Customer Reviews

Darkling I Listen: The Last Days and Death of John Keats

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Love may not kill, but it can certainly give you a smart shove down that road. Walsh's vivid, neatly researched book gives us a new look at the one whose name was writ on water and his curious agonies over the girl he would have married. Keats, impassioned, gifted, doomed, is even so not gilded here; from the surviving materials he is revealed as intense, a bit obsessive, and never more so than concerning Fanny Brawne. This is one of the most famed loves in history, freshly examined with the fairest look to date at Fanny's equally complicated character. Whether they take place in British rooms or Roman, the dramas within are drawn with lively and poignant detail. Special care is taken, too, to give Joseph Severn the full credit due for his constant vigil at Keats' long dying. To me, Severn's character was by far the most appealing, and Walsh's story left me certain that a steady, loving heart is genius of its own kind.

It is so amazing that in a career lasting only four years, John Keats established himself as English poet who best embodied the sense and ideas of Romantic poetry. That his short life was cut off at such a young age was a tragedy in the sense of all the unwritten works that could have flowed from his pen, but even so, he achieved his life ambition of being "one of the English poets".
Darkling I Listen is an incredibly moving account of the last days of this most tragic (and most romantic) of poets. From his passionate letters to Fanny Brawne to his last moments under the care of his truest friend Joseph Severn, this story will wring your heart.

This book really is a little jewel -beautifully researched and written and incredibly moving. Keats is vividly portrayed, and , as the previous reviewer noted, Joseph Severn is given his due as the best person Keats could have had with him in his dying days. Severn was a devout Christian, according to Walsh, and his life after Keats' death exemplified the Christian belief that if you give selflessly, you will receive... Just have a box of tissues handy while reading this book...

The author deeply explores the relationship that had developed with Keats and Severn during their stay in Rome leading up to the Poet's death and indeed does give Severn his just due for having so devoted himself to care for his friend. I was impressed that there was so much detail to this brief, but very important period of Keat's life but to take someone who was a well known Atheist and to even begin to hint that his beliefs were shifting at the end of his life is, what I believe to be the author's own desire to project his beliefs on a man to whom I am sure he admires greatly. Perhaps there is cause to believe that a man suffering to such a degree as Keat's was, given the limited medical care he was receiving, could have attempted to grasp at anything that might relieve his pain but Keats was suffering both physically and mentally and you can not give too much weight to such small details and Severn's own account of this time since Severn himself was a Christian and probably felt a need to provide the same comfort to his friend as he himself was relying on.

Like a detective meticuously documenting his re-creation of John Keats' final year and tempestuous relationship with Fanny Brawne, Mr. Walsh brings the great poet alive at the time he is enduring his deepest pain. More fully understood now are the day-to-day events and private trials which plagued the poet's legendary Living Year. Walsh brings to life: Joseph Severn's departure to accompany the man who would most greatly impact his later life; everyday occurrences during the voyage and quarantine; vividly rendered images of John Keats' behavior, character and mannerisms; intimate details regarding life (and death) in Rome; and, "load(ed) with ore (as if) every rift," brilliantly precise historical details far too numerous to mention. My Masters Degree specialization was in John Keats and my first novel is dedicated to him. Mr. Walsh's masterpiece in literary biography is enlightening, tender, and--by focusing on John Keats' death--accomplishes much of the opposite: It brings him to life. I have loaned my copy to a fellow Keatsian in academe and cannot wait to read Mr. Walsh's book on Edgar A. Poe's mysterious end. Finally, just for the record, I teach both Keats and Poe at the university level. "Five stars!"