John Keats: A New Life - Hardcover

Nicholas Roe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300124651 ISBN 13: 9780300124651

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2012

Synopsis

This landmark biography of celebrated Romantic poet John Keats explodes entrenched conceptions of him as a delicate, overly sensitive, tragic figure. Instead, Nicholas Roe reveals the real flesh-and-blood poet: a passionate man driven by ambition but prey to doubt, suspicion and jealousy; sure of his vocation while bitterly resentful of the obstacles that blighted his career; devoured by sexual desire and frustration; and in thrall to alcohol and opium. Through unparalleled original research, Roe arrives at a fascinating reassessment of Keats's entire life, from his early years at Keats's Livery Stables through his harrowing battle with tuberculosis and death at age twenty-five. Focusing on crucial turning points, Roe finds in the locations of Keats's poems new keys to the nature of his imaginative quest. Roe is the first biographer to provide a full and fresh account of Keats's childhood in the City of London and how it shaped the would-be poet. The mysterious early death of Keats's father, his mother's too-swift remarriage, living in the shadow of the notorious madhouse Bedlam all these affected Keats far more than has been previously understood. The author also sheds light on Keats's doomed passion for Fanny Brawne, his circle of brilliant friends, hitherto unknown City relatives, and much more. Filled with revelations and daring to ask new questions, this book now stands as the definitive volume on one of the most beloved poets of the English language.

About this title

Review:

There have been many fine biographies of Keats since the war.... But none, I think, conveys quite so well as this one the sense of Keats as a poet of the London suburbs. Roe reconstructs beautifully the milieu from which he and his friends all came, on the northern edge of the city where they had their day jobs and dreamed of fame. --Ferdinand Mount, The Spectator

Roe s is a remarkable achievement, authoritative and imaginative to a degree that should make all future Keats biographers quail. --John Carey, The Sunday Times

...this is a wonderful work that has many new things to say about Keats, his extraordinary work and inner life. A finer biography is unlikely to emerge this year. --Ian Thomson. Financial Times

About the Author:

Nicholas Roe is professor of English, University of St. Andrews. He is the author of numerous biographical and critical works on writers of the Romantic period. He lives in Scotland.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0300124651
• ISBN 13: 9780300124651
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384