John Keats Books

Author Terence Faherty in his third novel provides readers of the now well established Owen Keane mystery series with a "prequel" to his first two novels in "The Lost Keats". The young seminarian Keane continues his struggles with his own sense of direction as he attempts to solve a riveting mystery of a missing fellow student that has a multitude of plot twists and delightful diversions. Keane's travels throughout the small towns and backroads of rural Indiana and description of it's inhabitants are very much on target. The pace quickens to an exciting ending that has Keane finding answers to the mystery while still searching for his own identity and sense of purpose. Terence Faherty's skillful development of characters, description of human frailties and story-weaving makes this novel a mystery of first rank. Readers will find themselves ready for the next Faherty offering in this very interesting evolution of "investigator" Owen Kea! ! ne !!

If you are a serial mystery fan I would recommend the Owen Keane books. The Lost Keats is by far the best of the group and although it is the 3rd in the series it is a prequel to the first 2 written. You will be best served starting the series with this book. Terence Faherty's writing style is only slightly above average but never condesending and the references to poet John Keats elevate this book above your basic mystery. This book's strongest attribute though is its protagonist- Owen Keane, a seminarian with more questions than answers, still longing for the woman he may or may not have ever really had. Told from Owen's self-depricating point of view, Faherty pulls off a difficult accomplishment- creating a character you feel sorry for but never totally pity. Although this book is not great literature by far, it's plot twists will hold your interest and you will find yourself rooting for its main character. In short, an easy but absorbing read.

The selection of poems is good. It would have been nice if the reader would have identified the title of the poem he was reading. The reading was a bit over the top at times.

Many recordings exist of Keats' poems; most are good but Ralph Richardson's surpasses them all. The timbre of his voice, his pauses and inflections never interfere with the intention of Keats, but clarify the poetry much as a fine pianist will give us Beethoven without gratuitously imposing idiosyncracies.
I have listened to these recordings over and over, and never tire of them.

I was teaching the "English Romantics" to a small class of students. I needed something cheap. This did the job although it has no footnotes or annotations to the text. Introduction to each poet is helpful but limited in scope.

Bill Kurry

I think most readers know what they are going to get with a 'Dover edition or reprint'. An attractive, spartan looking volume( It has changed in recent years and their volumes are more colorful) without extensive commentary or note. The works themselves.
In this case it is a collection of the poetry of the great Romantics, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron.
There are of course many anthologies of this poet, most with more elaborate notes and explication.
But I love many of these poems so much that I am happy to see them again in any new edition.
The poetry of the English Romantic period is among the greatest Mankind has.
On that basis primarily I would recommend this volume.

The price is certainly right. I used this book to teach a high-school poetry class. The selection of Blake is the weakest part of it: the selections from Innocence and Experience aren't ample enough to give a real sense for the book, and exclude some lyrics that I just couldn't do without (e.g. the "Holy Thursday" of Experience). The complete lack of notes (which originally I thought of as a plus :->) led to some unnecessary pain for students -- I remember one attempted close-reading of "The Extinction of the Venetian Republic" which toiled slowly through the poem, dealing with mysteries that wouldn't have been mysterious at all if there had been even a brief note on the political context of the poem.

On the plus side, there is not a bad poem in the whole book: every rift is loaded with ore. And it's an attractive paperback, nicely typeset, comfortable in the hands: it doesn't feel like a cheapo-cheapo book, which you'd rather expect from the price.

It has some of the best poems i have ever read in them! there is a need to buy this book if u are hopelessly devoted to love poems!

Dover Thrift Edition books are known for providing classical literature for a great price, without abridging the material (unless they say so of course). This anthology is no exception. The best poets of the English Romantic period are included, including two of my favorites, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Blake, Byron, Shelley, and Keats are also represented quite liberally.

Don't expect too much of this anthology outside of the actual poems themselves though. It is a Thrift Edition after all. The paper is strong, but not of the highest quality. There are brief introductions to each of the poets, but no real commentary or notes on the poems themselves. The editor does translate some of the ancient languages that the poets occasionally employ, like Latin and Greek. At the end there is an index of first-lines and titles. Also, I have to say, that these are not "romantic" as modern readers often use the term. "Romantic" refers to an era of art, music, philosophy, and literature where artists and writers allowed their emotions to overflow using a whole host of symbols, creating great works that owed more to the depths of the Imagination than the rational intellect. Coleridge was himself a theologian and philosopher and expressed many of his ideas of Imagination and eternal Symbol in his poems. Overall, this is a good sampling of some of the finest poetry available. Factoring in price and quantity, it is definitely 4 stars.

