For me, and for many others, Keats’s letters
are as poetical and fascinating as his poetry.
T.S. Eliot called his letters “the most notable and the most important ever
written by any English poet.” Although
my unflinching and unapologetic bias agrees wholeheartedly with Eliot, I don’t
think it’s that extreme of a statement when one considers Keats’s age when he
wrote them—it seems many people forget that Keats died at only 25 years old,
while the most beautiful and mysterious of his letters and poetry were written
years before that. My letters & emails
written during my early twenties are the “most unpoetical of anything in
existence” (and I mean this in a bad way!) and deserve a far more torturous
fate than simply being burned or deleted. Unfortunately and fortunately for me, my so
called enlightenment occurred in my mid-twenties
and most of my writings before that were logical and unimaginative nonsense. Sure, I knew of poetry and literature during that
time of my life, but I simply had different interests and goals then, and my
Muse was not yet whispering as much to me then, and Her loving stranglehold had
not yet brought me to my knees…
But enough about
me. This post is about Keats and a
particular letter of his that he wrote two hundred years ago on this day, the
27th of October in 1818. This
letter holds a special place in my heart for many reasons and I usually revisit
it every so often, especially this time of year. Many of these reasons are straight forward
and obvious within the letter itself, others are a bit more mysterious and esoteric,
including ideas of poetical character and an interest in the darker side of
things—none of which I wish to write about here. Anyway, without further ado, Keats’s letter
to his friend Richard Woodhouse written in Hampstead on 27 October, 1818 is
copied below:
27
October [1818]
My dear Woodhouse,
Your letter gave me great
satisfaction; more on account of its friendliness, than any relish of that
matter in it which is accounted so acceptable in the "genus
irritabile."[1]
The best answer I can give you is in a clerklike manner to make some
observations on two principal points, which seem to point like indices into the
midst of the whole pro and con, about genius, and views and
achievements and ambition and coetera. 1st As to the poetical Character
itself, (I mean that sort of which, if I am any thing, I am a Member; that sort
distinguished from the wordsworthian or egotistical sublime; which is a thing per se and stands alone) it is
not itself—it has no self—it is every thing and nothing—it has no character—it
enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low,
rich or poor, mean or elevated—it has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as
an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the camelion Poet. It
does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things, any more than from its
taste for the bright one; because they both end in speculation. A Poet is the
most unpoetical of anything in existence, because he has no Identity—he is
continually in for—and filling some other Body—The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men
and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an
unchangeable attribute—the poet has none; no identity—he is certainly the most
unpoetical of all God's Creatures. If then he has no self, and if I am a Poet,
where is the wonder that I should say I would write no more? Might I not at
that very instant have been cogitating on the Characters of Saturn and Ops? It
is a wretched thing to confess; but it is a very fact that not one word I ever
utter can be taken for granted as an opinion growing out of my identical nature—how
can it, when I have no nature? When I am in a room with People if I am free
from speculating on creations of my own brain, then not myself goes home to
myself: but the identity of every one in the room begins so to press upon me,
[so] that I am in a very little time annihilated—not only among Men; it would
be the same in a Nursery of children: I know not whether I make myself wholly
understood: I hope enough to let you see that no dependence is to be placed on
what I said that day.
In the second place I will speak of my
views, and of the life I purpose to myself—I am ambitious of doing the world
some good: if I should be spared that may be the work of maturer years—in the
interval I will assay to reach to as high a summit in Poetry as the nerve
bestowed upon me will suffer. The faint conceptions I have of Poems to come
bring the blood frequently into my forehead—All I hope is that I may not lose
all interest in human affairs—that the solitary indifference I feel for
applause, even from the finest Spirits, will not blunt any acuteness of vision
I may have. I do not think it will—I feel assured I should write from the mere
yearning and fondness I have for the Beautiful even if my night's labours
should be burnt every morning and no eye ever shine upon them. But even now I
am perhaps not speaking from myself; but from some character in whose soul I
now live. I am sure however that this next sentence is from myself. I feel your
anxiety, good opinion and friendship in the highest degree, and am
Your’s most sincerely,
John Keats
[Portrait of John Keats by his friend Joseph Severn, 1819]
[1] This Latin
phrase comes from the Roman poet Horace and refers to the irritable and highly
sensitive tribe of poets.
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