A Few compliments

[Endymion]

Thilo, I just wanted to drop you a message saying how pleased I am that I found your website. As well as this forum, which I'll comment on in a moment, you have gathered together a number of valuable resources, including most (or is it all?) of Keats' poems, my personal favourite: his letters, a comprehensive biography and even copies of the reviews that were so damaging to his career. I am indebted to you for this valuable information to help me build on my knowledge of Mister John Keats.

When I first joined the forum, I thought that visitors to this site would be mostly professors and biographers, professional people who already have a great knowledge of Keats and would have run the risk of alienating this site (and Keats himself) from the general public.

Your site has superceded this. The people who comment on the forum are people like me - individuals who know what they love but have no comprehensive knowledge of the subject. This makes the forums vibrant and interesting, and means everyone can share on an equal level all that is motivational and inspirational about the mind of this genius.

I only wish that there would be some dedicated individual to do this service to another highly regarded writer, F Scott Fitzgerald. All I can find on him is a few unfriendly sites and these have such a negative affect on my enthusiasm for his works.

Can I suggest an expanded version of "Keats Around the World" to include things like you have on the links page ... I've noticed the link to the British Library is out of date, and there doesn't seem to be any updates that would benefit the site in general, though I did like visiting Keats and Shelley House in Rome from your links page.

Things you could include would be Keats' house in London, as well as sites and exhibitions at locations in America and other continents. Where are all his letters and manuscripts now, and are they available to view by the public?

Thank you.

Regards,

Endymion.

[Guest]

Hello Endymion,

Thanks for your compliments and your suggestions!

I took it as a motivation to update the links-page right away. I have not yet made a thorough web search for new Keats-related sites, but at least I have checked all links and updated those that had moved, like the exhibition in the British Library. I have also included a link to Keats House in London. As for Keats' manuscripts and more Keats-places, Keats-related sites and works, I will soon follow your suggestions.

I am glad that the forum is gaining momentum (if you can say this in English, or, in other words, that it has reached a certan critical mass necessary for a bulletin board). I think, the text corpus is the body of a site, the bulletin board is its heart.

Thanks again for all suggestions, which I will realise step by step and best regards from Germany,

Thilo

[Endymion]

Thanks Thilo! That's great!

I'll keep the suggestions coming if it's motivational (in a helpful way!). This is my first involvement with a forum, I belong to only one other, so I guess I'm just seeing it from a new point of view.

But then, aren't we all?

Today I've posted a new topic which didn't really come under any category I could see: Perhaps you could suggest something if the current location isn't really suitable?

"Gaining momentum" is fine English. You're probably better at it than you realise.

Best wishes from Wales, too. I hope your weathers' not as cold as ours this weekend! brrrrrr!

[ast3risk]

um... a suggestion that i have:
A file, such as pdf, would be great. i came on here just like wanting all the poems. The option of all the sonnets etc. would be good too i suppose
ch33rs

[Claire]

This site is great! the Best yet!

[zebluepenguin]

Me Too! I'm so glad I found this website. I totally agree that it's cool. Mind you, I found this while doing a most boring online assignment. I'm so ever glad! Now I know about Keats and I love literature lessons in school.

[BrokenLyre]

Throw me in as well. I too appreciate this site. Where else can I vent my love and appreciation for Keats?

[zebluepenguin]

Throw me in as well. I too appreciate this site. Where else can I vent my love and appreciation for Keats?

Yeah！ Anyone can introduce anymore Keats websites?

[keatsclose]

Just wanted to say how brilliant this site is, with especial thanks to Thilo, Saturn and Malia.

SEASON'S GREETINGS, everyone (even J-Dog and pals)!

Hampstead has snow just now, and a snow-covered Keats House would be my chosen
Christmas card. However as I'm unable to send it here you'll just have to imagine it,
perhaps with JK and Toots throwing snowballs

Sorry, toots, have only just found your wonderful photographs - MANY THANKS!

[Saturn]

Why thank you keatsclose, I'm glad you like the forum. A very Happy Christmas to you and to all else who celebrate it.