I bought this book as an undergraduate when I first began studying the Romantics and it helped me immensely. I fell in love with them and after just completing a Masters Degree, I now feel very comfortable with their poetry. I would highly recommend this book for anyone struggling to understand Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc., for the first time. They can seem so intimidating in the beginning and this book can guide the student to a better understanding of what they were trying to say and why.

It's a slim little volume which begins with a chapter entitled "Understanding Romantic Poetry" and moves on to "Studying a Blake poem" with Blake being one of the more complex writers of the Romantic period. O'Flinn dedicates two chapters to Wordsworth, i.e., "Lyrical Ballads" and then "The Prelude Books I and II." In Chapter 5 he covers Coleridge and in Chapter 6 Keats. Percy Shelley and Lord Byron are discussed but not to the detail of the other poets. Chapter 7 the next to last chapter in the book is entitled "Working with women's poetry" which is one of the weaker chapters of the book.

Again, a good beginner's guide to reading and understanding the Romantic Period and their poetry.

This book provides a loose, but organic entry into the study of lyrical and narrative Romantic verse. The author does not neglect historical, political and biographical context. On the other hand, he does not overanalyze authors or apply any modern critical approaches to their work, though he refers to them and demonstrates awareness of them.

One of the strongest aspects of the author's approach is his development and rigorous application of a methodical "recipe" for working through difficult poems. Though the approach is limited - it serves as a useful launching point for student's who are intimidated and/or relatively disinterested in poetry. The method is refreshing when employed in the classroom setting, easily personalized by the student and is certainly consistant with basic critical approaches (especially the New School approach that is so popular with disciplined high school teachers). In short, it leaves students with little excuse to say "I didn't understand it" when they are called on.

The author surveys a poem or two by most of the major Romantic poets and includes useful chapters on romantic women poets and writing about poetry. The format of the book does not permit a teacher to overly rely on it "as a script" but can help a teacher (who has diligently researched the poems and poets they have assigned) tie together many of the important threads of Romantic poetry in a cohesive manner. I would especially recommend this book for teachers who do not have a strong background in this genre/era.

At times the style of the writing is a tad self-indulgent and irritatingly vernacular, but is generally clear and useful.

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.

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.

Instead of a historical account, this author examines the methodology of Keats as a craftsman. Through the interpretation of poems and letters, he conjectures if Keats succeeded with his own dogmas. Since Ridley believes that authors do not necessarily follow their own methodologies, he examines the shape of Keats' artistic development in the light of his compelling axioms of poetry and philosophy. Ridley puts Keats' own terms such as "negative capability" and "intensity" to work to show that he indeed followed his own doctrine. A scholarly account of Keats' aimed at the educated adult.

Twenty years after I read Keats' ' La Belle Dame Sans Merci' I got hold of this book. Even after all this time, the lines " And this is why I sojourn here/Alone and palely loitering/Though the sedge is withered from the lake/And no birds sing. " still remain in my inward eye. Suddenly I couldn't wait to read it again, and opened the book right where the ballad was. I can say that the beauty of the pictures we get in mind and the effect it produces on us haven't gone down a bit.

In this book, John Strachan writes about the following:

1. Portions of letters written by Keats to many of his friends

2. The early critical reception (to get an idea of the nature of reception he had as a budding poet)

3. Modern Criticism (to understand what the contemporary Keatsian scholars thought about his works).

4. Here comes the part which we all (Keats admirers) like alike - Key poems - the poems (in their various forms) published in this section are:
a. 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' ('Much have I traveled in the realms of gold')
b. From Endymion ('A thing of beauty is a joy for ever')
c. From 'Isabella; or The Pot of Basil. A Story of Boccaccio' ('Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel')
d. From Hyperion. A Fragment ('Deep in the shady sadness of a vale')
e. The Eve of St.Agnes' ('St Agnes' Eve - Ah, bitter chill it was!')
f. La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad' ('Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms')
g. 'To Sleep' ('O soft embalmer of the still midnight')
h. 'Ode to Psyche' ('O Goddess ! hear these tuneless numbers,...')
i. Ode to a nightingale ('My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains')
j. 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' ('Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness')
k. 'Ode on Melancholy' ('No,no go not to Lethe,...')
l. From 'Lamia' ('Upon a time, before the faery broods')
m. 'To Autumn' ('Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,')
n. From 'The Fall of Hyperion. A Dream' ('Fanatics have their dream, wherewith they weave...')

