Keats The Movie - the news we've all been waiting for....

[Malia]

Any biopic of Keats would have to portray him as a man outside of his time. He seemed to possess a nervousness that went beyond the Romantic conception of what a poet should be contra the Byronic hero and Shelley utopian.

What about Sean Astin in the main role?

What kind of nervousness are you talking about? Physical dis-ease and anxiety or a high-strung, intense emotionality?

I would disagree that Keats was a nervous person or poet until TB overwhelmed him. As a person, he was noted for being a very strong and "masculine" sort of guy. Barry Cornwall mentioned this as well as most--if not all--of Keats's close friends. Keats did not like to cry in front of others or show his weaknesses. Leigh Hunt said that Keats's spirit was "lofty to a degree of pride" so when, while Keats was extremely ill with TB and destitute, he broke down in front of Hunt, Hunt was amazed.

The idea that Keats was too sensitive for this world is a direct product of Shelley's Adonais--which was, frankly, more about Shelley and his own sensibilities than it was about Keats. Adonais was what Shelley wanted to see in Keats as a poet--or in a poet in general.

And unfortunately, the "sensitive, nervous poet" mystique has been dogging poor Keats ever since.

I do not doubt that Keats had extremely keen senses and that he was personally affected by others' problems and pain--he admitted to that, himself. But that does not make him sensitive in the same way that Shelley suggests.

[bard of passion]

I don't take too much stock in what Percy Bysshe has to say about Keats.

There was a comment made in a letter (I gotta find it for you!) about Keats not being able to look at a tree without seeing a Dryad.

He WAS intense, more so than his contemporaries. He challenges other poets to sonnet contests. He is self-promoting, seeks assurance from family, friends and reviewers that he is of Parnassus.

His own comments on the blood episode bespeaks one who knows a moment and how to make it memorable. Nothing wrong with that. My heroes in Am History (Washington and Lincoln and TR) knew how to milk the same teat for posterity.

His own epitaph speaks volumes on his desire for immortality (look at that trope traipsing through his verse) and at the same time tugs at the heartstrings of those Regent votives who, like Shelley, want their poets to be in the hypos, the fantods, the realms of faeryland.

[bard of passion]

What kind of nervousness are you talking about? Physical dis-ease and anxiety or a high-strung, intense emotionality?

I'm sorry, Malia, I am not used to these controls on this site.

The "nervousness" I mean is the agitation to move, to do things. He was more of an intellectual than many have given him credit for, and that is due, of course, to the Shelley and Milne (spelling?) biography portraying him as destroyed by bad reviews.

Heck, nervousness has nothing to do with virility (ahem, I am NOT speaking of myself here, of course!): many, er, most, well really, all of the really virile men I know have a kind of creative nervousness about them. They read at every waking moment. They pace when it rains outside. They clean the kitchen twice after dinner. They make their wives upset whenever they carry books (that's plural) about when shopping or visiting relatives. They play Ella Fitzgerald singing the Cole Porter songbook while watching the Angels pound on the Mariners. Those nervous types. Like Keats.

[dks]

I don't know about a 'nervousness,' but I do believe him to have possessed an extraordinary sense of intensity, which manifested itself in those famous "fits and starts." I think Keats's pugnacity never left him after his memorable days at Clarke's. That environment was like a 'magic casement' for him--it provided him the emotional shelter he needed after losing his mother, the environment which promoted doubt and questioning, and the playground at which to exercise his sound, almost pugilistic physicality--he was quite athletic...a stellar cricket player...

In short, when I think of a nervousness, a certain brand of weakness comes to mind. I think Keats's disposition was antithetical to that--his intense nature was further fueled by a calculable mutinousness--he had a innate sense of going against the day's "foppery" and the grain in general.

Just my opining...an opinion at that...it's not as though I've spoken to him anytime recently...oh, for the chance, though...

[Saturn]

I always seem to miss these fascinating discussions.

I feel like a child when I read all this in-depth discussion

[bard of passion]

I always seem to miss these fascinating discussions.

I feel like a child when I read all this in-depth discussion

There's a great one a brewing in the 'Poems on Keats" thread! Some well meaning gallant stepped into it trying to come to the aid of the Fannyites who were being abused by an anonymous poet who claims to know the truth when he says he "thinks so."

Ya gotta go there, Saturn, it's a riot

[Malia]

I always seem to miss these fascinating discussions.

I feel like a child when I read all this in-depth discussion

There's a great one a brewing in the 'Poems on Keats" thread! Some well meaning gallant stepped into it trying to come to the aid of the Fannyites who were being abused by an anonymous poet who claims to know the truth when he says he "thinks so."

Ya gotta go there, Saturn, it's a riot

Oh, you pot-stirrer, you!

[bard of passion]

Well, it gets tiring waiting to prune the old vines. I get too antsy this time of year, if I didn't stir things up, they would stick to the bottom of the pot.

Ah! I'll make some risotto tonight! And drink the ONLY pinot noir worthy of a poet: California pinot from the Edna Valley!

[bard of passion]

Did I mention it was Domain Alfred (from the old Chamisal vineyard: oldest in San Luis Obispo county circa 1880?)

[Malia]

Ah! I'll make some risotto tonight! And drink the ONLY pinot noir worthy of a poet: California pinot from the Edna Valley!

*Shock and horror* California wine?? EEEWWWW!!
Washington State wines are the best, my man.

[bard of passion]

IF Keats were living in the here and now and not the here after:
he would find his Mermaid Tavern in San Luis Obispo county (Mother's Tavern on Higuera) where we would drink SLO Brewery India Pale Ale and laugh about those weak, watery Washington state pinot noirs.

Har har har (I hear him now!)

After a late Friday afternoon, we climb into my battered Willys Jeep wagon (the four door convertible from the early 50s) and saunter south on Broad to Edna Valley, nestled amid the encinas and robles, the toyons and California myrtles.

We laugh again about those silly Irish moderators, those romantic Texans, those too-organized Washingtonians who probably think we bear flaggers are the appendix of the body of the nation.

Hee hee hee (he starts to get goofy)

"Wanna fight?" I ask him (I used to fight with my brothers (4) during my teen years.

"Nah, let's shoot at Walla Walla apples in the vineyard!"

"Yeah, mealy apples, not like ours from See Canyon."

"Mealy and weak," say himself, "like those comments about me poesy."

What an evening among the nightengales.

[edwardkeenaghan]

Pistols at dawn Bard of Passion ????

[Saturn]

I've enough shit going down at the moment to be bothered with this argument.

[edwardkeenaghan]

Are you ok stephen,whats wrong man?

[Saturn]

Personal stuff Edward, not appropriate to post it here.