Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography [Hardcover]

Stanley Plumly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 17, 2008

An acclaimed American poet reflects on the life and legacy of John Keats.

Posthumous Keats is the result of Stanley Plumly's twenty years of reflection on the enduring afterlife of one of England's greatest Romanticists. John Keats's famous epitaph—"Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water"—helped cement his reputation as the archetype of the genius cut off before his time. Keats, dead of tuberculosis at twenty-five, saw his mortality as fatal to his poetry, and therein, Plumly argues, lies his tragedy: Keats thought he had failed in his mission "to be among the English poets."

In this close narrative study, Plumly meditates on the chances for poetic immortality—an idea that finds its purest expression in Keats, whose poetic influence remains immense. Incisive in its observations and beautifully written, Posthumous Keats is an ode to an unsuspecting young poet—a man who, against the odds of his culture and critics, managed to achieve the unthinkable: the elevation of the lyric poem to sublime and tragic status.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The great English poet John Keats (1795–1821) wrote his last complete poems in the fall of 1819; already ill from tuberculosis, he traveled to Italy with his friend Joseph Severn in a doomed attempt to get well, and died in Rome after a year of getting worse. The prolific and widely honored poet Plumly (Old Heart) offers seven informative, overlapping chapters that consider aspects, consequences and echoes from that sad last year of Keats's life. Plumly discusses artists' portraits of the poet (among them Severn's arresting deathbed sketch). He examines the lives and motives of the people closest to Keats, such as the faithful Severn (who outlived the poet by decades), the perhaps faithless (but perhaps not) Charles Brown and Keats's fiancée, Fanny Brawne. He considers Keats's love letters, Keats's medical training, Keatsian and Shelleyan landmarks in Rome, the fate of Keats's manuscripts and, finally, Keats's sense of his own life, as bound up in the poems. Plumly's linked essays incorporate old-school scholarship, but never seem dry or academic in the bad sense: the result feels personal indeed, if never autobiographical. At times Plumly seems unsure for whom he is writing. At other times, though, his unstinting admiration and evocative prose promise to create Keatsians yet unknown. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“A beautiful book. . . . [W]hen Plumly turns his laser-like gaze on Keats’ letters and his verse, the book is brilliant.” (Nicholas Delbanco - Los Angeles Times )

“Mr. Plumly writes beautifully and very movingly.” (Charles McGrath - New York Times )

“Plumly has written a book to last: worthy of its subject and commensurate with both words of its title.” (Robert Pinsky - Slate ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (May 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393065731
• ISBN-13: 978-0393065732
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #920,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A lovely set of meditations, July 17, 2008

By 

Michael Greenebaum (Amherst, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography (Hardcover)

Stanley Plumly finds Keats companionable -- and so do I. Plumly is a distunguished poet, yet his interest here is less in the poetry than in the poet. The story of the poet is sad and heroic, courageous and pitiable, and Plumly touches all these themes with generosity and compassion as well as a hard critical eye. Plumly is also interested in what might be called the myth of Keats - how his story and even his appearance have been burnished and reworked by his friends and the generations that follow. It takes a remarkable youth to have friends like Keats had, and Plumly has earned his place in the Keats Circle.

A few of Plumly's interests here threaten to become obsessive - the need to count the days til Keats's death appears throughout, whereas it would need be a source of profitable speculation only once. That Keats lived in the shadow of death is true enough, but the truth becomes diminished when it is mentioned so often. Still, any lover of Keats will embrace this work and acknowledge that it holds a unique place on the very long shelf of Keatsiana.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Plumly Brings John Keats Closer to Us, May 5, 2009

By 

Rob Jacques "Technical Writer" (Puget Sound) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography (Hardcover)

It's fitting and satisfying that it's two poets who have brought John Keats and his immediate world to vivid life. Way back in 1925, Amy Lowell gave us the first well-researched biography of Keats that is still a relevant and great read today. And now poet Stanley Plumly has given us a profound, demythologizing study of Keats's last 18 months and the reactions of his family and friends to his death.

Plumly's volume is an obvious work of love. He writes a straightforward history of Keats's last months, and then muses over the details from different perspectives. He turns a forensic as well as a philosophical eye on the motives and actions of Keats's inner circle of friends, spending considerable time ruminating on the characters and principles of Charles Brown, William Haslam, George Keats, and - of course - Joseph Severn. We see Keats's last days not just as they probably were, but as they must have been. And we see John Keats himself: fragile and anguished, full of vigor, innocence, trustworthiness, incredible talent, and deep, abiding love for Fanny Brawne and life itself.

Plumly's most remarkable accomplishment is his interweaving much of Keats's great odes with the young poet's experiences and literary philosophy. That a youth so inexperienced in life, so poor, and so desperately ill could write what many believe to be the greatest series of odes in English is astounding. I remember being blown away by Keats's odes in my high school English class, and now Stanley Plumly has written a book that explains to me why.

Keats's opening lines of his long poem, Endymion, certainly applies to his own work:

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Memorable Death, Honored and Remembered, June 6, 2009

By 

carey roberts "Author, STAR-SPANGLED SAILORS" (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography (Hardcover)

Maybe because I recall with haunting clarity a visit made years ago to the small apartment above the Spanish Steps in Rome where the 25 year old poet, John Keats, died .... I was moved, engaged and enlightened by this wonderfully-written record of the poet's last days. Plumly's writing is masterly, the information well delivered. A book to enjoy and muse over. Carey Roberts