[bartfield]

Hello,

I saw a few compliments that were posted, and I want to say that I like the site a great deal, and I am an older person who has decided to re-read Keats and evaluate whether his romantic intensity still has relevance to someone who first read Keat so long ago that all you need to know is that I am a vet of WW11. But, as is pernhaps appropriate for an older person, I find the site very complicated and I fnd the smiley faces and frowning faces somewhat ridiculous and faddish, something that will not last as long as Keats. If Keats could use a farirly contemporary language to communicate his emotions and sensibilties, why then should followers of his site not at least attempt to discuss him in a somewhat similar language and not in cartoons. Yes, I am a cranky old man, but Keats, not to mention Byron, was a cranky young man, and why are you turning him over in his grave. This borders on travesty, absurdity, and utter nonsense, triviality, and semiliteracy, not to mention insulting to the intelligence of anyone of the caliber of a Keats reader. I have forbade my granddaughter to use the word "like" in her language and am hoping she will mount a campaign to do this in her class. She is seven, has written some poetry, and is willing to autograph for any and all, if I can figure out how to post one. Very truly yours, and I use my real name, Louis Bartfield and I live in Santa Cruz, California, and am in the telephone book. Thank you.

[marwood]

Wow! When you post a reply to something it's not easy to convey to that person if you are
being serious or teasing or even embarrassed, so if I say to you," life sounds a bundle of fun
in your house" Just read through previous posts and you will see the folk here
are great Keats lovers, they are also a very intelligent bunch! I do not include my self in that
Take care.
Chin chin.
Marwood.

[bartfield]

Hello Marwood and other Keats lover,

you are right, in my house are many tragedies and near suicides, but I have managed to revive them all with a magic potion, which if you stop using smiley and frowny faces, I shall reveal to you and to all the world at the second coming of John Keats, a project I am now working on. Hey, when you're my age you find your fun when you can. Actually, I am stunned that the younger generation is even capable of reading Keats, judging by the quality of twitters. By the way, I own five motels in California and it is one of my great purposes to make twitter literate, by sneaking in a little poetry in 140 characters or less, and now some of the literate kids in my company are entering into a twitter contest. You can find us in Bartfieldmotelgroup.com and follow the Twitter links. See if you can guess which are mine. As John Keats might say, "Oh, tell me why thus I rave, no Hyperions to my Satyr, As I settle grimly into my grave.
Very truly yours,
Louis Bartfield

[Raphael]

John Keats was 25 when he passed and his letters show he rather liked a bit of fun, laughter and waggery- he loved puns, jokes and playing jokes on Charles Brown- I don't think he would frown at smiley faces online.
By the way I am 42, and understand your points about the youngsters who can barely express themselves. Being literate is in the Western world hugely important, but one has also to remember that in tribal cultures those people cannot read- in fact they do not need to read- they have amazing skills we lack, such as being completely in tune with their local environment. Some of them can "read" the plant life.
There was a poet from ther farming class, contemporary with John Keats called John Clare- he could read and write, but wasn't great with his grammar and punctuation- yet he is considered one of the best English poets today. Certainly he is seen as the best English labouring class poet.

[Saturn]

This site is a reflection of its users.

It is completely democratic and anyone [except blasted spammers] can voice their opinions on whatever subject they like as far as I'm concerned. The miscellaneous section is there for a reason, and should be used for any off-Keats topics.

If anyone thinks the discussions are not to their taste then they must add a new topic themselves.

If you're willing to look you can find I think a great deal of all kinds of discussion on this forum. It's present state is a reflection of its present users. They have the power to make it what it is, or what they think it should be. I am merely the editor, or more correctly janitor of this place, I mop up the crap and make sure the lights are running but what goes on inside is up to you people.

As for smilies, there is a topic viewtopic.php?f=4&t=533&start=0&view=viewpoll in which users were asked if smilies were to be allowed or not and 88% said yes. If the scales tip the balance the other way then of course I will bow to that verdict.
For the record I was, on my own first acquaintance with the internet, not at all in favour of smilies and stuff like that, but you get used to them and I find them marginally less annoying than the almost complete collapse of spelling and grammar amongst so many people who post on the internet.

Thank you all for your feedback, but I say again the forum is what YOU make of it, what you write in it is up to you, if you want to discuss anything different, or more appropriate you have the power to create your own talking point; just click new topic and off you go.