On John Keats

 John Keats has long been one of my favorite poets, and I've read several books about his poetry, but also about his links with English radicals like Leigh Hunt and Percy Shelley. It's not in his written works that he expresses himself so ardently, but in his relationships with others that his pro-revolution views come to the foreground. However, as he came of age around the time of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, his British patriotism still shone through. It's debatable whether patriotism can be separated from nationalism, but for the surgeon-turned-poet, the revolution in France was seen in a positive light. He certainly felt that England should have made its own revolution long ago.

Keats, like Rimbaud, has long reminded me of Saint-Just. John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome in 1821, aged 25. But their short lives are not the only thing they have in common. Like Keats, Saint-Just often referred to nature and medieval imagery in his surviving literary works. In his Voltaire-inspired epic Organt, published in 1789 just before the start of the Revolution, Saint-Just, similarly to Keats and his associates Shelley and Hunt, was a harsh critic of religion and the Church. 

 

Charcoal sketch of Keats by his friend and artist Joseph Severn (c. 1817).

Their temperaments seem similar to me. Both Keats and Saint-Just aspired to be part of something bigger than themselves, and to be remembered kindly for their contribution to society, whether in literature or government. Keats, born in 1795, studied the classics and was well versed in mythology and literature, like Saint-Just. He even translated The Aeneid!

Although the radical ideas of his friend and poet Percy Shelley are better known, the English Romantic poet John Keats was also sympathetic to the French Revolution. Although his views were not as obvious as those of Shelley, Wordsworth or Coleridge, he admired the revolution and thought that England could do with a radical change of its own. As stated by scholar Vincent Newey, the historical context of Keats' poetry embraces the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo and the restoration of European monarchies, alongside economic crises and agitations for parliamentarian reforms. Often, the young poet is dismissed as apolitical, but to ignore the political influences of Keats would result in an unsatisfactory portrayal. Akin to a Hölderlin-adjacent breed of romanticism, John Keats frequently alluded to nature as sublime in his literary works. However, his teacher, Charles Cowden Clarke, affirms that Keats' developed at least an acute level of political awareness early in life, as he would often read Leigh Hunt's newspaper The Examiner, even as a student.  Keats initially trained as a surgeon/doctor, mainly helping the poor as an apothecary, but gave up practice to concentrate on writing. He was in comradery with such radicals as Leigh Hunt, Joseph Severn (the painter who accompanied Keats to Italy before his death) and, of course, Percy B. Shelley. His colleague and fellow poet W.B. Yeats spoke of his association with “well-known radicals”, and Keats's poem "Isabella" has long been interpreted in a proto-Marxist light. 

However, Keats' early work "Sonnet on Peace" is perhaps the best illustration of his belief in similar revolutionary ideals and certainly reads as a poetic re-framing of many sentiments that echo the Marseillaise. In fact, one notices parallels between the phrasing and Hunt's proclamations on the restoration of Louis XVIII. The last lines of the poem read:

"O Europe! let not sceptred tyrants see
That thou must shelter in thy former state;
Keep thy chains burst, and boldly say thou art free;
Give thy kings law leave not uncurbed the great ;
So with the horrors past thou'lt win thy happier fate!"

Over time, Keats became identified with the ideas of Britain's first anarchist, William Godwin. There is much to be said for the political undertones of his poems such as "Lamia", "Ode to Liberty", and "To Autumn". Like Saint-Just, who said in the speech he attempted to deliver on 9 Thermidor: “I am of no faction, I will fight them all.” Keats, too, began to reject “party spirit” in favor of a more moralist approach for the betterment of humanity. He distances himself from Bonapartism in an 1818 letter, and furthermore criticizes the crude materialism of the newly established United States- 'the humanity of the United States can never reach the sublime.' This is reminiscent of Robespierre's June 1791 statement regarding America where he says: "Who would exchange the sublime destinies of the people of France for the constitution of the United States, which, being based upon the aristocracy of wealth, is already tending towards despotism?” Nonetheless,  Keats likely found himself disillusioned with the political realities of his time, perhaps in a matter similar to Hölderlin. 

I must recommend two books, both by Nicholas Roe, for further reading: 'John Keats: A New Life' (2012) and 'John Keats and the Culture of Dissent' (1997) as well as the article "'Alternate uproar and sad peace': Keats, Politics, and the Idea of Revolution" by Vincent Newey (1989).