John Keats – Creative Reading

I am still interested in Keats’ lesser known poetry, namely the poems from his collection published in 1817, as well as individual poems that were published in 1816. These are the earliest of his poems, and they are quite distinct next to his famous odes, which were mostly written in 1819-1820. Thus, this project now specifically acknowledges that these works were his early works, though I implied as much in my last pitch. I am still interested in examining the literary discourse around these works in Keats’ own moment and now, as I have found minimal discussion in both periods. This discussion is dwarfed by the conversation around the poems Keats wrote later. At the least, though, these poems are practice for the odes. More likely, in my opinion, they are genius of their own. In looking at the little criticism around these lesser known works, and the relatively large lack thereof, I want to get to the core of what Keats’ “genius” actually is and how these poems feed into that rather than detract from it. I believe this will create a more dimensional and cohesive understanding of Keats’ entire body of text, rather than finding certain pieces in contention with each other or simply not acknowledging large sections.

Since there is an element of examining the criticism around Keats’ work over the past two hundred years, I believe there is a historical and/or cultural context here that is working for some of his poems and perhaps working against other. I plan to implement New Historicism in parsing this out. I think perhaps part of the answer to the secondary question of what Keats’ genius is could lie in that as well, but I also feel like there’s another type of criticism that would be useful for specifically outlining that. I’m not sure about any of the ones we have studied already right now.

As for an additional source, I found an old examination of two critiques that came out when Keats first published his initial collection. This gives me a clearer idea of what people were thinking at that time and why, specifically in terms of Keats in relation to other poets. This relationship to the other Romantics, who seem to have cast a long shadow over Keats, could very well be relevant to why these works are left relatively untouched.

Additional Secondary Source

Cornelius, Roberta D. “Two Early Reviews of Keats’s First Volume.” PMLA, vol. 40, no. 1, 1925, pp. 193–210. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/457276.

I am interested in examining John Keats’ lesser known poetry, including but not limited to “Two or Three,” in order to gain insight in to why the literary discourse around such a popular poet is silent about them, and then to determine if these poems are worthy of the attention and consideration that Keats’ odes are. These “lesser” poems contain a picture of Keats, as a person and a writer, that could be valuable when examining all of his work. Furthermore, it is my suspicion that Keats’ earlier, less technical, more playful works will be important on their own, at least because they will show how Keats developed into the writer he was at the end of his life. There is also, in my opinion, merit in frivolous content so long as it is not entirely devoid of meaning.

In terms of relevant critical theory, structuralism could be used in the comparisons to his entire canon. There will need to be some biography and history involved. Psychoanalytic criticism is the only one that has directly addressed the author and social context so far, but perhaps there is something that we have not discussed yet that brings in the author more directly.

The pre-existing articles on Keats discuss why he was underappreciated in his time: critics hated him. This is detailed in my secondary source. This could be a possible explanation as to why these poems have not been examined as frequently as the odes, which is the first component of my research in this project.

Secondary Source

Rovee, Christopher. “Trashing Keats.” ELH, vol. 75, no. 4, 2008, pp. 993–1022. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27654645.