John Keats Books

Lionel Trilling in his introduction to this volume makes the claim that the Letters are not simply the most outstanding of any poet that we have, but are such a great work that they rival Keats' poetry in claim for distinction. Trilling in the introduction focuses on understanding Keats relation to suffering and beauty. He takes the concept 'geniality' and shows how it is especially applies to the life- enhancing work and attitude of Keats. The Keats who spoke of life as a 'vale of soul- making' was as Trilling shows a tremendously vibrant, energetic and positive soul. In terms which he might be criticized for today Trilling speaks of the 'masculine quality' of Keats.
The letters have an incredible richness of percepted reality. Trilling points that for Keats all the senses came into play in writing about the world. This is felt in the letters' also. Also Keats great human quality in relation to others.
I was most moved by Keats parting words to Joseph Severn who so faithfully cared for him in the last months of his life.
Trilling quotes the exchange in the introduction as follows:

"As he lay on his deathbed he asked Severn. "Did you ever see anyone die?" Severn never had. "Well then, I pity you, poor Severn. What trouble and danger you have got into for me. Now you must be firm for it will not last long. I shall soon be laid in the quiet grave. Thank God, for the quiet grave... And at the end. "Severn , lift me up, for I am dying. I shall die easy. Don't be frightened !Thank God, it has come."

The letters show Keats not only as great poetic soul but as true human being.
They belong in the same library as the letters of Van Gogh, and Kafka.

After Shakespeare there is no more musical poet in the English language than Keats. His long - reflecting lines have a depth of sensual beauty, incredible in imagery and reflection. The 'Truth is Beauty, and Beauty is Truth" conclusion of the great "Ode on a Grecian Urn" could serve as motto for his verse. In the great Odes, the Nightingale Ode, Ode to Autumn, Ode on a Grecian Urn he seems to strain poetic feeling into a new dimension of pained longing. " Perhaps the self- same song that found a path, Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn;The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the form , Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn" can move us magically to a sense of the vision or waking dream, the music that brings us beyond ourselves and sleep into the most sublime realm of poetry.
He did die young but not before his pen had gleemed his teeming brain " in great lines living still today.

John Keats was one of the great Romantic poets. Unlike Wordsworth, he was another of those Romantics who dies much younger than he should have (tuberculosis). I bought this many years ago, with a collection of other Romantic poetry. The price tag is still on this volume; it cost 50 cents from the Bradley University Book Store (so I probably bought it in 1968 or 1969)!

There is a very brief introductory essay that provides some context on the poet's works. Then, the remainder of this volume focuses on Keats' poetry. The brevity of his life and his productivity within those confines is worth noting. According to the timeline at the start of this volume, we see that he was born in 1795. His first volume appeared in 1817, when he would have been about 22. His last major work was published in 1820, shortly before his death. In that short time frame, much quality work appeared. If I read the dates right, some of his poetry was not published until considerably later.

The book begins with selected poems--long and short--and concludes with a set of the artist's sonnets. Among the poems are excerpts from "Endymion," "Hyperion," "Lamia." Other poems included here include "The Eve of Saint Agnes," "La Belle Dame sans Merci," Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode on Melancholy," and "Ode to a Nightingale." Among the sonnets: "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," "On Sitting down to Read King Lear Once Again," "When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be," "On Fame," and more.

I always like a sampling of an artist's work. A few of my favorite lines from various poems:

"La Belle Dams sans Merci"
"I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried `La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'"

"Ode on a Grecian Urn"

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter still; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on. . . .
. . . .
`Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

And on the poetry goes. For a brief introduction to Keats, this does a fine job. I still enjoy this book so many years after having purchased it.

I highly recommend this audio tape, Treasury of John Keats, read by Robert Spaeight and Robert Edison. The audio readings are quite exceptional.

Although I have read a wide range of poetry for some years, I am rather new to listening to poetry on audio tapes. As I much prefer to read rather than listen to tapes, I only by chance bought this tape of selected poems by Keats.

