Happy Birthday to...

...John Keats.

There, that surprised you didn't it, bet you weren't expecting that, and who knew that our John would have been 200 and something today.

Now my knowledge of John Keats's life is limited...romantic poet... TB...died in er... Venice, or was it Rome... and my familiarity with his lesser known poetry in any great depth not so hot either, so when a really tantalizing looking biography of his life, John Keats by Nicholas Roe, arrived from Yale University Press, I was interested. As I opened the book and started to read, I realised I had found a fascinating biography and a life I wanted to know much more about.

"This landmark biography of celebrated Romantic poet John Keats explodes entrenched conceptions of him as a delicate, overly sensitive, tragic figure. Instead, Nicholas Roe reveals the real flesh-and-blood poet: a passionate man driven by ambition but prey to doubt, suspicion and jealousy; sure of his vocation while bitterly resentful of the obstacles that blighted his career; devoured by sexual desire and frustration; and in thrall to alcohol and opium. Through unparalleled original research, Roe arrives at a fascinating reassessment of Keats's entire life, from his early years at Keats's Livery Stables through his harrowing battle with tuberculosis and death at age twenty-five. Focusing on crucial turning points, Roe finds in the locations of Keats's poems new keys to the nature of his imaginative quest. Roe is the first biographer to provide a full and fresh account of Keats's childhood in the City of London and how it shaped the would-be poet. The mysterious early death of Keats's father, his mother's too-swift remarriage, living in the shadow of the notorious madhouse Bedlam all these affected Keats far more than has been previously understood. The author also sheds light on Keats's doomed passion for Fanny Brawne, his circle of brilliant friends, hitherto unknown City relatives, and much more. Filled with revelations and daring to ask new questions, this book now stands as the definitive volume on one of the most beloved poets of the English language."

I am a 'male biography reading' in arrears at the moment having had The Last Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination by Fiona MacCarthy sitting waiting patiently all year, and I had really wanted to read it before seeing the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate. I am not sure I will get to that before it closes in January now.

But Nicholas Roe's book also set me thinking about those little Keatsian moments in my own life..

There are the well-known lines of poetry familiar to many I am sure...

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 
Its loveliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing....

or

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-- 
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

or how about...

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, 
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

and perhaps one of my favourites...

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, 
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; 

...and just seeking out those quotes and typing them here reminds me that actually I am more familiar with the poetry of John Keats than I had realised, there were many more I could have chosen from my treasured little leather bound edition.

But it is not just the poetry.

It was the health visitor colleague who persuaded and encouraged me to study with the Open University and who first appraised me of Keats's theory of Negative Capability. Doubtless we were in a team meeting and thrashing something serious out between us and Pam threw in this wonderful suggestion that we all needed to think like Keats..

'That is when man is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.'

There was silence from me anyway as I stopped and considered this idea, and the more I thought about it the more I decided this was the one for me. All that flapping about and wasted emotional energy spent looking for the answers and solutions to impossible questions and situations... in future I would just invoke Keats and Negative Capability and save myself a whole lot of bother and angst.

Checking it out as I write this I came across this further explanation on a Keats website

In this sense, Negative Capability is a sublime expression of supreme empathy. 
And empathy, is the capacity for participating in, experiencing and understanding another's feelings or ideas. It's a creative tool to help us understand each other, understand different points of views or different cultures so that we might be able to express them. 
Being able to see thing from another's point of view, and to apply an open, imaginative creativity, are both critical, poetical methods to resolve conflicts creatively.

No wonder I liked it and no wonder it worked for me, especially in a work setting where to see the worst, the unluckiest and saddest, and sometimes the cruellest things, could drive a person to the brink were it not for some means of setting boundaries to thinking. 

Clever Keats.

My other constant Keatsian companion is a gift card I bought years ago, chopped the back off and framed it and so have no idea who painted this, but it introduced me to these few brief lines of Keats's poetry from Hyperion, and whenever I am out walking on a summer's evening I think of them...

Browsing the book (and I will definitely be reading this one) I came across another little gem of a quote written by Keats in a letter to his brother George...

'Tis 'the witching time of night'
Orbed is the moon and bright
And the Stars they glisten, glisten.

There's a whole quilt waiting to be made in that quote, and though we don't 'do' Halloween, it seems like a good quote for today, but those lines also fit with our late night walks with Nell. We take her round Rocky's Field behind the house at about 10pm...some nights it is blowing a hoolie and we are back indoors pronto, but on other nights the sky is as a clear as clear, the moon is full, Nell glows in the dark and we spot the constellations. Just this week Earth Sky (who you can follow on Twitter or sign up and get a daily e mail bulletin about what to look out for) flagged up that Perseus is currently chasing Cassiopeia through the night sky to the north east, and we found it with ease, glistening away. Next clear night I am going to be looking for Arcturus, the 'Halloween ghost of the summer sun'.

Yes indeed..

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-- 
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

So a very happy birthday to John Keats and please do scroll down for gifts, Magnus is waiting with his favourite poem.