Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne [Paperback]

John Keats (Author), Jane Campion (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2009

The epic romance of one of the most celebrated poets in the English language

Coming to theatres in September 2009 is the tragic love story of nineteenth- century poet John Keats and the love of his life, Fanny Brawne. Keats died at the young age of twenty-five, leaving behind some of the most exquisite and moving verse and letters ever written, inspired by his deep love for Fanny. Bright Star is a collection of Keats' romantic poems and correspondence in the heat of his passion, and is a dazzling display of a talent cut cruelly short.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Keats was born in October 1795, son of the manager of a livery stable in Moorfields. His father died in 1804 and his mother, of tuberculosis, in 1810. By then he had received a good education at John Clarke’s Enfield private school. In 1811 he was apprenticed to a surgeon, completing his professional training at Guy’s Hospital in 1816. His decision to commit himself to poetry rather than a medical career was a courageous one, based more on a challenge to himself than any actual achievement.

His genius was recognized and encouraged by early Mends like Charles Cowden Clarke and J. H. Reynolds, and in October 1816 he met Leigh Hunt, whose Examiner had already published Keats’s first poem. Only seven months later Poems (1817) appeared. Despite the high hopes of the Hunt circle, it was a failure. By the time Endymion was published in 1818 Keats’s name had been identified with Hunt’s ‘Cockney School’, and the Tory Blackwood’s Magazine delivered a violent attack on Keats as a lower-class vulgarian, with no right to aspire to ‘poetry’.

But for Keats fame lay not in contemporary literary politics but with posterity. Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth were his inspiration and challenge. The extraordinary speed with which Keats matured is evident from his letters. In 1818 he had worked on the powerful epic fragment Hyperion, and in 1819 he wrote ‘The Eve of St Agnes’, ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, the major odes, Lamia, and the deeply exploratory Fall of Hyperion. Keats was already unwell when preparing the 1820 volume for the press; by the time it appeared in July he was desperately ill. He died in Rome in 1821. Keats’s final volume did receive some contemporary critical recognition, but it was not until the latter part of the nineteenth century that his place in English Romanticism began to be recognized, and not until this century that it became fully recognized.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
 Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
 And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
 So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
 And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
 With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
 Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads
 Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
 And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,
 And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
 A faery's song.

I made a garland for her head,
 And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
 And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
 And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
 I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,
 And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes--
 So kiss'd to sleep.

And there we slumber'd on the moss,
 And there I dream'd, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dream'd
 On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
 Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci
 Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
 With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
 On the cold hill side.

And this is why I sojourn here
 Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
 And no birds sing.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Mti edition (September 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143117742
• ISBN-13: 978-0143117742
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Letters & Correspondence

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Luminous But Somewhat Lacking, September 30, 2009

By 

S. B. Moore "Beth" (California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne (Paperback)

Published as a companion to the motion picture of the same name directed by Jane Campion [The Piano], this is a collection of the love letters and poems written by John Keats to his beloved Fanny Brawne. For anyone who enjoyed the film, as I did, the book provides a glimpse at the inspiration and source material for Campion's work. Campion's introduction to the collection gives a history of Keats and Brawne's intense love for each other. The love letters are delightful, touching, painful and the poems are amongst the greatest of the Romantic era. One inexplicable exclusion from the collection is "Ode to a Nightingale," a poem of Keats' that figures in the film. The recitation of "Ode to a Nightingale" during the final credits by the actor who portrays Keats, Ben Whishaw, is reason enough to go see the film. Though readily available in poetry collections and on the internet, the absence of this beautiful and key poem from a collection centered around this tragic love story is a shortcoming and may disappoint those who want to savor its words in print.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-read for Keats fans, February 17, 2011

By 

Tiger Holland (North Alabama) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne (Paperback)

I'm not fond of painful, tortured love stories in fiction, but when faced with someone's actual painful love story, I'm devastated. John Keats has been one of my favorite poets since forever, but this is the first time I've read any of his writing other than poetry. Keats died when he was only 25, and he died without getting to marry his only love, Fanny Brawne. This short volume contains his love letters to Fanny and concludes with several of his love-related poems.

In the letters, Keats keeps saying that he knows Fanny can't feel the same toward him as he does toward her. I haven't read enough of his biography to know if he's being coy and encouraging her to write more about her feelings, or if he actually doesn't think she cares as much for him. Mostly, it seems that he was very much concerned that she would fall for someone who had greater claims to prosperity and respectability. He was poor and without any real hope of advancement because, during his lifetime, his poetry was poorly received and didn't sell. One of the problems the letters keep bringing up is Keats' failing health. He spends so much of his time sick, and while he's convalescing he doesn't know if it would be better to see Fanny or not. Her presence encourages him, but it also saddens him because even if he were to recover, their situation is still hopeless.

Keats is not an entirely perfect man in his letters. He comes across as a bit proud; he's glad that the trifling cares of the world don't matter at all to him, but frustrated because he has to give some thought to worldly provisions if he's ever going to be with his beloved. He himself says that he knows he's not writing proper love-letters, and that he's being "ungallant". Though to a modern reader, his lovely articulate letters seem awe inspiring when we're used to text messages. "I consider it no mean Happiness to have lov'd you thus far" still sounds better than "I miss u, lol, kthxbye!"

After reading these heartbreaking letters, I have to think about their value outside of plain biography. Other than admiring the letters as historical documents or perhaps enjoying them as a tragic love story (again, I don't enjoy tragic love) what can we readers take away from them? First, I think about how John Keats labored in obscurity and wasn't able to make enough money to marry Fanny while they still had the time. I also think about how we should applaud and support excellence and beauty whenever we find them--if some influential patron had decided to support Keats and spread the word about his poetry, who knows how this story might have ended? The other more important lesson I glean from the Bright Star story is how we should appreciate our loved ones fully while we have them--we never have them as long as we think.


This book is a decent introduction to Keats himself, a perfect companion to the film, and a very good introduction to a famous literary love story.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "When I have fears that I may cease to be...." *, December 3, 2009

By 

H. S. Wedekind "Mr. Weekend" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne (Paperback)

This slim 132 page book was published as a companion to the film "Bright Star" (2009) directed by Jane Campion, who also wrote the introduction. I did not see the movie, as it was shown in only a few theaters in this area for a brief period of time, and hardly any word of it was mentioned in the local newspapers. I understand that it will be out in DVD in January 2010.

Anyone who loves the poetry of the English Romantic Writers, e.g., Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, et al, is already familiar with the poems of John Keats. It is interesting, though, that these poems and letters were the product of Keats's intense love for Fanny Brawne. Written in the last few years of his life, they are honest, open, touching, and full of life, love, and youthful optimism. They also hint of the tragedy yet to come.

A letter written on 27 February 1821 by Joseph Severn, the friend who accompanied Keats to Rome, recalls Keats's last moments:

"He is gone-he died with the most perfect ease-he seemed to go to sleep. On the 23rd, about 4, the approaches of death came on, 'Severn-I-lift me up-I am dying-I shall die easy-don't be frightened-be firm, and thank God it has come!' I lifted him up in my arms...he gradually sunk into death-so quiet-that I still thought he slept. I cannot say now-I am broken down from four nights' watching, and no sleep since, and my poor Keats gone."
(ENGLISH ROMANTIC WRITERS - David Perkins, Ed. p.1263)

How could I give anything less than 5 stars?

* The first line of "When I Have Fears" by John Keats (1818)