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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"...exceptionally keen sensitivity... ", February 2, 2004
There are two editions of Keats's Complete Poems which I admire very much. This one edited by Jack Stillinger and published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University (ISBN: 0674154312) and the Penguin Classics, 3rd edition, edited by John Barnard (ISBN: 0140422102). I very much like the fuller notes and 6 Appendices and the blunt, full, but suggestive chronology in the Penguin, along with the complete writing and publishing information fully written out rather than abbreviated into initials one might have to look up.
The importance of Jack Stillinger to Keats studies is cited by both John Barnard (Penguin classics edition of -The Complete Poems-) and Elizabeth Cook (Oxford World's Classics edition of -The Major Poems-, ISBN: 0192840630). John Barnard says in his "Introduction": "Jack Stillinger's -The Poems of John Keats- (Cambridge, Mass., 1978) and his -The Text of John Keats- (Cambridge, Mass., 1974) now give the fullest available account of Keats's text, and are based on a comparision of the printed texts with the wealth of manuscript material, now mainly in American libraries." And this edition compiled and edited by Jack Stillinger has it glories, too. The first of these is the excellent "Introduction," which has meaningful insights in it concerning Keats, but which can also be related to one's own experiences in life, though Stillinger does not himself so relate them. A few of these I like very much are: "Obviously Keats had an exceptionally keen sensitivity to the minute particulars of objects, sounds (as well as various shades of silence), and motions in the world around him." *** "He nursed his brother Tom in a lengthy illness that ended in death on December 1st of this year [1818], and as an added complication he met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne. More than anything else, I think, it is this combined experience of suffering, death, and love all at once, against a background of serious conversation, reading, and thinking, that accounts for Keats's sudden rise to excellence in his poetry." There is no way, of course, to share Keats's poetry in a review of this sort. To read it, experience it, think about it, and realize the Beauty -- and also the Truth -- in it is the reward. -- Robert Kilgore.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The definitive edition of the poetry of Keats., October 16, 2001
Jack Stillinger devoted much of his professional life to establishing the definitive texts of Keats's poems. This painstaking work has resulted in a number of changes to the poems. As to the quality of the poetry itself, at his best Keats approaches Shakespeare, as in the Odes. Stillinger is also an excellent teacher; I had his course on Keats 26 years ago, and it was fascinating. While the other reviewers have done a very good job of describing the beauty of Keats's poetry, one point Stillinger made about Keats as a person is worth repeating: Keats was the one English romantic poet that you would want to ask for advice about a personal problem you had. All the rest, Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley (especially!), and Byron would have given you advice that, if followed, would have been wildly impractical. Keats, as shown by his letters, was not pretentious and had a large degree of human decency and common sense. While these characteristics are not one usually associated with romantic poets, I think that they contribute to the strength of his poetry.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Keats can be dangerous, you know., April 29, 2000
If you're sitting on a ledge overlooking a lush green valley on a gorgeous spring day, and you're reading Endymion, or Ode to a Nightingale, or The Eve of St Agnes, you could very well be so overwhelmed by the magnificence of creation that, without giving it a moment's thought, you would consign yourself to the breathtaking blue, to try to be one with it all, and because you've reached the absolute pinnacle of existence. How could you possibly top that?*ahem* This edition isn't annotated as well as it might be, but who cares? The poems are all there, and they're as heartbreakingly beautiful as ever. How can you--in all honesty--claim to have lived without having read Keats?
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