KEATS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1523, 20 August 1912, Page 8

KEATS.

THE MAN AND HIS WORK. At the end of June jnntinees woro eld at the Huyinarkot Theatre to ruiso incls for- Uio purchase of tho house, in ome in which Keats died, and the papers alurally seized tho opportunity to print rtieles on tho poet. A writer in tho Manchester Guardian" had a pleasant >himn of discursive criticism, flora hich wo make extracts: He was cruelly ignored in his own day; c has grown in public favour ever since, nd recently so perceptibly that perhaps o cannot bo said quite to have como in--5 his own even. yet. His, is, therefore, lie more interesting name, ami by those, ho have continued to read their Keats ithoiit also rending tho recent literature elating to his life ami work ono or two lteresting aspects of both will bo conidered with pleasure, For ono tiling, the Keats whoso fiery article could lie extinguished by an unavourablo review has long gone down ho wind. "If any man may bo killed by n article," said Carlyle, "by all means st him be so," and (hero is a rough iorso sense in tho remark. But that inn was not Keats. Tho picture which he "Letters" reveal is that of one who, lthough not without his touch of niorlidity, was on tho whole a hearty, jocuar young fellow with lots of pluck and ommor. sense, who wns much more likely 0 bo incensed than afflicted by unfavwrablo criticism. When "Blackwood" lashed Hunt, the thoughts of Keats turned to the horsewhip, and ho himself in iimilar circumstances was much moro ikcly to select such a stout oaken cudfcl as Johnson chose, for "O.ssinn" Maciherson than to "steal liko a. wounded iaro to its furrow and weep itself to loath." Further, tho conception of tho narvellous boy who caught. the right 3-reek spirit with no further aids than [jempriero and the Elgin Marbles must il.so go. For ono thing, it was not quite ;he right Greek spirit ; ho caught, , but •ather that spirit apprehended thrlngh ;h» atmosphere of a romantic ago and uterpreted by an imagination, essentially ■omantic. Moreover, ho had many aids pesides Lempriere, and one of tho cfects of the numerous parallel passages vliich beautify the pages of Mr. do Selin:ourt's notes to tho poems is that, they jonvinco us of the' careful study tho roung poet had mado of tho events and jhnracters of tho classical mythology as rofracted from tho page of the great translators of Shakespeare's day. Another characteristic of Keats's is his ippareut insensibility to tho worth of ;110 poems he was producing. He wns ful.y conscious of his own poetio genius; ho :liouglit that his name would bo among .-ho English poets when he died, and he iolt that "awful warmth, like a weight ■>t immortality at his heart." Yet to tho poem which he actually wrote ho Hems to have attached astonishing little importance. To "Endymion"—a poem of which, in spite of its numerous faults, it may be said that he who walks therein snds himself among the very flower beds 3f Apollo s garden—he prefixed a preface that must have stifled the eulogies of oven bis most appreciative friends; he transcribes ' La Bolle Dame saus Merci" into 1 letter and exhibits no consciousness that lie has produced a masterpiece; ho copies out the beautiful verses beginning "Not Aladdin magian," and is sorry to bo so indolent as to-write such stuff; ho hopes Ins correspondent will like tho "Eve of St. Mark' for all its carelessness; . he composes "Hyperion," which Byron prouounced worthy of Aeschylus, and is eo little pleased with it that he immediately proceeds to rewrite it; and, finally, ho sends .to Shelley .tho .volume of 1820' with the apologetic remark that, the book would not have been, published at all but for the sake of gain, although that volume contained "Lamia'," tho "Eve of St. Ague*," and the Odes. Wo are leagues away, it will be yjon, from tho self-ap-preciation of a poet like Tennyson, who would q,,0t0 a lino from his, "Morte d Arthur with the remark "Not bad «7?r z, ell? " or 1V0 »ld comment on the Ode to the Duke of Wellington," "It is a solemn anthem, that's- what it is." Moreover, it is not only that ho seems to undervalue the individuil poems which ho produces, ■ but regards as inferior tho type, of poetry to which they belong. This comes out in the allegories which he has embedded, in. certain of his compositions, lhero is an allegorical element in. "Sleep Mid Poetry," in "Endymion" (although so late as 1907 : Mr. Stanford Brooke did not admit this), and in tho 'Tall of Hyperion," and all tho allegories reveal tho poeta discontented with being a mere poeta and aspiring to the gown and philosophic beard of the vates. Ho aspired to be one of the poets, of whom Shakespeare is tho supremo type, who plumb tho depths of human nature and philosophise upon its essence and destiny. He died too young to show whether he could ever have attained his aim, and left a fine subject for epeculation for lovers of the "might-have-beens" of life. One may confess to an inclination to agree with Mr. Brooke, who remarks that "he should have realised his limits and been conteni with them," and who thinks that "then wns not enough iron iu his nature" t< reach the height lie, sought. ■ The Keati we ha to is enough for most of us. Then has been_ no other poet in our literatim so organised as to enjoy with such intensity the brilliant superfices of nature and life. -His attitude to nature'is quite different from that.of Wordsworth. Th< latter laved'nature for its own sake,.and, as Mr. Watson has said, would have lovec her equally although slie had been lew lovely. Now it .was tho bwwity of natuw that Keats loved, and bo wove into hi verse its beautiful details with a limiri ous richness,' not using them chiefly fo ornate language in which to ox'pres ideas, but introducing them for their owi sake, and infusing into thorn such a mea sure of his own enjoyment of them tlin tho depths of human nature and phil equal; to a- reader who has learned hi secret.