bard of passion wrote: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.