I was rather familiar with the better known poems of Keats and thought that I had a resonable appreciation of his poetry. But these superb readings by Spaeight and Edison added an entirely new demension to my understanding and enjoyment. On longer road trips I find that I cycle through the tapes two or three times, much as I repeatedly replay favorite music.

The readings include The Eve of St. Agnes, La Belle Dame San Merci, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, To Sleep, "When I have fears that I may cease to be", the short song "I had a Dove", and the classic Keatsian Odes - Nightingale, Autumn, Melancoly, Grecian Urn, and Psyche.

Walker is as good a photographer as she is a writer. If you love the Romantics, England, or even long hikes, you will appreciate this book's depth & enjoy it's adventurous spirit; I know I did!

This is the story of the Guerrilla war waged against the "Hapons" on the island of Mindano during WW2, as an armchair student of Insurgency and Guerrilla Warfare I've read just about everything I can find on the subject... Yank Levy, Che Guevara, Giap etc. This book showed me a side of an insurgent war that the others had overlooked... Leadership.

When the convention American forces on the Phillipines colapsed many Filipinos started their own resistance organisations, Fertig had a hard time ensuring their loyality to his leadership, in particular I found the struggle between Morgan and Fertig interesting and I feel I learned a couple of important lessons on leadership by reading this book. Morgans challenge to Fertigs leadership developed into a life or death struggle for Fertig and how he was able to deal with the threat without killing Morgan makes for good reading.

This book also does a good job of showing the importance of external support during a guerrilla conflict.

Its not often a book of this type can be entertaining and informative but this books does a very good job.

Two years ago (9/99), I took "They Fought Alone" with me to a very large but remote mining site in the Philippines. I had met Col. Fertig numerous times nearly 40 years ago, but I had never read his book. I thought that his book would give me insight to the Filippino people and it did not disappoint me. It quickly became the "best read book in camp". After the Western employees read the book, it made the rounds of the Filippinos. I donated "They Fought Alone" to the newly built camp library when I left the Philippines.

Col. Fertig said a number of times that you only need to fear the bullet with your name on it. We, Americans, need to take a page from his book and start filling airliners and go back to our normal lives after 9/11.

I recently reread "They Fought Alone" after finding that two of W.E.B. Griffin's best-selling WWII fiction books were about Colonel Wendell Fertig's guerrilla campaign in the Philippines. These two books--"The Fighting Agents" and "Behind the Lines"--mix a little fact with a lot of fiction, but include some material from the John Keats book. I reread Keats to separate the fact from the fiction. I also stumbled upon a fall 2002 article on the Special Forces in "American Heritage" magazine, which mentioned Fertig's follow-up role in helping to organize the Green Berets in the 1950s--a story I did not know until reading Griffin. What a small world!

Griffin knew Fertig at Fort Bragg, which is where Fertig helped found the Special Warfare School and, interestingly, where Fertig's great-grandson, Dave Hudson, wrote his review of the Keats book. Griffin stated that Fertig's lack of promotion to general-officer rank, after commanding 30,000 guerrillas--the equivalent of an Army Corps, was one of the great travesties of justice perpetrated by a jealous MacArthur staff after the war.

Having known a by-then grandfatherly Colonel Fertig in the early 1960s when he was at the Colorado School of Mines, I would agree with Griffin's assessment. Wendell Fertig was one of a very select group of real heroes, not the instant, media-manufactured, post-9/11 kind.

I hope Hollywood and Brad Pitt can bring Colonel Fertig some very belated, posthumous justice, although I am not optimistic based on Keats' and Griffin's lack of success. However, the two authors must be given considerable credit for keeping this remarkable story alive for 40 years from the publication of "They Fought Alone" and 60 years after the actual events so that Hollywood could finally "discover" it.

My father was there and his name is in the list in the back of this book! On this first anniversary of his death I find myself remembering many of the stories he told and reflecting on how his experience in the Philippines shaped the rest of his life. Extremely fascinating and incredible! Every single man a hero! This book can only tell part of the story, as any book can but it is extremely well-written. I'm not a fan of war books but this book reads so easily. It is a well-deserved tribute to real heroes...

This book gave me a lot of insight into the man my father was. It's easy to see why part of his heart remained in the Philippines. This book is a Must Read!

