The Immortal Evening - A Legendary Dinner with Keats, Wordsworth, and Lamb - Hardcover

Stanley Plumly

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393080994 ISBN 13: 9780393080995

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014

Synopsis

Physical description; 368 pages ; 22 cm. Summary; On 28 December 1817, Benjamin Robert Haydon hosted what he refers to in his diaries and autobiography as the "immortal dinner". He wanted to introduce his young friend John Keats to the great William Wordsworth and to celebrate his progress on his most important historical painting so far, Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, in which Keats, Wordsworth and Charles Lamb, also a guest at the party, appear. After thoughtful and entertaining discussions of poetry and art and their relation to Enlightenment science, the party evolves into a lively, raucous evening. This event will prove to be a highlight in the lives of these immortals. A beautiful and profound work of extraordinary brilliance, The Immortal Evening takes this dinner as a lens through which to understand the lives and work of these men and to contemplate the immortality of genius. Subjects; Keats, John 1795-1821 - Friends and associates. Wordsworth, William 1770-1850 - Friends and associates. Lamb, Charles 1775-1834 - Friends and associates. Haydon, Benjamin Robert 1786-1846 - Friends and associates. English poetry - 19th century - History and criticism.

About this title

Product Description

On December 28, 1817, the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon hosts what he refers to in his diaries and autobiography as the immortal dinner. He wants to introduce his young friend John Keats to the great William Wordsworth and to celebrate with his friends his progress on his most important historical painting so far, Christ s Entry into Jerusalem, in which Keats, Wordsworth, and Charles Lamb, also a guest at the party, appear. After thoughtful and entertaining discussions of poetry and art and their relation to Enlightenment science, the party evolves into a lively, raucous evening. This legendary event will prove to be a highlight in the lives of these immortals. A beautiful and profound work of extraordinary brilliance, The Immortal Evening takes this dinner as a lens through which to understand their lives and work and to contemplate the immortality of genius."

Review

Stanley Plumly s The Immortal Evening is a gateway to the Romantics, with the spotlight firmly on Keats, Haydon, and Wordsworth. I can t think of a more lively, thoughtful, or erudite introduction to them. Plumly s great gift is to bring their world to life through an act of intuitive sympathy that is the hallmark of a great creative writer, and which can be found nowhere else. The Immortal Evening is destined to become an essential companion to our study of Romanticism in exactly the same way as his earlier Posthumous Keats. --Duncan Wu"

In circling around Benjamin Haydon s dinner party in 1817, Stanley Plumly directs a beam of brilliant light into the mysteries of art and friendship. Haydon s own talent (though he misunderstood it) was for portraiture. Plumly has created portraits of Keats, Wordsworth, Lamb, and Haydon so sensitive and revelatory, one feels he must have known them and have attended the party. This book about the passion and heartbreak of art is, itself, a work of art, a majestic achievement.--Rosanna Warren"

Stanley Plumly takes a single dinner, one grand night, and spins it out into a dramatically detailed, compulsively readable, and surprisingly wide-reaching meditation on romantic art and poetry. This book may be as close as we will ever get to sitting at table with some of the nineteenth-century immortals.--Edward Hirsch

Written with great eloquence and insight The colorful portrait [Plumly] paints is that of a select artistic fraternity, frequently contrary in their opinions and attitudes, who nevertheless knew that they were making a significant impact on the spirit of their age."

Deeply considered an essay on mortality as much as immortality.--Michael Dirda"

Who but a poet could bring such vitality of imaginative insight to history that a night passed nearly 200 years ago could come back to vivid life? But more than re-creating one extraordinary gathering, Stanley Plumly knows what makes an evening truly immortal: located within those few hours that pass among extraordinary souls in heated conversation lurks the singular imprint of each man's history and the yet unseen map of time unspooling its fortunes ahead of each. Plumly offers us some outline of fate's thumbprint as it secretly presses itself down onto four lives, giving us that knowledge these men can sense but not yet see themselves. In doing so, he gives his readers the great gift of showing not only the intermingled yarn of unique lives as they weave together and pull apart--of one evening as it reaches forward and backward into art's eternity--but also a privileged glimpse into the inner life of the artist and the ongoing struggle of faith, ambition, devotion, vision that undergird not only the greatest works of art but also those that (so humanly) fall short of their lofty mark.--Dan Beachy-Quick

In circling around Benjamin Haydon's dinner party in 1817, Stanley Plumly directs a beam of brilliant light into the mysteries of art and friendship. Haydon's own talent (though he misunderstood it) was for portraiture. Plumly has created portraits of Keats, Wordsworth, Lamb, and Haydon so sensitive and revelatory, one feels he must have known them and have attended the party. This book about the passion and heartbreak of art is, itself, a work of art, a majestic achievement.--Rosanna Warren

Written with great eloquence and insight ... The colorful portrait [Plumly] paints is that of a select artistic fraternity, frequently contrary in their opinions and attitudes, who nevertheless knew that they were making a significant impact on the spirit of their age.

Deeply considered... an essay on mortality as much as immortality.--Michael Dirda

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0393080994
• ISBN 13: 9780393080995
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336