The Poetry of Keats
Subtitle: Language and Experience
Publisher: Geraldson Imprints
Published: April 25, 2000
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 168
ISBN-13: 9780951449912
Subjects: Literature: Texts
First sentence: On 5 May 1816 John Keats opened the Examiner and saw that his first poem had been published. A year before his death he suffered the haemorrhage which he recognised as his 'death warrant' and after which he wrote scarcely any poetry. In the four years between these events he became one of the greatest of English poets. This is the simple statement of something almost miraculous, and the task of someone with the temerity to approach Keats critically, is to face this miracle. Our interest in Keats the man is provoked by his poetry and any systematic approach at biography is carried through only in the hope of a return to the poems.
Description: This is the first study of Keats to do real justice to him as both poet and philosopher. In doing so it presents a unique account of the creative mind. Pollard traces the intense dialogue between thinking and poetry which runs through all of Keats' work and, in doing so, takes him far beyond the limiting confines of English Romanticism. The presiding genius thoughout these essays is Martin Heidegger whose later works on the German poets Hölderlin, Rilke and Mörike among others, has now, fo the first time, been applied to an Englsih poet. Keats is foremost among the English poets who gives utterance to the poet's experience with language and with no understanding of this, much of his poetic output remains a mystery. Pollard also deals with the place of the critic and his approach to the poetic text. This study presents a portrait of Keats as poet and philosopher by following his own critique of creativity in his poety.
Table of contents: title: Preface Acknowledgements  1. Watcher of the Skies  2. Aden to Save the Whole  3. Silence  4. Truth  5 On Overcoming Milton  6. The Fine Spell of Words  7. Interface  8. Postface   Notes and Abbreviations Select Bibliography Index