John Keats Forum

by **Saturn** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:34 am

Now reading:

I first read this over two and half years ago when I was much less experienced in life and love than now but this packs an even greater punch than I could have imagined.

If a book of poetry could ever come close to perfect, this is very close :shock:

by **dks** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 5:10 pm

I'm glad someone has read him. I haven't. I will take your recommendation to heart, Saturn, and pick him up.

by **Brave Archer** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 8:18 pm

Could one of you point me in the direction of a non-expensive Shelley biography? everyone i've seen is too much for me.

by **Saturn** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:25 pm

Brave Archer wrote:Could one of you point me in the direction of a non-expensive Shelley biography? everyone i've seen is too much for me.

Well Ricahrd Holmes' Shelley The Pursuit is the single greatest Shelley biography out there. I(t's an astonishing work of art in itself. Probably the greatest literary biography I've ever read. I highly recommend it.

Here it is on amazon. Is $14 expensive? It says they can go for a s cheap as $10.99

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590170377/sr=1-3/qid=1155154957/ref=pd_bbs_3/103-7935405-9747867?ie=UTF8&s=books

Believe me it's worth every penny.

Hope this helps.

by **Saturn** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 10:05 pm

dks wrote:I'm glad someone has read him. I haven't. I will take your recommendation to heart, Saturn, and pick him up.

I recommend you do a fair bit of background reading on Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath themselves and their tempestuous marriage before you dive into this.

by **Saturn** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 12:01 am

I'm excited

I just bought this today :shock:

by **dks** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 5:00 am

Indeed. That does look like an interesting read, Saturn. Keep us posted on how that comes along...

by **Discovery** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 2:36 pm

I'm reading 'Rural Rides' by William Cobbett as a way of trying to better understand Keats' world. When reading the introduction by a man called Ian Dyck, I came across these lines that made my mouth fall open in shock: 'Cobbett might indeed qualify as a 'romantic', but for inspiration he was too wary of abstract ideas and metaphysics to ponder the heavens of Blake and Shelley, the urns and nightingales of Keats or the daffodils and tranquil reflections of Wordsworth'. His intro on Cobbett was very good, but I think he should stick to what he knows best!

by **dks** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 2:45 pm

Indeed. I have a tough time thinking that Keats's urn and nightingale fall under the category of abstractions or metaphysics.

by **Manako** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 11:36 am

Now reading too much books, but mainly The Sandman 8th volume and Frankenstein.

by **Saturn** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:36 pm

dks wrote::shock:

Indeed. That does look like an interesting read, Saturn. Keep us posted on how that comes along...

Well I've just started getting into The life Of Leigh Hunt.

A lot of it was totally unknown to me like the fact that his parents were American.
His grandparents were English and had fled to Barbados during the Puritan age in England.
Hunt's father was a lawyer in America.

The Hunts were forced to flee America to England due to Hunt's fathers' avowed Monarchist stance during the War of Independence. Leigh himself was later born in England becoming the Hunts' youngest son,
His father became a minister famed for his eloquent but slight sermons. He was continually in debt much like Hunt himself in later life - every inch a Mr Micawber-esque firgure.

Hunt wrote and had published his first poetry book when he was 16 and was lionised by fashionable arostocratic and political subscribers [ironically among them the High Court Judge who would later posecute Hunt and his brother John for libel
:wink:

]. The third edition even boasted Nelson as a subscriber :shock:

Next the book delves into the rather intense, lengthy and unusual courtship of his future wife Marian [or Marianne as Hunt Christened her and as we know her].
Then it moves onto the period of his radical political journalism, the infamous libel case against HRH and the Hunt we are familiar with from biographies of Keats, Shelly and Byron.

I will let you all know what the author has to say about Hunt's relationship with Keats, poetical and otherwise

by **dks** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:39 pm

Sounds fascinating...yes! I'm wanting to know what the biographer says of his relationship to our man. :shock:

by **Malia** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:57 pm

dks wrote:Sounds fascinating...yes! I'm wanting to know what the biographer says of his relationship to our man.

Yes, and it would especially be interesting to read Hunt's personal account of what Keats was like in the Summer of 1820. He's quoted in nearly every Keats bio regarding these days, but I wonder if he said more than just was quoted.

by **dks** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:29 am

I will be reading Seamus Heaney's version of Beowulf for brushing up purposes, as I will be teaching it to my seniors here shortly. I'd better brush up mighty quick. :shock:

by **Saturn** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:45 am

dks wrote:I will be reading Seamus Heaney's version of Beowulf for brushing up purposes, as I will be teaching it to my seniors here shortly. I'd better brush up mighty quick.

I've read it already. It is excellent.

Heaney is the greatest living poet in the world.

Good luck. I wish my English teacher had been as passionate as you Denise :wink:

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