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Unit 6: Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

6.1.4 Isabella Jones and Fanny Brawne Notes

Keats became friends with Isabella Jones in May 1817, while on holiday in the village of Bo Peep,
near Hastings. She is described as talented, beautiful and widely read, not of the top flight of
society yet financially secure, a mysterious figure who would become a part of Keats’s circle. All
through their friendship Keats never hesitates to own his sexual attraction to her, though it
looks like they enjoy circling each other rather than giving commitment. He writes that he
“frequented her rooms” in the winter of 1818–19, and in his letters to George says that he
“warmed with her” and “kissed her”. It is uncertain how close they were, but Gittings and Bate
suggest the meetings may show a sexual initiation for Keats. Jones’ greatest significance may be
as an inspiration and steward of Keats’s writing. The themes of The Eve of St. Agnes and The Eve
of St Mark may well have been suggested by her, the lyric Hush, Hush! [“o sweet Isabel”] was
about her, and that the first version of “Bright Star” may have originally been for her. In 1821,
Jones was one of the first in England to be notified of Keats’s death.

Drafts and letters of poems propose that Keats first met Frances (Fanny) Brawne between
September and November 1818. It is possible that the 18-year-old Brawne visited the Dilke
family at Wentworth Place before she lived there. She was born in the hamlet of West End now
in the district of West Hampstead, on 9 August 1800. Like Keats’s grandfather, her grandfather
kept a London inn, and both lost a number of family members to tuberculosis. She shared her
first name with both Keats’s mother and sister, and had a talent for dress-making and languages
along with a natural theatrical bent. During November 1818 she developed closeness with
Keats, but it was shadowed by the illness of Tom Keats, whom John was nursing through this
period.
On 3 April 1819, Brawne and her widowed mother relocated into the other half of Dilke’s
Wentworth Place, and Keats and Brawne were able to meet daily. Keats began to lend Brawne
books, such as Dante’s Inferno, and they would read together. He gave her the love sonnet
“Bright Star” (perhaps revised for her) as a declaration. It was a work in progress which he
continued till the last months of his life, and the poem got linked with their relationship. “All
his desires were concentrated on Fanny”. From this point there is no more documented reference
of Isabella Jones. Earlier before the end of June, he arrived at some sort of understanding with
Brawne, far from a formal engagement as he still had too little to offer, with no financial
stricture and prospects. John Keats tolerated countless conflict knowing his expectations as a
struggling poet in increasingly hard passages would prevent marriage to Brawne. Their love
remained unconsummated; jealousy for his ‘star’ began to gnaw at him. Darkness, depression
and disease surrounded him, reflected in poems “La Belle Dame sans Merci” and The Eve of St.
Agnes where love and death both stalk. “I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks;” he
wrote to her, “...your loveliness, and the hour of my death”.

In one of his several notes and letters, John Keats wrote to Brawne on 13 October 1819: “My love
has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of everything but seeing you
again – my Life seems to stop there – I see no further. You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation
at the present moment as though I was dissolving – I should be exquisitely miserable without
the hope of soon seeing you ... I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion –
I have shudder’d at it – I shudder no more – I could be martyr’d for my Religion – Love is my
religion – I could die for that – I could die for you.”

Tuberculosis took hold and he was told by his doctors to relocate to a warmer climate. In
September 1820 Keats left for Rome knowing may never see Brawne again. After leaving he felt
he was not able to write to her or read her letters, though he did correspond with her mother. He
died there five months later. None of Brawne’s letters to Keats survive; he demanded that her
letters be destroyed after his death.

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