John Keats was an English poet of the romantic period.
Keats's poetry deals with joy in the beauty of this world,
sorrow over t its inevitable passing, and attempts to find
bridges between the world we know and the eternal world.
Keats was born in London in 1795, son of a livery- stable
keeper. At school at Enfield, Keats became the friend of
Charles Cowden Clarke, the headmaster's son, who encouraged
his early learning. Apprenticed to a surgeon (1811), Keats
came to know Leigh Hunt and his literary circle. Even
though he passed his medical examination, he never
practiced and in 1816 he gave up surgery to write poetry.
His first volume of poems, which he dedicated to Hunt,
appeared in 1817. They received poor reviews and ruined
He continued to write and his final and best volume of
poems appeared in 1820. By that time, however, he had
contacted tuberculosis, probably from nursing his brother
Tom, who died in 1818. Keats sailed for Italy, hoping that
a warmer climate might improve his health, but it was too
late. He died in Rome, shortly after the publications of
"Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems, in