5.Recommendations and pointers to reading further.

There are plenty of numbered footnotes on each page which aid quick reading, so that we don't digress trying to look up for meanings and connotations. This increases the speed and pleasure of reading. There are a lot of interesting historic details as well as other trivia. For instance, the fascination doesn't decrease even after reading the fact that title ('La Belle Dame Sans Merci') was derived from an English translation of a 1424 poem by French poet Alain Chartier.

After reading John Strachan's book, we are left with an increased and regenerated appreciation of Keats. His insightful comments and views add to the pleasure of reading Keats poetry. Here is an excellent resource (a guide, and more importantly a well researched sourcebook) for all Keats lovers, English majors and Keatsian scholars. Highly Recommended!

This is a very sympathetic record of Keats' letters and poems, and anyone interested in his thoughts/personality is likely to find themselves pleased.

I purchased this book based on the editorial reviews.
Well, I've been fooled again and again by glowing MOVIE reviews, but this is a first for me in literature. This is a badly written book. My one star recommendation is for you to purchase the book (it is inexpensive) to make your own judgment.

Andres Rodriguez is clearly very passionate about Literature and the influence Keates had upon his own generation and those that would follow. This book reviews and examines not only the poems of Keates but what could be argued to be even more important in the understanding of the man, his letters. The very mention of John Keates conjures up images of everything related to the "Romantics," however, Rodriguez successfully pays tribute to Keates "the author" instead of Keates as a member of the "Romantic Period." This book would be interesting to both avid fans of Keates and those who are taking their first approach in studying the genius.

This is a memorable and illuminating book, making accessible to the general reader the treasures to be found in Keats's letters as well as his poetry. One of the remarkable things about this book is its emphasis on Keats's understanding of the healing powers of imagination and of poetry. Many, many years ago, my favorite English teacher told me that she hoped to write a book about Keats's letters. I remember wondering how a book about anyone's letters could be interesting, and hoped someday to see her book. She never wrote it, alas-- so it was a wonderful discovery to find in Andres Rodriguez's book some of the depths that my long-ago mentor had hoped to plumb. Don't be fooled by the negative review titled "fooled again"-- this is an unusual and beautiful book.

If you know nothing of cayenne this will help enlighten you. However i was very dissapointed in how it is written and the lack of how it helps now a days compared to centeries ago. I would only recommend it if you are doing a research paper for school or something. Not a bad book, just not what i was hoping for.

Dr Heinerman gets to the point regarding the various conditions and issues readers may wish to address concerning the benefits of cayenne pepper. For it's size, this book is packed with amazing remedies. Total value for the money. So affordable, you may consider buying a dozen to give to people you care about. It's a nice complement for the book, "Left For Dead", (my cayenne discovery book about 3 years ago). Since then,I've learned by taking cayenne and garlic I don't need prescription drugs that I was on for heart disease after by-pass in '97. What's great about that is losing the side-effects, plus being able to use food, and other herbs, spices, and seeds, (which I couldn't consider while on drugs) be my medicine. Be encouraged, this is a great discovery and, hopefully, soon you too will have testimonies to tell. A. Prouty

My husband and I and several friends have read this book, and we found it very interesting and have started a regimine of the Cayenne, along with Lecithin. My cholesterol count went from 241 down to 174 within three weeks! This is a wonderful alternative to the basic statin drugs!! I am amazed at the results...my doctor was too!

Thanks

S. Selix

Wanted more scientific information. How Cayenne works? How to mix it? Dosages and recipes for its use. Was totally disappointed!!!

A very interesting book, but sparse in facts. I would like to have seen more information on dosage etc.