Susan Harayda Wood

Having received "They Fought Alone" as a high school graduation present(class of'67) from Uncle Wendell, and having read it many times, I realize how much of a hero he was. I married a Filipino and the book gave me many insights into the culture. If anyone wants to know what it takes to make it through a tough situation, read "They Fought Alone" and realize what our soldiers live with every day! The one thing I learned and continue to put to use in my life, never ask anyone to do anything that I'm not willing to do myself!! Uncle Wendell was indeed an real-life unsung hero. He will always be one of my heros!

This was a good story. It added some life to the charachter that I was trying to portray to my students.

My 3 kids request I read this book every night. Its good enough that I don't MIND.

Guess which is one of the books I'm using for Black History Month this year?

I originally read this book when I was a boy and I remember how hauntingly beautiful I found the story. John Henry is still one of my favorite heroes and I collect everthing I can find on him. The book has burned itself into my soul!
I have no idea where my original book is, but when I recieved a new copy as a present I was a wash with memories. It's a very cool folktale and I can't wait to read it to my kids someday, like my mom did for me.

Jessica Kruczynski English 385.04 Dr. Michelle H. Martin March 29, 2000

Keats, Ezra. John Henry: An American Legend. Toronto, Canada: Random House, Inc, 1965.

John Henry, written and illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats, tells the story of a fictitious American legend. Through the powerful illustrations, Keats portrays John Henry as a heroic man with much importance in society. Keats uses bold colors throughout the story, which help stimulate the reader's emotions. John Henry's importance is first revealed in the opening of the story. Unusual, marbalized paper illustrations accompany the words that tell of the night noises welcoming John Henry into the world. Even as a newborn child, he is the focus of the story, taking up an entire page in the book. When John Henry realizes his own strength, he makes the decision to leave his family and go out into the world. The illustration during this part of the story shows that a change is because of the bright colors and the image of waves rolling into the next page. When a storm strikes, John Henry's first act of bravery comes into play. Black and grey colors give a feeling that things are not quite right. The storm nearly causes a ship to sink, but John Henry is able to gain respect and admiration from others by bringing their ship to safety. John Henry, who was born with a hammer in his hand, feels called to go help build railroads. The illustration of him helping with the railroad tracks is much different thtn the other illustrations because John Henry is not the center of attention. Perhaps the reason for this is because helping build the railroad with a hammer in his hand is where John Henry belongs. Henry's next opportunity to be the hero occurrs when a lit fuse burns closely to dynamite in a cave, causing a very dangerous situation. Trying to put out the fuse, John Henry first trips and falls, but recovers by putting out the flame with his hammer. In this illustration, the hammer takes up and entire page! This shows that the hammer and John Henry are of equal importance; without his hammer, he is only an ordianry man. After proving himself to be a hero, John Henry develops a feeling of much confidence in himself. When told about an extremely powerful steam drill, John Henry states that he is more powerful and can drill more holes faster than six men combined. The illustrations of Henry's "race" with the machine are very effective in portraying motion. The hammer appears to be moving so fast that it becomes almost a blur. The pictures show how tired John Henry is becoming, and eventhough the steam drill is ahead of him at one point, he continues to work harder and faster. With much determination, John Henry picks up another hammer so that he can get twice as much done. In this illustration, John Henry and the two hammers take up two pages. Keats uses a bright orange color to offset Henry and the hammers. The bright color gives a feeling of excitement and makes the reader feel confident that John Henry can beat the steam machine. Througout John Henry's battle with the machine, people watch with admiration. John Henry continued to hammer, even after the steam machine collapsed. His goal was to break through the tunnel and when light began to shine through, everyone saw that his goal was reached. With hard work and determination, John Henry once again proved himself to be a hero. He died while walking out of the tunnel, carrying not one, but two hammers.

