As this letter shows, John Keats’s letters are valued almost as much as his poetry for the insight they offer into life and literature – his own, and that of others.
To whom is it addressed?
The letter is written to Leigh Hunt, who was staying with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley at the time. Towards the end of the letter, Keats refers to a story about Shelley dramatically quoting Shakespeare on the death of kings. By joking about deaths of poets, he foreshadows his and Shelley’s premature deaths in 1821 and 1822.
Where was it written from?
In April 1817, Keats had moved on from a trip to the Isle of Wight to Margate, where he was visiting his brother Tom.
What does the letter say?
Apologising for not having written sooner, Keats moves to praise their mutual acquaintance William Hazlitt’s writing; describing a particular sentence as ‘like a Whale’s back on the Sea of Prose’.
Moving to discuss Shakespeare’s Christianity, Keats quotes passages from Measure for Measure and Twelfth Night which he respectively considers ‘for’ and ‘against’ it. Around this point he begins to consider his own vocation:
I have asked myself so often why I should be a Poet more than other Men, – seeing how great a thing it is, – how great things are to be gained by it – What a thing to be in the Mouth of Fame […]
Yet he then announces that he began ‘my Poem’ – Endymion – ‘a fortnight since’ and is making good progress.
- Full title:
- Letter from John Keats to J H Leigh Hunt, discussing, among other matters, the calling of poets, and Shakespeare's Christianity
- 10 May 1817, Margate, Kent
- Manuscript / Letter / Ephemera
- John Keats
- Usage terms
- Public Domain
- Held by
- British Library
- Ashley MS 4869
- Article by:
- Sandra M. Gilbert
- Power and conflict, Literature 1900–1950
Sandra M Gilbert explores the literary heritage of two of the most famous First World War poems, Wilfred Owen's 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and 'Dulce et Decorum est'.
- Article by:
- Stephen Hebron
What is melancholy? Stephen Hebron examines changing ideas about the emotion, considering Keats’s suggestion that we embrace melancholy as inextricable from pleasure.
- Article by:
- Andrew Motion
Keats is often seen as a purely sensual poet, isolated from the social and political concerns of his day. Andrew Motion challenges this view, exploring how Keats translated political, philosophical and medical questions into physical, immediate language.
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