Product Description

Keats's first volume of poems, published in 1817, demonstrated both his belief in the consummate power of poetry and his liberal views. While he was criticized by many for his politics, his immediate circle of friends and family immediately recognized his genius. In his short life he proved to be one of the greatest and most original thinkers of the second generation of Romantic poets, with such poems as "Ode to a Nightingale", "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci".While his writing is illuminated by his exaltation of the imagination and abounds with sensuous descriptions of nature's beauty, it also explores profound philosophical questions. John Barnard's acclaimed volume contains all the poems known to have been written by Keats, arranged by date of composition. The texts are lightly modernized and are complemented by extensive notes, a comprehensive introduction, an index of classical names, selected extracts from Keats's letters and a number of pieces not widely available, including his annotations to Milton's "Paradise Lost".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #160409 in Books
• Published on: 1977-08-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780140422108
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Review
Stillinger's edition of Keats is the first completely authoritative text, superseding the texts of all previous editions.
--W. J. Bate

Review
Stillinger's edition of Keats is the first completely authoritative text, superseding the texts of all previous editions.
--W. J. Bate

About the Author
John Keats (1795-1821) is one of the greatest of the Romantic poets. Beyond his influence on poetry and literature, his body of work continues to be immensely popular. John Barnard is an authority on the Romantic period.

Customer Reviews

"...exceptionally keen sensitivity... "
There are two editions of Keats's Complete Poems which I
admire very much. This one edited by Jack Stillinger
and published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University
(ISBN: 0674154312) and the Penguin Classics, 3rd
edition, edited by John Barnard (ISBN: 0140422102).
I very much like the fuller notes and 6 Appendices
and the blunt, full, but suggestive chronology in
the Penguin, along with the complete writing and
publishing information fully written out rather
than abbreviated into initials one might have to
look up.

The importance of Jack Stillinger to Keats studies is cited
by both John Barnard (Penguin classics edition of -The
Complete Poems-) and Elizabeth Cook (Oxford World's
Classics edition of -The Major Poems-, ISBN:
0192840630). John Barnard says in his "Introduction":
"Jack Stillinger's -The Poems of John Keats- (Cambridge,
Mass., 1978) and his -The Text of John Keats- (Cambridge,
Mass., 1974) now give the fullest available account of
Keats's text, and are based on a comparision of the
printed texts with the wealth of manuscript material,
now mainly in American libraries."
And this edition compiled and edited by Jack
Stillinger has it glories, too. The first of these
is the excellent "Introduction," which has meaningful
insights in it concerning Keats, but which can also
be related to one's own experiences in life, though
Stillinger does not himself so relate them. A few
of these I like very much are: "Obviously Keats had
an exceptionally keen sensitivity to the minute
particulars of objects, sounds (as well as various
shades of silence), and motions in the world around
him." *** "He nursed his brother Tom in a lengthy
illness that ended in death on December 1st of this
year [1818], and as an added complication he met and
fell in love with Fanny Brawne. More than anything
else, I think, it is this combined experience of
suffering, death, and love all at once, against a
background of serious conversation, reading, and
thinking, that accounts for Keats's sudden rise to
excellence in his poetry."
There is no way, of course, to share Keats's
poetry in a review of this sort. To read it,
experience it, think about it, and realize
the Beauty -- and also the Truth -- in it
is the reward.
-- Robert Kilgore.

The definitive edition of the poetry of Keats.
Jack Stillinger devoted much of his professional life to establishing the definitive texts of Keats's poems. This painstaking work has resulted in a number of changes to the poems. As to the quality of the poetry itself, at his best Keats approaches Shakespeare, as in the Odes. Stillinger is also an excellent teacher; I had his course on Keats 26 years ago, and it was fascinating. While the other reviewers have done a very good job of describing the beauty of Keats's poetry, one point Stillinger made about Keats as a person is worth repeating: Keats was the one English romantic poet that you would want to ask for advice about a personal problem you had. All the rest, Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley (especially!), and Byron would have given you advice that, if followed, would have been wildly impractical. Keats, as shown by his letters, was not pretentious and had a large degree of human decency and common sense. While these characteristics are not one usually associated with romantic poets, I think that they contribute to the strength of his poetry.

Keats can be dangerous, you know.
If you're sitting on a ledge overlooking a lush green valley on a gorgeous spring day, and you're reading Endymion, or Ode to a Nightingale, or The Eve of St Agnes, you could very well be so overwhelmed by the magnificence of creation that, without giving it a moment's thought, you would consign yourself to the breathtaking blue, to try to be one with it all, and because you've reached the absolute pinnacle of existence. How could you possibly top that?

*ahem*

This edition isn't annotated as well as it might be, but who cares? The poems are all there, and they're as heartbreakingly beautiful as ever. How can you--in all honesty--claim to have lived without having read Keats?