Over the course of his short life, John Keats (1795-1821) honed a raw talent into a brilliant poetic maturity. By the end of his brief career, he had written poems of such beauty, imagination and generosity of spirit, that he had - unwittingly - fulfilled his wish that he should ‘be among the English poets after my death’. This wide-ranging selection of Keats’s poetry contains youthful verse, such as his earliest known poem ‘Imitation of Spenser’; poems from his celebrated collection of 1820 - including ‘Lamia’, ‘Isabella’, ‘The Eve of St Agnes’, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Hyperion’ - and later celebrated works such as ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’. Also included are many poems considered by Keats to be lesser work, but which illustrate his more earthy, playful side and superb ear for everyday language.

This collection comprises the works of John Keats, one of the greatest English poets and contemporary of Byron and Shelley. The collection includes "Endymion", "Lamia", "Isabella" and "Hyperion".

Psychologically and philosophically oriented, this work concentrates on the minor poetry of Keats and how that poetry serves as an enlightenment to the artist's multifaceted mind and spirit.

The books in this A Level poetry series contain a glossary and notes on each page. The approach encourages students to develop their own responses to the poems, and an A Level Chief Examiner offers exam tips. This text contains poems and letters by Keats in chronological order.

In the present work the first chapter after introduction focuses on Keats' personal matters expressed in his famous poem "Ode To A Nightingale" and his letters. Then in the following chapter, I have focused on his autobiographical elements found in the very poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci". Then in the chapter-III I have tried to concentrate on his love for beauty and human heartedness. The poems I have taken into account are certainly a part of the best poetry ever produced in the history of English literature. I have been impressed by and interested in Keatsian poetry since when I read "Ode To A Nightingale" for the very first time. The present research is an illustration of my admiration for his great work and craftsmanship.

In this incisive volume Siler traces the uneasy relationship between the content of Keats' poems and social history. In the process, he discovers that the early poems are linked with the mission statement of the radical journal Annals of the Fine Arts, whilst the poems after Endymion reveal a poet more concerned with the nature of poetic representation--its why and wherefore.

'I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death,' John Keats soberly prophesied in 1818 as he started writing the blankverse epic Hyperion. Today he endures as the archetypal Romantic genius who explored the limits of the imagination and celebrated the pleasures of the senses but suffered a tragic early death. Edmund Wilson counted him as 'one of the half dozen greatest English writers,' and T. S. Eliot has paid tribute to the Shakespearean quality of Keats's greatness. Indeed, his work has survived better than that of any of his contemporaries the devaluation of Romantic poetry that began early in this century. This Modern Library edition contains all of Keats's magnificent verse: 'Lamia,' 'Isabella,' and 'The Eve of St. Agnes'; his sonnets and odes; the allegorical romance Endymion; and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho the Great. Presented as well are the famous posthumous and fugitive poems, including the fragmentary 'The Eve of Saint Mark' and the great 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' perhaps the most distinguished literary ballad in the language. 'No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perception of loveliness,' said Matthew Arnold. 'In the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare.'

John Keats was one of the central figures of English Romanticism and is still one of England's most popular poets. This sourcebook brings together texts and documents that provide a gateway towards an understanding of the man, his life and his work.

A revaluation of the poet's works reveals his critical feelings towards the literature, sexuality, religion and politics of his time as well as his uncertainties as a second generation Romantic.