John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 in Moorgate, London, England, the first child
born to Frances Jennings and Thomas Keats. After leaving school in Enfield,
Keats went on to apprentice with Dr. Hammond, a surgeon in Edmonton. After his
father died in a riding accident, and his mother died of tuberculosis, John and
his brothers moved to Hampstead. It was here that Keats met Charles Armitage
Brown (1787-1842) who would become a great friend. Remembering his first
meeting with him, Brown writes "His full fine eyes were
lustrously intellectual, and beaming (at that time!)". Much grieved by his death, Brown worked for many
years on his biography, Life of John Keats (1841).
In it Brown claims that it was not until Keats read Edmund Spencer's Faery Queen that
he realised his own gift for the poetic. Keats was an avid student in the
fields of medicine and natural history, but he then turned his attentions to
the literary works of such authors as William Shakespeare and Geoffrey
Chaucer. Continue reading here.
Here you can find a summary and an analysis of John Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale".
Here you can find a summary and an analysis of John Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale".
