Poor guy – he had it rough from the start: his father was killed when he was eight, his mom died of tuberculosis several years later, and he himself lived only to the age of 26 before he gasped his last breath, alone in a foreign country and in despair.
When I was in Rome recently, I visited John Keats’ tombstone in a beautiful cemetary. I had majored in English Literature many moons ago, and I remembered how my favorite literary era was the Romantic period, particularly Keats’ sombre but heartfelt poems. Unfortunately, his poetry career didn’t take off until AFTER he passed on, and I believe that all he wanted was for his poetry to be taken seriously. Keats indeed got what he wanted because he’s one of the best known Romantic poets today.
When I came back from Rome, I dusted my old English lit books and flipped to the section on John Keats, the corners of the pages worn and yellowed over the years. His words still have an impact on me because he felt so closely to death and was weighed down with the heaviness of his unrecognized art. Check out the first lines of one of his most famous poems On Seeing the Elgin Marbles, which still blow me away:
“My spirit is too weak – mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep
And each imagine pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.”
Rest in peace, Keats.
Rough life, but the question as always is asked: do rough times make for better art? I don’t think it’s necessarily true, but I would say that a lot of the artists I follow have produced work that spoke “loudest”, had greatest resonance when they were in rough times. Poor guy, Keats.
Great insightful comment Henry! True – rough times doesn’t mean better art/writing. However, admittedly, in Keats’ case, his poetry had a depth and wisdom that only a suffering lonely young man could pen. Thanks for visiting my post!