As I was driving down the road this morning, I wondered about the following:
If somehow Keats were to know that TB was contageous (say--for fancy's sake--that someone was able to go back in time around the spring of 1818 and tell him all about it and he believed him) and that, if he stayed away from his brother Tom (and maybe also didn't go on the Scotland journey and catch that cold) that he might have a good chance of elluding the disease and have more years to write--do you think he would take these precautions?
Do you think he would not nurse his brother--or be near him--as a trade off for personal health and extra years added to his life for writing?
Personally, I think that it would be completely against Keats's very nature to *not* be there for Tom when he was needed and risk infection. I think, like a character in a Greek Tragedy, Keats's very nature would determine his fate.
Of course this is completely fantasy talk--obviously, people can't go back in time and change history--but I think it's fun to consider hypotheticals when it comes to Keats's character.
Does anyone have an opinion?