John Keats: The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

by John Keats (Author), John Barnard (Editor) "Now Morning from her orient chamber came,..." (more)
Key Phrases: jealous honourer, behold thee flippant, fellowship with essence, Duke Conrad, Red Crag, The Latmian (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Stillinger's edition of Keats is the first completely authoritative text, superseding the texts of all previous editions.
--W. J. Bate --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review
Stillinger's edition of Keats is the first completely authoritative text, superseding the texts of all previous editions.
--W. J. Bate --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 752 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; 3rd edition (August 25, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140422102
• ISBN-13: 978-0140422108
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #487,830 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #15 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( K ) > Keats, John

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "...exceptionally keen sensitivity... ", February 2, 2004

By	"acominatus" (Johnson City, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Poems (Paperback)

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.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive edition of the poetry of Keats., October 16, 2001

By	R. H OAKLEY "roboakley" (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Complete Poems (Paperback)

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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential, July 23, 2002

By	Glenn McDorman (Denver) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

No personal library can be complete without at least a sampling of Keats, and this is the book that everyone should get. All the poems -- even the fragments -- are here, with line numbers included. The several appendices and letter excerpts make the collection even more valuable. If you are trying to decide which Keats collection to get, you have found the best.