Andrew Motion's biography recognizes the historical circumstances in which Keats lived, approaching new historicist tenets while maintaining a clear focus on the poet's individual life and works. He traces political tensions and medical practices of the time to expand upon the existing academic vision of Keats's poetic life; here he is more than a poet. That said, Motion, a poet himself, exemplifies the sensitivity to the writing process when discussing Keats's work. His criticism of the poems is well-rounded, balanced, and aware of the poet's process of composition. Overall, the book is well-reseached and a necessary addition to the scholarship we have on John Keats.

Andrew Motion's biography recognizes the historical circumstances in which Keats lived, approaching new historicist tenets while maintaining a clear focus on the poet's individual life and works. He traces political tensions and medical practices of the time to expand upon the existing academic vision of Keats's poetic life; here he is more than a poet. That said, Motion, a poet himself, exemplifies the sensitivity to the writing process when discussing Keats's work. His criticism of the poems is well-rounded, balanced, and aware of the poet's process of composition. Overall, the book is well-reseached and a necessary addition to the scholarship we have on John Keats.

I met Andrew Motion at an Oxford function five years ago. He is a very down-to-earth and humorous man. The accolades that go with this book are, for once, not hyperbole. Well deserved praise for a book that manages to keep the mood of Keats relevant in the modern days.

Andrew Motion made extensive use of primary documents, including the fascinating letters of John Keats, to explore the personal, social, economic, and political context in which Keats created his remarkable poetry. This biography of John Keats ranks among the most carefully researched, best documented, and most detailed available. Andrew Motion's work will undoubtedly serve as essential critical reference work for English majors.

However, this highly detailed approach does make this biography rather formidable. I occasionally found myself lost in the details, searching for some path that would lead me closer to Keats' poetry. This is a long biography, almost 600 pages. I enjoyed those sections most in which Motion examined influences on particular poetry by Keats. In retrospect, I should have browsed some chapters, and even skipped some sections, rather than persistently read every page.

I have subsequently read a shorter biographical analysis by Stuart Sperry, titled Keats the Poet (Princeton University Press, 1973) that is better suited for a reader that desires to focus more closely on Keats' poetry, rather than upon details of Keats' personal life. The chapters have titles like The Allegory of Endymion, The First Hyperion, and From The Eve of St. Mark to La Belle Dame sans Merci, clearly illustrating the close alignment between biographical study and poetic interpretation.

Keats is after Shakespeare perhaps the most musically rich of all the English poets. He sees and feels and hears the world in lines of incredible beauty. "Truth is Beauty, Beauty Truth, That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know." are the lines of Keats which best describe his own work.
This edition contains what are arguably Keats greatest work, the Odes. Their richness may not always be easily understood, but the feeling which runs through them is of art at its most abundantly wondrous.

......this intro to John Keats is no exception to the Dover Thrift Edition collection of poetry books that introduce readers to certain poets or movements within poetry for a great price. Many of Keats' most famous are included in their entirety here (except for the longer ones such as "Hyperion" and "Lamia"): "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to a Nightingale", "Isabella", and "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" for a total of thirty poems. In each, his stunningly beautiful descriptions and amazing lyrics are evident. It becomes evident to the reader why Keats was one of the foremost poets of the Romantic era. My only regret is that this collection doesn't tell us more about the poet himself, which surely would have enriched the experience of his poetry for first time readers.

The poetry of John Keats is a remarkable discovery for the reader unfamiliar with his works. His poetry is timeless. I have read this small Dover edition innumerable times and with each reading I gain further pleasure from his works. I find it almost inconceivable that Keats only lived 25 years. His early death, due in part to an extended hiking tour, is almost without parallel. It is as though Shakespeare had died after producing only a few plays.

The Dover edition, priced only at a dollar, represents much of Keats' better known, shorter poems. They are arranged chronologically (the best are not at the beginning) and illustrate his growth as a poet. If you are new to Keats, I suggest that you skip around, maybe focusing on the shorter poems in the beginning. But don't wait too long to delve into the longer The Eve of St. Agnes. And sample the Odes of Keats, possibly his best lyric poetry.

I found it helpful to make a few notes in the margin for unfamiliar words and expressions, particularly archaic terms. My notes assisted me considerably in second and third readings.

