John Keats

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the short life and lasting works of Keats (1795-1821), who in one year wrote some of the most loved poems in English. Among these are Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode on Melancholy. That most productive year began in autumn 1818, when Keats had been stung by some reviews labelling him an uncouth Cockney who should go back to his former work as an apothecary, work he had left for poetry only two years before with the encouragement of enthusiastic friends. Just over two years later, Keats was dead in Rome from tuberculosis, before his work found fame, though some who knew him, including Shelley, believed his true killer was the critics.

With

Fiona Stafford

Professor of English Language and Literature and Tutorial Fellow at Somerville College, University of Oxford

Nicholas Roe

Wardlaw Professor of English Literature at the University of St Andrews

And

Meiko O’Halloran,

Senior Lecturer in Romantic Literature at Newcastle University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

John Barnard, John Keats (Cambridge University Press, 1987)