John Keats Circa. 1819

Here's one of my many sketches of historical hero's, this time one of the greatest Romantic poets John Keats. I can remember actually copying this sketch from the cover of Keats' biography in about 1980, in my flat at Offerton, even though Andy says there's no date on it. Although I'm not generally a big liker of poetry, Keats is one chap who's poetry I do really admire and know quite a bit about - I did my BA dissertation on the poetry of Byron, Keats, and Shelley. If I remember rightly (it was many years ago) the title of this dissertation was The evil of sensuality in the poetry of Keats, Byron, and Shelley. Good title eh? I should have put my sketch on the cover, as I did with Wilde for my MA dissertation Reinventing Wilde a few years ago. The reason I like Keats' poetry so much is because it's so immediate and tangible - straight away you can feel it moving, taste it on your tongue and see the colours changing. I also think he had a Romantic tragic end - dieing of consumption on a boat on the way to Italy where he was hoping to make a recovery. He was only twenty-five when he died. I don't know anything about the original artist C A Brown, but I presume he was one of Keats' chums.