I knew of John Keats, but had not read his poetry. But some time ago I happened to read Perinne's Sound and Sense, an excellent guide to reading poetry, and developed some interest in Keats. You might find this text a useful reference.

I also recommend an audio tape (ISBN 0-8045-0868-2), Treasury of John Keats, read by Robert Spaeight and Robert Edison. The readings are quite exceptional. I especially enjoyed The Eve of St. Agnes.

Lyric Poems is a small book containig several beautiful writings about the world. It seems to plant ideas and imagination into even the most un-imaginative people. There are a few poems I didn't care for, but don't let that stop you from purchasing this book. I liked it (and I'm pretty picky!) ... I bet you'll ike it too!

This book might deserve a wider audience than it will receive, though it seems unlikely that readers of this book will find themselves better prepared to avoid any great catastrophe. I find myself looking for great themes that would make knowledge as a progression from century to century worth sustaining, but the themes of the poems in this book are only a small part of the analysis the poems are subjected to. I still do not know enough about poetry to find this book easy to read. At a lecture, I might absorb the points that are most obvious, but I like being able to refer to the main poems in print, reading slowly enough to actually be learning these poems, along with enough lines of other poetry in the text to serve as examples showing some kind of progress. It takes awhile to allow familiarity to develop gradually from an examination of the poems in conjunction with the comments of Helen Vendler about the level of mastery shown by the creators of these poems.

These lectures are highly informative for people who have some interest in poetry, but who have not mastered technical aspects of rhyme and verse that are particularly important in the analysis of the sonnets of Keats. Pages 68-70 show types of sonnets written by Keats, with dates of individual sonnets provided on pages 71-79. Helen Vendler shows an interest in phonic similarities like rhymes, taking ten lines on page 111 to line up words in the "reduplicative semiosis of the close" which starts eight lines from the end of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot to show multiple parallels of words associated with the mermaids singing. I am far more interested in themes than in methods of the poets, and the final chapter on Sylvia Plath is of interest to me primarily because the selected poem, "The Colossus," contains the line, "It's worse than a barnyard." (p. 124).

I find Milton difficult but important. Criticism of Milton is such a large field that the choice of a poem by Milton seems to be the obvious way to start a book like COMING OF AGE AS A POET. The poem selected as Milton's first masterpiece, "L'Allegro," is not as well known or well written about as some others, and I would like to offer a theological reflection on our position in time very similar to Milton's line, "This must not yet be so," (p. 15) from the Nativity Ode, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity." Vendler prefers "the effortless ease of `L'Allegro.' The Nativity Ode aims at more, but strains at its ambitions. In it, Milton covers all of recorded time, . . ." (p. 13). "This must not yet be so," is a line that limits "those ychain'd in sleep" to keep waiting for "The wakefull trump of doom" (p. 15) to signal their salvation. I would not know nearly as much about that poem if I had not read Vendler's explanation. "The time-scheme of these ten lines (the last two of stanza XV and the eight lines of XVI) takes on the following journey:" (p. 15). Failure to understand what Milton is about seems to be the norm, but Milton also might have had a feeling that catastrophe could easily be described, but that catastrophe always ought to be kept waiting for some more modern poet to contemplate.

There is a great line within the 152 lines of "L'Allegro":

"The melting voice through mazes running;" (p. 22).

That is eleven lines from the end of the poem, describing the music available in cities, where, in the final line:

"Mirth with thee, I mean to live." (p. 22).

The poem is addressed to Mirth, which Vendler finds superior to, but in conflict with the kind of "contemplative pleasure in `Il Penseroso,' the Christian context immediately troubles the values earlier examined in `L'Allegro,' so much so that one can't simply view these poems as presenting the same person alternately and equably participating in mirth one day and contemplation the next." (p. 25).

Such a controlling idea of self is fundamental to the type of voice which Vendler pictures great poets achieving in their mature work. As much as we may disagree about the fixed nature of any form of maturity, I was glad to see the following evidence that she had noticed my favorite line:

"The Renaissance protagonist, with characteristic Miltonic competitiveness, will outdo Orpheus, since `the melting voice through mazes running' will produce such `streins as would have won the ear / Of Pluto, to have quite set free / His half-regain'd Eurydice.'" (pp. 25-26).

