the seperating veil, .....Keats true disappearance as a man and poet begins here, a full year and a half before before he dies. ..the recognition of what has been true and fated for years arrives like a vision, and that vision is "To Autumn", whose emotional and spiritual realities represent both a full cup and exhaustion... it is as if Keats only choice after "To Autumn" is to die, to fail, to disappear completely, perfectly, and leave "no immortal work behind".
I felt in this a profound insight.
The book has a more or less redemptive view of Fanny Brawne, but characterizes Charles Brown as, in the end, a betrayer.