Page 119 - DENG203_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_IV

Elective English—IV

Notes John Keats moved to the newly built Wentworth Place, owned by his friend Charles
Armitage Brown. It was also on the edge of Hampstead Heath, ten minute’s walk south of
his old home in Well Walk. The winter of 1818–19, though a difficult period for the poet,
marked the beginning of his annus mirabilis in which he wrote his most mature work. He
had been inspired by a series of recent lectures by Hazlitt on English poets and poetic
identity and had also met Wordsworth. Keats may have seemed to his friends to be living
on comfortable means, but in reality he was borrowing regularly from Abbey and his
friends.

Keats befriended Isabella Jones in May 1817, while on holiday in the village of Bo Peep,
near Hastings. She is described as beautiful, talented and widely read, not of the top flight
of society yet financially secure, an enigmatic figure who would become a part of Keats’s
circle. Throughout their friendship Keats never hesitates to own his sexual attraction to
her, although they seem to enjoy circling each other rather than offering 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 unclear how close they were, but
Bate and Gittings suggest the trysts may represent a sexual initiation for Keats.
During 1820 Keats displayed increasingly serious symptoms of tuberculosis, suffering
two lung haemorrhages in the first few days of February. He lost large amounts of blood
and was bled further by the attending physician. Hunt nursed him in London for much of
the following summer. At the suggestion of his doctors, he agreed to move 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 final revisions of “Bright
Star”.

Written in 1819, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ was the third of the five ‘great odes’ of 1819, which
are generally believed to have been written in the following order – Psyche, Nightingale,
Grecian Urn, Melancholy, and Autumn. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” the speaker observes
a relic of ancient Greek civilization, an urn painted with two scenes from Greek life.

6.5 Keywords

Apostrophe: It can be defined as an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech, when a speaker or
writer breaks off and directs speech to an imaginary person or abstract quality or idea. In
dramatic works and poetry written in or translated into English, such a figure of speech is often
introduced by the exclamation "O".
Attraction: It is the action or power of evoking interest in or liking for someone or something.
Civilisation: It is the stage of human social development and organisation which is considered
most advanced.
Oxymoron: An oxymoron (plural oxymora) is a figure of speech that combines contradictory
terms.
Paradox: It can be defined as a statement that apparently contradicts itself and yet might be true.
Several logical paradoxes are known to be invalid arguments but are still valuable in promoting
critical thinking.
Physician: A person qualified to practise medicine, especially one who specializes in diagnosis
and medical treatment as distinct from surgery.

Piper: A person who plays a pipe, especially an itinerant musician is called a piper.
Tuberculosis: It is an infectious bacterial disease characterised by the growth of nodules (tubercles)
in the tissues, especially the lungs.

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