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Elective English—IV

Notes The news of his death reached London after one month, after which Brawne stayed in grief for
six years. More than 12 years after his death, in 1833, she married and gave birth to three
children; she outlived Keats by more than 40 years. The 2009 film Bright Star, written and
directed by Jane Campion, focuses on Keats’ relationship with Fanny Brawne.

6.1.5 Last Months: Rome

During 1820 Keats showed increasingly grave symptoms of tuberculosis, suffering two lung
haemorrhages in the initial days of February. He lost lots of blood and was bled further by the
attending physician. Hunt nursed him in London for much of the following summer.
After being suggested by his doctors, he agreed to go to Italy with his friend Joseph Severn.
On 13 September, they left for Gravesend and four days later boarded the sailing brig “Maria
Crowther”, where he made the last revisions of “Bright Star”. The journey was a minor disaster:
storms broke out followed by a dead calm that reduced the ship’s progress. When they finally
stopped in Naples, the ship was held in quarantine for ten days due to a supposed outbreak of
cholera in Britain. Keats reached Rome on November 14, by then any hope of the warmer
climate he wanted had disappeared.
John Keats wrote his last letter on November 30, 1820 to Charles Armitage Brown; “Tis the most
difficult thing in the world to me to write a letter. My stomach continues so bad, that I feel it
worse on opening any book – yet I am much better than I was in Quarantine. Then I am afraid to
encounter the proing and conning of any thing interesting to me in England. I have an habitual
feeling of my real life having past, and that I am leading a posthumous existence”.
He went into a villa on the Spanish Steps, today the Keats-Shelley Memorial House museum.
In spite of being taken care of by Severn and Dr. James Clark, his health speedily deteriorated,
and the medical attention he got may have hastened his death. In November 1820, Clark said
that the source of his illness was “mental exertion” and the source was mainly in his stomach.
Clark ultimately diagnosed consumption (tuberculosis) and placed John Keats on a starvation
diet of an anchovy and a piece of bread a day, trying to reduce the blood flow to his stomach. He
bled the poet; a standard treatment of the day, but perhaps contributing significantly to Keats’s
weakness. Keats’s friend Brown writes: “They could have used opium in small doses, and Keats
had asked Severn to buy a bottle of opium when they were setting off on their voyage. What
Severn didn’t realise was that Keats saw it as a possible resource if he wanted to commit suicide.
He tried to get the bottle from Severn on the voyage but Severn wouldn’t let him have it. Then
in Rome he tried again ... Severn was in such a quandary he didn’t know what to do, so in the end
he went to the doctor who took it away. As a result Keats went through dreadful agonies with
nothing to ease the pain at all.”
On 10 December, Severn returned from an early walk and woke Keats. Instantly, the poet began
coughing and then vomited blood, about two capfuls. Clark was summoned and promptly bled
him. The loss of blood confused and dizzied Keats. When Clark left, Keats got out of his bed,
tripped around the rooms, and said to Severn, “This day shall be my last.” Severn became afraid
of a suicide attempt and hid all sharp objects he could find along with the laudanum prescribed
by Clarke. Keats was elated for the rest of the day, until a violent haemorrhage and bleeding
weakened him into calm. For the next nine days he suffered from five severe haemorrhages and
non-stop bleedings by Clark. The doctor visited regularly and put him on a strict diet, mainly
fish. Keats pled for food, thinking he was being starved. Clark held no hope of recovery and
admitted as much to Keats. The poet’s thoughts turned again to suicide and he pled Severn for
the laudanum, at first appealing to Severn’s self-interest, but he was declined. Keats became
angry; he raged at Severn for keeping him alive against his will. When Severn, not trusting
himself, gave the bottle to Clark, Keats turned on the doctor asking “How long is this posthumous
life of mine to last?”

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