"The intrinsic qualities of high art are evoked, one by one, as Milton emphasizes, with respect to music, its emotionality by the verb `pierce'; its sweetness by the participial adjective `melting'; its complexity in the image of `mazes'; its power in the strength of the participial phrase `untwisting all the chains' and its headiness by the unexpected oxymorons in the `wanton' nature of its `heed' and the `giddy' nature of its `cunning.'" (p. 35).

"Needless to say, the m's and n's of this exquisitely `melting' passage are intuitive if not deliberate." (p. 35).

Ten lines of the poem, in which "The melting voice through mazes running" is line eight, are printed as an example of "the superbly unfolding hypotactic syntax that closes the poem:" (p. 38), followed by an attempt to explain the poem by spacing the words differently,

"If we graph this sentence, we can see its enchained nature:

With wanton heed,
and
giddy cunning, The melting voice
through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains
that ty the soul." (p. 38).

"Milton has learned to slip from one compartment of his mind to another without strain, and with temperate pleasure--until he capitulates to a final intensity, the ecstatic feeling that arises when verse and music are combined." (p. 39).

This new book, like her others, (I own six) is superb. Ms. Vendler's own writing style is one of the most felicitous I have encountered in the literary commentary/critique genre. She never ever tries to prove to you how informed, smart, tasteful, and well read she is (and trust me she is all of those things in spades!). Rather, she shares, with intelligence, perception, clarity, and reason her love of poetry in general and the work currently at hand. And she manages this while staying pretty much within the oevre itself.

She reminds me of a life long resident of a great undiscovered country who possesses a particularly keen and practiced eye. She will here (and elsewhere) be your guide through its hills and dales, its hidden places and its common grounds. She is atuned to its seasons and its rythms and songs. And she would clearly rather do nothing else in the world than explore it with you. She expects you to look where she points, to see, and to think about what you have seen and how you feel about it and the journey itself. But she is always a loyal companion and her love of the place is infectious. Before long you may just find yourself exploring on your own with the memory of those trips with her as your inspiration and your compass.

If poetry can, at times, effect alchemic changes upon the soul, Ms. Vendler's work is a catalyst to that reaction. Here she traces the development toward a mature style of Milton, Keats, Elliot, and Plath. Her longer work on Keat's Odes may be more complete, but her work here with Milton and Elliot is compelling. She brings the former solidly forward from antiquity and, in my view, does nothing short of rescue the latter's "Prufrock" from the dust bin of obscuritanism. These poets (including Keats) and their works are more human, more common, more accessible, but just as majestic, after Ms. Vendler walks you past their early works. But it is, perhaps, the service that she does for Sylvia Plath that is here most noteworthy.

The sensationalism that has attached to Plath often obscures her considerable gift as a poet. By tracing the development of the young Plath from "Electra" through "Colosus" and "Parliament Fields" toward her mature style, Ms. Vendler shows us the kin of Keats and Elliot not the suicidal victem of madness and (perceived) oppression. She does not evade the "morality" and psychology that Plath's finale engenders, but insists that the poet is in her poems and that, in those, she lived and fought and loved and hurt and found ways to describe that process artfully. It is an effort that evidences the generosity and objectivity that always inform Ms. Vendler's work and it lets us see and feel Sylvia Plath better than we could before we read it.

You do not need to study poetry to read and enjoy this little book, but I think you will see the art in a different (and better) light after you do. Helen Vendler is absolutley THE BEST.

This book exemplifies the strengths and weaknesses of the New Critics and the practice of "close reading". The learning and effort Ms. Vendler brings to her project of defining the first "perfect" poem of four canonical poets is indeed impressive and professional critics of poetry (as well as grad students) have much to learn from her rigorous example.

For the general reader however this book is far less helpful. Rather than illuminating her example poems, Ms. Vendler sucks them dry with her microscopic attentions and presumptions of superhuman intentionality in their creation. By the end of her discussions, you are left feeling more exhausted than enlightened.

So depending on who you, the reader, are, will determine whether this short work is worth your time.