Customer Reviews

John Keats

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I have not read this book yet in its entirety, but I dont want to let the foregoing review be the only word on the subject here--I am sorry that reviewer found it "heavy going," I'll testify that I found the thinking in the two chapters I did read, 13 and 16, to be absolutely gripping and provocative, more than enough to cause me to order my own copy of the book. My sense of this work's importance is that of Mr. Tillotson's.

Jackson Bate does literary biography better than anyone. He's a master and not only offers expert insights into Keats' writing but also presents the man and his life in fine detail. After reading the book you feel thankful that Keats had such a powerful interpreter to even things up a little for him. Too late of course to make a difference to Keats but what a treasure for us.

I read this book because it won a Pulitzer Prize, and because I so greatly enjoyed the biographies of Keats by Aileen Ward and by Robert Gittings. But I found much of this book tough going. The study of some of the longer poems simply did not interest me. But the account of Keats' last year is very well-done and absorbing.